BBC's 100 Greatest Foreign Language Films is a list compiled in 2018 by BBC Culture, as part of their annual critics' poll. [1] [2] [3]
BBC Culture polled 209 film critics from 43 different countries, asking them to submit their list of the 10 greatest foreign-language movies (i.e. not in English). As with other BBC Culture 100 Greatest polls, the ranking was established by a point system: ten points awarded to the film ranked first, nine to the film ranked second and so forth. [1]
Writing for Vanity Fair, K. Austin Collins lamented the predictability of the list - "heavy on works from Europe and East Asia; low on women; low on avant garde and documentary filmmaking" - and the absence of popular genres such as Nollywood, Bollywood or Giallo, arguing that "a truly worthy list of this nature wouldn’t be so snobby about high and low culture. It’d be a glorious, messy mix of arthouse and pop, as any list about the greatest art—rather than the greatest textbook art—should be." [4]
No. | Title | Director | Country | Original Language | Year |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Seven Samurai | Akira Kurosawa | Japan | Japanese | 1954 |
2 | Bicycle Thieves | Vittorio De Sica | Italy | Italian | 1948 |
3 | Tokyo Story | Yasujirō Ozu | Japan | Japanese | 1953 |
4 | Rashomon | Akira Kurosawa | Japan | Japanese | 1950 |
5 | The Rules of the Game | Jean Renoir | France | French | 1939 |
6 | Persona | Ingmar Bergman | Sweden | Swedish | 1966 |
7 | 8½ | Federico Fellini | Italy, France | Italian | 1963 |
8 | The 400 Blows | François Truffaut | France | French | 1959 |
9 | In the Mood for Love | Wong Kar-wai | Hong Kong, France | Cantonese | 2000 |
10 | La Dolce Vita | Federico Fellini | Italy, France | Italian, English, French, German | 1960 |
Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese epic samurai drama film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The story takes place in 1586 in the Azuchi–Momoyama period of Japanese history, during the reign of Emperor Ōgimachi and his Chancellor Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It follows the story of a village of desperate farmers who seek to hire rōnin to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.
The Seventh Seal is a 1957 Swedish historical fantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in Sweden during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death, who has come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play Wood Painting. The title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation, used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour". Here, the motif of silence refers to the "silence of God", which is a major theme of the film.
The 400 Blows is a 1959 French coming-of-age drama film, and the directorial debut of François Truffaut. The film, shot in DyaliScope, stars Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, and Claire Maurier. One of the defining films of the French New Wave, it displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. Written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy, the film is about Antoine Doinel, a misunderstood adolescent in Paris who struggles with his parents and teachers due to his rebellious behavior. Filmed on location in Paris and Honfleur, it is the first in a series of five films in which Léaud plays the semi-autobiographical character.
In the Mood for Love is a 2000 romantic drama film written, produced and directed by Wong Kar-wai. A co-production between Hong Kong and France, it portrays a man and a woman whose spouses have an affair together and who slowly develop feelings for each other. It forms the second part of an informal trilogy, alongside Days of Being Wild and 2046.
Chantal Anne Akerman was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York.
8+1⁄2 is a 1963 surrealist comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. The metafictional narrative centers on Guido Anselmi, played by Marcello Mastroianni, a famous Italian film director who suffers from stifled creativity as he attempts to direct an epic science fiction film. Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, and Eddra Gale portray the various women in Guido's life. The film is shot in black and white by cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo and features a soundtrack by Nino Rota, with costume and set designs by Piero Gherardi.
The Apu Trilogy comprises three Indian Bengali-language drama films directed by Satyajit Ray: Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959). The original music for the films was composed by Ravi Shankar.
Bicycle Thieves is a 1948 Italian neorealist drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It follows the story of a poor father searching in post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family.
Tokyo Story is a 1953 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and starring Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama about an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. Upon release, it did not immediately gain international recognition and was considered "too Japanese" to be marketable by Japanese film exporters. It was screened in 1957 in London, where it won the inaugural Sutherland Trophy the following year, and received praise from U.S. film critics after a 1972 screening in New York City.
Contempt is a 1963 French New Wave drama film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, based on the 1954 Italian novel Il disprezzo by Alberto Moravia. It stars Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, and Giorgia Moll.
The culture of Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically, Germany has been called Das Land der Dichter und Denker. German culture originated with the Germanic tribes, the earliest evidence of Germanic culture dates to the Jastorf culture in Northern Germany and Denmark. Contact with Germanic tribes were described by various Greco-Roman authors. The first extensive writing done on Germanic culture can be seen during the Roman Imperial Period with Germania by Tacitus.
Pierrot le Fou is a 1965 French New Wave romantic drama road film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. The film is based on the 1962 novel Obsession by Lionel White. It was Godard's tenth feature film, released between Alphaville and Masculin, féminin. The plot follows Ferdinand, an unhappily married man, as he escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by OAS hitmen from Algeria.
Apur Sansar, also known as The World of Apu, is a 1959 Indian Bengali-language drama film produced, written and directed by Satyajit Ray. It is based on the second half of Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's novel Aparajito. Following Pather Panchali (1955) and Aparajito (1956), The World of Apu is the final part of Ray's The Apu Trilogy, about the childhood and early adulthood of a young Bengali named Apu in early twentieth century India. The World of Apu stars Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore ; the duo would go on to appear in many subsequent Ray films.
Ordet, is a 1955 Danish drama film, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. It is based on a play by Kaj Munk, a Danish Lutheran priest, first performed in 1932. The film won the Golden Lion at the 16th Venice International Film Festival, and was the only film by Dreyer to be both a critical and financial success.
Mirror is a 1975 Soviet drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. It is loosely autobiographical, unconventionally structured, and incorporates poems composed and read by the director's father, Arseny Tarkovsky. The film features Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev, Alla Demidova, Anatoly Solonitsyn, Tarkovsky's wife Larisa Tarkovskaya and his mother Maria Vishnyakova. Innokenty Smoktunovsky provides voiceover and Eduard Artemyev the incidental music and sound effects.
Three Colours: Red is a 1994 romantic mystery film co-written, produced and directed by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski. It is the final installment of the Three Colours trilogy, which examines the French Revolutionary ideals; it is preceded by Blue and White. Kieślowski had announced that this would be his final film, which proved true with the director's sudden death in 1996. Red is about fraternity, which it examines by showing characters whose lives gradually become closely interconnected, with bonds forming between two characters who appear to have little in common.
The mass media in Qatar relays information and data in Qatar by means of television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines and the internet. Qatar has established itself as a leading regional figure in mass media over the past decade. Al Jazeera, a global news network which was established in 1996, has become the foundation of the media sector. The country uses media to brand itself and raise its international profile.
The 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century is a list compiled in August 2016 by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), chosen by a voting poll of 177 film critics from around the world.
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