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Cinema from beyond English-speaking borders opens doors to new worlds, packed with raw emotion, bold storytelling, and unique perspectives. These films, crafted in languages from Japanese to Spanish, have shaped global filmmaking and left lasting marks on our hearts.

We’ve curated a list of 20 must-see foreign-language films, each a masterpiece that transcends subtitles. From timeless classics to modern gems, here’s why these stories deserve your attention.

20. Y Tu Mamá También – Spanish (2001) Bésame Mucho Pictures

Two Mexican teens and an older woman embark on a road trip full of lust and life lessons. Alfonso Cuarón’s raw, vibrant film explores youth and desire.

Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal’s chemistry grounds its bold energy. It’s a journey we feel in our bones.

19. Cinema Paradiso – Italian (1988) Rai

A boy in post-wwii Sicily falls in love with movies through his bond with a projectionist. Giuseppe Tornatore’s nostalgic tale...

We begin with testicles—titan-sized testicles yanked clean from the pelvis of a slumbering devil by a wandering man in chains. That opening is metal Af and unforgettable, and just about par for the course across this rotoscopic animated film by brother filmmakers Lauris and Raitis Abele—a gloomy squall of flesh, faith, and fucking that harkens back to the gory, glory days of Heavy Metal magazine and adult fantasy animation of the 1980s.

In the 17th century, an unholy darkness grips the Livonian village of Zaube. Domineering local pastor Bukholcs (Regnars Vaivars), with the help of his lame, acquiescent adoptive son and servant, Klibi (Jurgis Spulenieks), tries to lead his flock down a path of righteousness, but standing in his way is the people’s reliance on local alchemist and tavern maid Neze (Agate Krista). After the theft of a holy relic from his bedroom, Bukholcs accuses Neze of witchcraft,...

Travolta and a team of misfits are forced to raid a tawdry gambling den, but the stakes are disappointingly low in this ineptly made work

Here is a cheap-ass knockoff of Ocean’s Eleven starring John Travolta that makes the Soderbergh film look like something by Andrei Tarkovsky or Ingmar Bergman. High Rollers is a heart-slowing work of staggering stupidity and charmlessness, ineptly made and quite frankly dull except when its flaws become so egregious you can’t help but guffaw.

The idea is that Mason Goddard leads a rodent pack of skilled thieves and conmen. The gang is first met at the beach wedding of two of the group’s younger members, tech whiz Link and dim hunk Caras (Swen Temmel). Alas, the nuptials are interrupted when international criminal Salazar (Danny Pardo) and his henchmen swoop in and kidnap Mason’s wife Amelia. Salazar demands that Mason and his crew,...

Like Ingmar Bergman, Éric Rohmer, and Hong Sang-soo before him, Dag Johan Haugerud believes in the niceties of conversation. Sex, one third of the writer-director’s Oslo Stories trilogy, largely consists of dialogue-driven scenes across which his characters reveal their desires and emotions. If the style of these long, mostly static scenes isn’t exactly novel, it nevertheless indicates how Haugerud aligns his work within a certain arthouse tradition, which pays modest dividends throughout the film’s two-hour runtime.

Early on, an unnamed, middle-aged man (Jan Gunnar Røise) sits off screen, listening as his boss (Thorbjørn Harr), also unnamed and middle-aged, discusses a dream in which he encounters David Bowie, who mistakes him for a woman. “He was taking charge from there. And that felt so good,” the man says. But, he adds, the dream didn’t end in sex. Then, as the camera pulls back and pans right, the...

When it was announced that The Criterion Collection would be releasing The Wes Anderson Archives – a 10-film box set out on September 30th – we knew it would be a pre-order for many of our readers even if it was somehow bare bones. But it’s not only spread over 20 discs, it will feature some upgrades from the original individual releases.

Wes Anderson recently appeared on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, where he gave some slight details on whether or not we can expect anything new in the Wes Anderson Criterion set. While he’s cagey on specifics, he did say, “I’m not big on, ‘Let’s make a new version.’ For me, it’s like the movie has gone out and it sort of belongs to the audience at that point…In the process of this Criterion box set, for instance, there were things that we could refine. There...

