100 Greatest Foreign Films

As some of you may have noticed, I have recently been trawling through a number of sources that list the best foreign films. This has been in an effort to gather data together in an attempt to compile a ‘definitive’ (of sorts) list of the great foreign films.

Whilst lists such as ‘Sight and Sound’ and ‘They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’ are fantastic resources in general for film watching, they still contain a lot of American pictures, and then when you look at the widely known lists they often contain American films due to either their authors or purpose (AFI is purely American films). I wanted to create a list of purely foreign films, and find out which the most popular when using a wide number of sources, not only for myself, to find which foreign films to watch, but also for others to use.

Don’t take this list too seriously, I use the word ‘definitive’ loosely, it’s difficult to find useful sources, let alone weight them in order to give an accurate ranking of films. Hopefully in the future I’ll be able to expand and improve on it, but when I sit down and look at the Top 100 that I ended up with, I would say it is a very good representation of foreign films.

Also I chose to use films from the 20th century only, so that’s between 1900 and 1999, for simplicity really, otherwise we’d probably have a few modern films in like In The Mood for Love and Pan’s Labyrinth.

First 30 (max amount of images per post)...

Takes me time to list year, director and get a poster to make this look nice, plus you can all guess away what you think will be at the top …

100 - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)



99 – Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)



98 - The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)



97 - Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958)



96 - Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964)



95 - Histoire(s) du Cinéma (Jean-Luc Godard, 1988-1998)



94 - Hour of the Wolf (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)



93 - Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1930)



92 - Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)



91 - Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1943)



90 - Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)



89 - Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927)



88 - Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)



87 - Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)



86 - Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)



85 - Late Spring (Yasujirō Ozu, 1949)



84 - Closely Watched Trains (Jiří Menzel, 1966)



83 - L'Age d'Or (Luis Buñuel, 1930)



82 - Zero for Conduct (Jean Vigo, 1933)



81 - La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)



80 - Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)



79 - Les enfants du paradis (Marcel Carné, 1945)



78 - Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)



77 - The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)



76 - My Neighbour Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)



75 - The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini)



74 - Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou, 1991)



73 - Touki Bouki (Djibril Diop Mambéty, 1973)



72 - The Decalogue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1989)



71 - Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, 1994)

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Great work so far. Will be a very handy resource to have, I expect.

What's the problem with that? I think plenty of 21st century foreign cinema holds up against 20th century stuff, even if my experience in the world of foreign film is limited thus far. I feel like not including the past 12 years, years that have included gems like City of God, Amelie, Pan's Labyrinth and The Lives of Others detracts from the completeness of the list a little. Not a lot, but it's there.

So, how did you make this?

Anyway, very nice these first 30 movies.

Ummm, it's more because like the films of the 20th century will never change, if I included all films you'd get ones like A Prophet, Holy Motors, films I love missing out probably and only the truly great ones (like you mentioned getting in), and you will be able to add more films to it every year that goes by, so it's more expansive.

If you guys like this though I can always add them in or do a since 2000 list, but for this kind of beta version it's much simpler to be honest, and some of the best lists don't go past 2000 and others don't so it's a bit unfair on the newer films, if you get me.

Basically, found as many lists as I can, non-specific ones that cover a large amount of foreign countries, wrote down their rankings etc. in a giant spreadsheet, used some formulas to give scores and rankings etc. Like I said this is only a beta at the moment and if you guys like it I will expand, but I think the results prove so far that it works in gathering what most people agree are the best foreign films.

Continuing from the other thread, Salo is just popular, if you are ranking on just popularity, then i guess it can be there. On Merit, no!

Why not?

Out of these films I have seen quite a lot and the worst of them (Salo) is still pretty decent. Good job!

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

It's not even my list Mr Minio, I've got put together loads of other lists to try and get as close to a 'definitive' list as I can, but this is my first effort so think of it as beta/v1, won't be perfect, but all the films on here I am interested in watching, at least the ones I haven't seen.

Whilst controversial, Salo is normally recognised as an important piece of cinema anyway, and it appears on most foreign film recommendation lists, for better or worse.

Any of you guys gonna take a guess at what you reckon will be number 1? All I will say is you'll begin recognising more films soon anyway

Thanks for all this work Daniel! Some great stuff already and this will definitely be a great resource for me.

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"Puns are the highest form of literature." -Alfred Hitchcock

Kurasawa or Bergman to be #1!

Daniel you seemed to have put a lot of research and statistics in to this list. I look forward to the rest of it! Though I still do not get what people see in Salo.

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Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

I would guess, its popular for its notoriety!

Plenty of Fuc*ked up porn scenes . I agree though Salo was without doubt the most pointless film i've ever seen, and i've seen Kazaam

No the most pointless film was THIS movie from the Belgians!

Next 20 to bring it up to a nice top 50 remaining, won't post any more today Films by the same director next to each other are purely coincidental too, strange how some have worked out.

70 - Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975)



69 - Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)



68 - Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnias, 1961)



67 - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)



66 - Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantel Akerman, 1975)



65 - Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)



64 - L'Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983)



63 - Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962)



62 - The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray, 1959)



61 - Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)



60 - Los Olvidados (Luis Buñuel, 1950)



59 - Céline and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)



58 - (The Earrings of) Madame de... (Max Ophüls, 1953)



57 - Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999)



56 - Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)



55 - The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973)



54 - Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993)



53 - Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)



52 - Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)



51 - A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)

It would be better to edit the main thread and adding up to it getting to a 100.

Ikiru and Pickpocket. Now you are getting into some of my favorite foreign films!

Max 30 images per post, I'll post the full list once I'm done though. Plus this adds a little suspense as you all eagerly anticipate the top films

Blow-Up's in English.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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Once again seen a lot and the rest I wanna see. Yes, I already have known before that it is not your list, but a sort of compilation. Nice work, nonetheless.