12 Best Foreign Films From Various Countries You Must Watch

The best foreign films from various countries include A Separation (Iran), Roma (Mexico), The Handmaiden (South Korea), The Hunt (Denmark), Incendies (Canada), 13 Assassins (Japan), The Raid (Indonesia), The Skin I Live In (Spain) and Blue Is the Warmest Colour (France). Newer must-watches are Drive My Car, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest.

Indian audiences have never had easier access to world cinema, thanks to streaming and subtitles. This refreshed list keeps the nine films from our original pick, corrects a few details, and adds three award winners from the 2020s. Each one is a good starting point for that country’s cinema.

Quick facts: best foreign films by country

Best foreign films from various countries

1. Blue Is the Warmest Colour (France, 2013)

Based on Julie Maroh’s graphic novel, the film follows Adele, a French teenager, through her relationship with Emma, an art student, into adulthood. It is long, intimate and focused on how first love shapes a person. In an unusual move, the Cannes jury gave the 2013 Palme d’Or to director Abdellatif Kechiche and both lead actors, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux. It is an adults-only film.

2. Incendies (Canada, 2010)

After their mother’s death, Canadian twins Jeanne and Simon travel to the Middle East to fulfil her last wishes and uncover a past shaped by civil war. Based on Wajdi Mouawad’s play, it was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also the film that put Denis Villeneuve on Hollywood’s radar, before Prisoners, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049 and Dune.

3. 13 Assassins (Japan, 2010)

Set in 1844, Takashi Miike’s samurai film follows a group of warriors who plot to kill a cruel lord before he gains more power. It is a remake of Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 film of the same name. The final battle, which runs for close to 45 minutes, is the main reason action fans seek it out.

4. Roma (Mexico, 2018)

Alfonso Cuaron’s black-and-white film is based on his childhood in Mexico City in the early 1970s and centres on Cleo, the family’s live-in domestic worker. It won the Golden Lion at Venice and earned ten Oscar nominations. It won three, including Best Foreign Language Film, the first for Mexico, and Best Director. Roma streams on Netflix.

5. The Skin I Live In (Spain, 2011)

Antonio Banderas plays a brilliant plastic surgeon obsessed with creating a synthetic skin, and the film slowly reveals who he is keeping locked in his house. Pedro Almodovar mixes thriller, melodrama and horror. It won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language.

6. The Handmaiden (South Korea, 2016)

Park Chan-wook moved Sarah Waters’s novel Fingersmith from Victorian Britain to Korea under Japanese rule. A con man plans to marry a wealthy Japanese heiress and steal her fortune, with the help of a pickpocket hired as her maid. The plot twists across three parts, and the production design is stunning. Like Blue Is the Warmest Colour, it is meant for adult viewers.

7. The Raid (Indonesia, 2011)

A police squad storms a high-rise run by a crime lord and gets trapped floor by floor. Welsh director Gareth Evans and star Iko Uwais built the film around pencak silat, the Indonesian martial art. It is one of the most influential action films of its decade, and The Raid 2 followed in 2014.

8. The Hunt (Denmark, 2012)

Mads Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a kindergarten teacher whose life falls apart after he is falsely accused of abusing a child. Thomas Vinterberg shows how quickly a small community turns on one man. Mikkelsen won Best Actor at Cannes, and the film was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Vinterberg and Mikkelsen later won the Oscar together for Another Round (2020).

9. A Separation (Iran, 2011)

Nader and Simin are a Tehran couple heading for divorce, and a dispute with their housekeeper turns into a legal and moral mess. Asghar Farhadi’s film won the Golden Bear at Berlin and became the first Iranian film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It is one of the most tightly written dramas of the century.

Newer foreign films to add to your list

10. Drive My Car (Japan, 2021)

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s adaptation of a Haruki Murakami story follows a grieving theatre director and the young woman assigned to drive him. It won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.

11. Anatomy of a Fall (France, 2023)

A writer is put on trial after her husband falls to his death from their chalet, and their partially sighted son is the key witness. Justine Triet’s courtroom drama won the Palme d’Or and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

12. The Zone of Interest (UK and Poland, 2023)

Jonathan Glazer’s German-language film shows the domestic life of the Auschwitz commandant’s family, living beside the camp. It won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film and Best Sound.

For more film recommendations, browse our movies section and Hollywood and world cinema coverage.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Wikipedia: Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, Wikipedia: Roma, Wikipedia: A Separation.