Forty years ago, a clerical error and bad blood cost Akira Kurosawa an Oscar.

The legendary Japanese filmmaker's Ran proved the final samurai masterpiece of his distinguished career. His third Shakespeare adaptation, the film is epic in every sense of the word — massive in scale, shot in glorious color, with vicious betrayal and intense action and emotion. At the time of its release in 1985, Kurosawa was certainly well-regarded by the Motion Picture Academy, receiving an Honorary Award for Outstanding Foreign-Language Film for Rashomon, followed by Best Foreign-Language Film in 1976 for Dersu Uzala. The 58th Academy Awards found Ran competing for four awards, including Kurosawa’s only Best Director nod — despite not being submitted for Best Foreign-Language Film, a snub that was the product of a messy history.

Kurosawa was remarkably influential in the West. Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars was essentially a remake of Yojimbo, and films as...

The latest sports-comedy hybrid series from Apple TV+, in the same vein as the platform's Emmy-winning hit Ted Lasso, has divided critics ahead of its early June 2025 premiere. Five months into 2025, Apple TV+ has already generated a handful of new original streaming hits, some of them receiving widespread critical acclaim, while others have achieved and maintained popularity on the streaming platform. The most notable of Apple TV+'s 2025 original programming slate are the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg Hollywood-centric comedy series The Studio and Jon Hamm's dark comedy crime drama Your Friends & Neighbors.

That said, there have also been some less successful original 2025 offerings on Apple TV+ over the first half of the year. For example, the Leo Woodall-led intellectual conspiracy drama series Prime Target failed to win over a majority of critics, resulting in a Rotten Tomatoes critic score of just 45% (paired with a similarly mixed 56% audience score). Meanwhile,...

Subhash K Jha shares an unpublished in-depth and open interview with the brilliant auteur Rituparno Ghosh.

With Bariwali, you stepped into Hindi cinema. Was that a good experience?

But why should Bariwali be a stepping stone to a Hindi film? My earlier films like Unnishe April and specially Dahan too have been shown and appreciated in Mumbai. I’ve been getting offers to do Hindi films even before Bariwali. But yes, this is my first film which has been seen by a wider audience, maybe because Anupam Kher, being a Mumbai actor, could generate some curiosity for the film.

Unnishe April is actually the film with which you arrived?

Yes, but before that, I made a children’s film with Basant Chowdhary and Moon Moon Sen called Diamond Ring , which was commissioned by Shabana Azmi on behalf of the Children’s Film Society. It never got released and became important only after Unnishe April.

Film critic Roger Ebert once said that no good movie is truly depressing, a belief that the programmers at the American Cinematheque have taken to heart with “Bleak Week,” an annual celebration of downbeat movies. Since its inception in 2022, the series has become one of Los Angeles’ most eagerly anticipated repertory events with screenings spread across the Cinematheque’s three venues, and last year the Paris Theater in New York joined the fun with its own Bleak Week programming that featured in person appearances by Ari Aster, Isabella Rossellini and Paul Schrader.

Now in its fourth year, Bleak Week is expanding across the country — and, via the Prince Charles Cinema, across the pond to London — to hold screenings at 11 venues in eight cities. The festival kicks off in Los Angeles and Chicago (at the Music Box Theatre) June 1 to 7, continues in Portland (Hollywood Theatre) and Minneapolis (Trylon Cinema) June 6 to 12, then heads to New York,...

Janus Films has acquired all North American rights to “Resurrection,” the Special Award winner at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival from visionary Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan.

The film, which premiered in competition at Cannes, marks the third feature from Bi Gan, whose previous credits include “Kaili Blues” and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

Told in six parts spanning a century, “Resurrection’s” framing story takes place in a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream, with one creature remaining entranced by the fading illusions of the dreamworld. The film stars Chinese superstar singer and actor Jackson Yee and veteran actor Shu Qi, known for her collaborations with Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

“Resurrection” was praised by Variety critic Jessica Kiang as “a marvelously maximalist movie of opulent ambition that is actually five or six movies, each at once playful and peculiar and part of an overarchingly melancholy elegy for the dream of...

