Foreign Film Favorites 2019

Lists of top films will often appear in newspapers and online at this time of the year. Rarely do these lists include foreign films. I'm sure that most foreign films can be as bad as most American films but the cream of the crop are well worth watching even with subtitles. These films open a window into other cultures while at the same time proving that we are all basically the same. Here are eight films that my wife and I enjoyed this year.*

The Lunch Box: This 2014 film is a charming tale of love and loneliness set in contemporary India. In the bustling metropolis of Mumbai, housewives still prepare hot lunches for their office- working husbands. A dedicated courier service delivers the lunch box right to the desk each day. This is the story of two people whose lives were changed when one lunch box was delivered to the wrong desk.


Hobson’s Choice: David Lean directed this 1954 black and white comedy about an overbearing widower whose three daughters work in his shoe shop but who are determined to get put from under his tyrannical rule. Charles Laughton and Brenda De Banzie star along with a young John Mills.


Bread and Tulips: By chance an Italian housewife gets separated from her husband and two sons on a bus tour. She winds up in Venice and discovers a new life.This heartwarming 2000 comedy from Italy won 9 “David di Donatello” awards (the Italian equivalent of the Oscars), including best picture, best actor, best actress, and best director.

Floating Weeds: An aging actor takes his theatrical troupe to a small seaside town where he reunites with his former lover and their illegitimate son to the chagrin of his current mistress. This 1959 color film by famed Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu is often found on all time top film lists.

Breaker Morant: Based on a true story, Edward Woodward stars as the controversial Australian folk hero Lt. Harry “Breaker” Morant in this 1980 film. As South Africa’s Boer War draws to a close, Morant and two fellow Australian soldiers are court-martialed for the murder of a civilian. Their only hope lies in a small town lawyer who fights passionately for their lives. Directed by Bruce Beresford, this 1980 film won 10 Australian Film Institute awards.

Too Bad She’s Bad: This 1955 Italian comedy stars a young Sophia Loren, an unknown Marcello Mastroianni, and famed movie star and director Vittorio De Sica. Loren plays a beautiful petty thief working with DeSica, her con-man father, while Mastroianni plays a naïve cabbie caught in their clutches. Artfully directed by Alessandro Blasetti, the film is a delightful romp, the first pairing of Loren and Mastroianni, not to mention the historic first appearance together of these three legends of Italian cinema.

Ballad of a Soldier. In this 1958 film, Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is granted a visit with his mother after an act of heroism during WWII. As he journeys home, Alyosha encounters the devastation of his war-torn country, witnesses glimmers of hope among the people, and falls in love. With its poetic visual imagery, Ballad of a Soldier is a meditation on the effects of war, and a milestone in Russian cinema.

Always: Sunset on Third Street. This heart- warming Japanese comedy is a nostalgic look back at Tokyo in the late 50’s, poised on the brink of an economic explosion after defeat in WW II. Released in 2006, the film won Japan’s equivalent of the Oscars in 13 of the 14 categories in which it was nominated.

*My wife and I are avid film fans but rarely go to the movies anymore. We prefer to stay home and watch DVDs from Netflix or my own collection. I prefer to use a DVD rather than streaming because the DVD often comes with commentary and special features that can be interesting and informative.

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