Peter Stormare is one of those Hollywood actors you instantly associate with villains. He's delivered several standout performances as antagonists in films like Constantine and Minority Report. And while some actors have major issues with being typecast, Storemare certainly isn't one of them. The Swedish-born actor with the warm smile—often cast as villains with thick accents—has embraced this direction his career has taken, and he's not shy about saying so.

Stormare spoke to The Direct about his latest movie, the action thrillerStand Your Ground. In the film, Stormare plays Bastion, a crime lord who stands against Jack, a former soldier who swears revenge on those who killed his wife. Once again, Stormare steps into the villain's shoes, and he used the interview to reflect on the stereotype and where it might come from:

"I came to this country, in Hollywood, like in the end of the '80s.

Cinema is a collaborative medium, and as such, there have been numerous directing teams peppered throughout film history. As with any collaboration, there's no guarantee that the band will be together forever, and sometimes the teams do indeed split up. The Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, underwent such a creative breakup around the beginning of this decade, with both men moving on to make their own movies without each other. Unlike some creative split-ups, however, the Coens post-breakup works couldn't be more different from one another. Where Joel made 2021's "The Tragedy of Macbeth" an austere, intensely moody Shakespeare adaptation that recalled Ingmar Bergman and Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ethan teamed up with his wife Tricia Cooke to make "Drive-Away Dolls," a mash-up of B-movie tropes (homaging everything from "Badlands" to '60s psychedelia flicks) that retained the Coens' prior interest in dry humor and film noir.

Upon the release of "Dolls,...

Life as a House: Trier Turns Broken Hearts Into Art

In Woody Allen’s Interiors (1978), an unhappy tale of three sisters contending with their parents’ divorce, Mary Beth Hurt confronts anguished Geraldine Paige, a mother all-consumed with her abandonment. “I feel like we’re in a dream together.” Like Allen, Joachim Trier delivers his own sterling parallels to Ingmar Bergman in his sixth feature, Sentimental Value, which contends with the circuitous reconciliation between a father and daughter through art. Whereas reconnection seems impossible in their reality, cathartic potential arrives through a novel opportunity in artificiality.

Nora (Renata Reinsve) is an actor whose career is on the rise, having received praise for her stage work and with a popular television series to her name.…...

Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier returns to Cannes with Sentimental Value, which had its world premiere Wednesday night in the festival’s Competition section.

Trier and his cast, including Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard and Elle Fanning, strolled up the famous steps of Palais des Festivals.

The film marks Trier’s follow-up to The Worst Person in the World, which premiered in Competition at Cannes in 2023, launching the international career of star Reinsve, who won the festival’s best actress honor. Worst Person became a crossover art house hit and was nominated for two Oscars, including best international feature and best original screenplay for Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt.

Sentimental Value is a family drama centered on the estranged relationship between Gustav (Skarsgard) and his two daughters, Nora (Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). In an attempt to reconnect, Gustav, a film director, offers Nora, an actress, the role of playing a...

At the opening of Joachim Trier’s new film Sentimental Value we meet Nora Borg (Renata Reinsve), who is the epitome of an insecure actor as she attempts to do everything in her power to get out of going on stage — a bag of nervous tics as she runs around trying to quit. This, however, is opening night for the star of the play and the audience is seated. Cut to massive applause at the end of the play. Nora was a hit. All is good.

That beginning tells us this role is going to be very different than the one Reinsve took best actress in Cannes for The Worst Person in the World, Trier’s beloved 2021 film that also got two Oscar nominations (for International Film and its for its screenplay). In fact she is actually quite different than the opening would have us believe, a quieter, more introspective...

Wes Craven is my favorite filmmaker. The late director tapped into a precise kind of humanity among the horror and bloodshed that has always deeply resonated with me. Craven is not only one of the godfathers of the horror genre, but a key reason why I love the genre as much as I do. Without him, I’m not sure I’d be here writing this piece right now. If you’d like to read more about my love for Craven and his game, might I suggest this piece here?

Naturally, then, I’m all about not just Craven’s works, but the works that inspired him. The movies, horror or otherwise, that shaped him into the filmmaker he was. It was Craven who first encouraged me to rent Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, after all. Imagine me in middle school watching that—I was a cool guy. Recently,...

Johan (Gerrit Knobbe) is a reed-cutter. As “Reedland” opens, we meet him in his natural habitat, surrounded by hissing, shivering reeds shot in close-up, then in wide shot. It’s a sonic and visual maze, the natural world’s equivalent of TV static: earth-bound, mud-rooted and subtly threatening in its hypnotic, fluttering illusion of uniformity. Reeds are the perfect hiding place for horrors, as will shortly become abundantly clear, when a girl’s body is revealed in the dirt, in all its helplessness.

A violent crime fracturing a tight-knit community is hardly a new subject for arthouse cinema, but it is handled here by freshman writer-director Sven Bresser with an original eye and a keen sense of how to generate a persistent atmosphere of foreboding. It was filmed in Weerribben-Wieden in the Netherlands, and the landscape is integral to this finely calibrated mood. “Whispering” is probably the adjective most associated with reeds,...

There’s a sequence in Alan Alda’s 1981 movie The Four Seasons in which all of the main characters converge on a classic Connecticut college for a parents' weekend and end up playing a friendly game of soccer.

Alda uses the game to highlight the competitiveness of the two primary players. The set piece is the same in Tina Fey’s new interpretation – now playing on Netflix – but the sport has changed. Now they are all playing ultimate frisbee.

This is just one of the many ways Fey and her co-creators – Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield – have managed to remain faithful to Alda’s original while expanding the scope.

With a writer like Tina Fey in charge, how could Four Seasons go wrong?

For instance, whereas the soccer scene in the original film primarily results in a showdown between the two alpha males in the group – Jack (Alda) and Nick (Len Cariou) – Fey,...

General delegate Thierry Fremaux bristled at the notion that Cannes Film Festival always selects the same filmmakers for its Competition, saying that “it’s really not true.”

At the pre-festival press conference, Fremaux was asked why the Dardenne brothers are in Competition for the ninth time, with their film The Young Mother’s Home.

“This question hides another one,” said Fremaux, mimicking those who say “‘the Dardenne brothers yet again, it’s always the same people!’”

“If you look at the statistics, it’s not,” said Fremaux, citing the first-time filmmakers in Competition this year, including Ari Aster with Eddington, Carla Simon...

Somewhere around the end of the first trimester of the year 2020, the entire world abruptly halted due to a pandemic. This sudden stop in our daily routines—professional, personal, or otherwise—offered a welcome respite, allowing us to take a moment to breathe deeply and reset, either to continue our regular lives or to change altogether. However, this worldwide catastrophe and the confinement it entailed also caused many struggles, both personal and interpersonal, as the interruption of every and all activity meant the termination of the human workforce who could no longer fulfill their responsibilities in the new home-office modality.

The arts also suffered because of this. Particularly those that require mass attendance, namely theater, film, and music concerts, causing production delays, postponing scheduled events, or simply resigning to seeing a project be totally scrapped regardless of how advanced it was in its making. British theater director Simon Godwin was...

Annual critics’ lists are important, sure. But when the world’s most successful filmmaker picks a favorite movie, people listen.

At the AFI’s annual 50th Life Achievement Award event held April 26 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Steven Spielberg was among friends and collaborators who couldn’t refuse offering kudos to honoree Francis Ford Coppola. When Spielberg and fellow helmer George Lucas presented the AFI honor to Coppola, the Schindler’s List and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial director said onstage that Coppola’s 1972 Oscar-winning classic The Godfather was, to him, “The greatest American film ever made.”

Certainly, a solid choice (who wants to get metaphorically whacked like Sonny Corleone at the toll booth for saying otherwise?). And Spielberg did clarify his statement as The Godfather being the best American film, setting it apart from world cinema. While great directors frequently change up their top films, many have stated the ones that hold prime spots.

Celebrating the independent filmmaking spirit of NYC, the Lower East Side Film Festival returns this Thursday as the 15th edition runs through May 5. Featuring the Opening Night selection, the New York Premiere of Pete Ohs’ SXSW selection The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, the lineup also includes Joel Vargas’ Sundance and New Directors/New Films selection Mad Bills to Pay, and Amy Landecker’s For Worse, starring Bradley Whitford, Nico Hiraga, Missi Pyle, Gaby Hoffmann, and Ken Marino. Ahead of this anniversary, we’re pleased to exclusively debut a new trailer celebrating 15 years of the festival.

John Fink said his SXSW review of The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, “It might help to know the creative process going in. Tick was made collaboratively by its main cast: as Ohs explained during the SXSW premiere, they isolated on location at a country home where they...

Baltimore native John Waters is filmdom’s pencil-mustached titan of trash who has spent a lifetime of dumpster-diving into a vat of bad taste, sleaze, kinky gross-outs, over-the-top camp, maudlin melodramatics, sick jokes, taboo sexuality, vulgarity and bizarre personalities. At least he has a fabulous sense of humor. The director is a New York University film school dropout who instead became a scholar of transgressive, envelope-shredding cinema, influenced by the directorial likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Federico Fellini, William Castle, Douglas Sirk and Ingmar Bergman. Early on, Waters assembled a stock company of players from suburban Baltimore who he would the Dreamlanders, including Mink Stole and Edith Massey.

But Waters would find his true muse and favorite leading lady in his childhood friend, Glenn Milstead, a drag queen whose alter-ego was known as Divine. When Milstead died at age 42 from an enlarged heart in 1988, Waters' output went more mainstream, with...

Netflix’s latest Nordic noir, The Glass Dome, might not be the most riveting crime thriller out there, but the way it admixes several key socio-political issues plaguing Sweden with the core narrative surely deserves some praise. Be it by showing the true face of decrepit law enforcement, which is led by people who prey on those they are assigned to serve, or exploring the pervasive xenophobia and racism aggravated by the class divide, along with the environmental degradation caused by the profiteering upper strata of society, The Glass Dome acts as a critique of the country’s current situation. The cast, majorly comprising Swedish talents, did a remarkable job of capturing the thriller motifs while remaining faithful to the narrative’s demands of exploring key themes. This is your spoiler warning as discussion regarding the characterization and cast will inevitably involve major plot twists and revelations from the narrative.

Exclusive: Paris-based Mmm Film Sales has acquired international rights for A Second Life, starring Agathe Rousselle (Titane) and Alex Lawther (The End of the F**ing World) ahead of its Tribeca premiere.

Set against the backdrop of the Paris 2024 Olympics, thefollows the emotional journey of a hearing-impaired woman in her thirties navigating personal upheaval during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

It is Laurent Slama’s third feature after 2019 Netflix Original Paris Is Us and Roaring 20s (Années 20), which also premiered at Tribeca in 2021, winning the Best Cinematography.

Slama signed both two feature films under the pseudonym of Elisabeth Vogler, taken from Liv Ullmann’s character in Ingmar Bergman’s psychological drama Persona.

As with Slama’s previous work, the film was shot entirely on location in Paris, with production taking place during the Olympics, at a time when most shoots in the city were on hold.

A Second Life is produced...

Darius Khondji says Ari Aster’s Eddington is going to be “very different from his other movies”, as he prepares to begin colouring the film ahead of what he claims will be a Cannes launch.

The acclaimed French-Iranian cinematographer spoke to Screen after his masterclass on Saturday, April 5 at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra lab.

With a cast including Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, Khondji says Eddington has “actors that I was dreaming to work with again.”

“It’s going to be very different from his other movies,” said Khondji. “Ari is a deep, strong filmmaker. He has the talent,...

Among the most legendary actresses of all time, Ingrid Bergman looms large. Bergman's career extended across decades, and she was able to work with some of the greatest filmmakers of all time, from Alfred Hitchcock to Michael Curtiz to Leo McCarey. And moreover, many of the films in her filmography are widely, and correctly, considered among the best English-language films ever made, from "The Bells of St. Mary's" and "Gaslight" to one of the most iconic American and World War II films ever, "Casablanca." Bergman, unsurprisingly, was well rewarded for her immense talent and acting craft, netting three Oscars (as well as being nominated four other times). That she wasn't even nominated for "Casablanca," a film that has a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes and walked away with the Best Picture Oscar, says something about how good she was and how not every one of her performances could get the golden statuette.

by Vu Luu

This review may contain spoilers.

A burglar’s life takes an unexpected turn when he stumbles upon a plaster statue of a woman. A special connection develops between the burglar and the elderly homeowner, who fervently asks the burglar to end his life to reunite with his deceased wife for eternity. This is the premise of “Bury Us in a Lone Desert“. Directed by Nguyễn Lê Hoàng Phúc, the 62-minute Vietnamese film competed at the Tiger Short Competition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in 2025. The 31-year-old editor-turned-filmmaker brings a bittersweet and quirky experience in which familiar genre elements are woven into an original drama.

Bury Us in A Lone Desert screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam

There aren’t many ups and downs to the narrative, apart from the fateful confrontation between the lowlife burglar (played by Psycho Neo) and the elderly homeowner (played by Lưu Đức Cường). The homeowner,...

You read that right, dear viewer. Netflix is adding no less than 38 movies and shows to their rotation this week. And if you think I'm giving a detailed synopsis of every new arrival, well... in the immortal words of Ms. Kimberly Wilkins, "Ain't nobody got time for that."

Holy Hannah. After last week, I'm used to a lighter workload. Granted, most of these properties aren't new, just new to Netflix. There are certainly a lot of classic films in the group, so I'll hit the highlights. Or at least a dozen of them. Maybe even a baker's dozen, lucky you.

Netflix closes out March with three original titles, then bombards us with 27 features on April Fool's Day. Unless they're doing some weird meta-promotion, and not releasing anything on April 1st. Speaking of April Fool's - I've included one fake title in the list. Hopefully, you'll be able to discover it without too much trouble.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Anora (Sean Baker)

Sean Baker’s Anora expands his filmmaking vision, pushing the writer-director-editor’s fifth consecutive story on sex workers into a higher plane of awards and commercial success. It’s a romantic comedy, a madcap dash around New York City, a movie ruminating on loss, love, and class disparity. Baker aims to put audiences through a ringer of emotional swings, ending with a desolation that’s been building in the background, easier to spot once the tinsel’s shimmer fades. With a true star-making performance from Mikey Madison and a deep bench of supporting actors, Anora whirls until suddenly it doesn’t, and all that’s left is earned, resonant silence from both its characters and audience. – Michael F.

Where...

Weird is wonderful. Weird is good. Weird films challenge expectations with disorienting elements like surreal imagery, non-linear plots, and dreamlike (or nightmarish) logic. So what defines 'weird?' Ambiguity, uncomfortable atmospheres, rejection of traditional narrative structures? The beauty of it lies in bypassing our rational mind and speaking directly to our subconscious. These films remain in our thoughts, revealing different meanings every time we watch them.

2019’s The Lighthouse, directed by Robert Eggers, owns its claustrophobic black-and-white cinematography, surreal mermaid visions, and descent into madness. Its obscure mythology and sexual imagery create an air of psychological horror and dread. Lead actors Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson deliver exceptional performances as isolated lighthouse keepers whose grip on reality deteriorates. With that in mind, if you like The Lighthouse, you'll love 1968'sHour of the Wolf.

Director Ingmar Bergman Ran So Others Could Walk

Directed by Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish classic Hour of the Wolf...

Falling somewhere between a horror film and dark comedy about wellness crazes, The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick is, like director Pete Ohs’ previous Jethica, a film that suggests watching a play within a movie. Both features are difficult to discuss without spoilers––they seem to operate on a wavelength beyond genre boxes.

It might help to know the creative process going in. Tick was made collaboratively by its main cast: as Ohs explained during the SXSW premiere, they isolated on location at a country home where they would write three scenes at a time, film and analyze said scenes, and then move forward. The result is a kind of mumblecore version of an Ingmar Bergman film that feels both loose and heavily controlled. But if you’re not on the film’s wavelength it may feel like a disjointed mess. Like the wellness cures offered by...

French auteur Alain Guiraudie is exploring the implications of mercy in his new noir, “Misericordia.” The title, which literally translates to “mercy,” encompasses the “Stranger by the Lake” filmmaker’s interrogation into grief during a thriller set in the pastoral countryside.

Félix Kysyl stars as Jérémie, a man who returns to his hometown for the funeral of his beloved former boss, the village baker, and decides to stay for a few days with the man’s widow, Martine (Catherine Frot). Yet after a threatening former rival appears, leading to another mysterious disappearance, it seems as though Jérémie’s visit has unraveled the community.

The official synopsis reads: “Set in an autumnal, woodsy village in his native region of Occitanie, his latest follows the meandering exploits of Jérémie (Kysyl), an out-of-work baker who has drifted back to his hometown after the death of his beloved former boss, a bakery owner. Staying long after the funeral,...

“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.” — Henny Youngman

Boundaries are important in any relationship, much less a till-death-do-us-part union in which both parties are spies involved in highly classified operations for a British intelligence agency. Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp get it. They understand the need for a little space between the personal and the professional when the fate of the world is at stake. Which is why the director and screenwriter of Black Bag have devised an easy one-stop-shop solution for the couple at the center of their espionage thriller.

In many ways, Hour of the Wolf (1968) is just like many other films directed by Ingmar Bergman,one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. It stars two of his most frequent collaborators, Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann (the latter of whom was Bergman's partner at the time); it was filmed on the Swedish island of Fårö, where Bergman lived for much of his life; and its script was heavily inspired by Bergman's own life and relationships.

Even so, Hour of the Wolf is a unique entry in Bergman's acclaimed oeuvre for one simple reason: it's a horror film. While many of Bergman's films dealt with dark themes and featured Gothic imagery and foreboding atmospheres, Hour of the Wolf remains Bergman's only attempt to truly frighten his audience on a visceral level, taking heavy inspiration from his own nightmares. But Bergman didn't dabble in the horror genre just for shock value.

It's hard to believe that we're more than a decade removed from the last feature-length Muppet movie. In the spring of 2014, Disney released the final Muppets movie -- at least, the final one for now. "Muppets Most Wanted" was, like its 2011 predecessor "The Muppets," a fun, family-friendly homage to the Muppet movies of old. The 2011 film, starring Jason Segel and Amy Adams, was as much about the Muppets themselves as it was a reference-laden film riffing on the 1979 classic "The Muppet Movie." And just as "The Great Muppet Caper" sent Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, and Miss Piggy to Europe for a rollicking heist movie, "Muppets Most Wanted" sent its gaggle of Muppet characters away from the United States for an adventure that ran them afoul of Interpol and the world's first and second greatest criminal masterminds. 

Muppet movies are also nothing if they're not delightfully self-referential, breaking the fourth wall with ease.

The late Burt Reynolds was a connoisseur of strong opinions. The man was known for speaking his mind, and what was on his mind was often unpredictable, entertaining, offensive, or otherwise wild. There was, for instance, that time he complained about the work of a then-up-and-coming Paul Thomas Anderson throughout the filming of "Boogie Nights," supposedly firing his agent because he hated the movie so much and only (slightly) changing his tune once he earned an Oscar nomination for his role. His opinions were just as colorful when it came to Greta Garbo (Per The Sun: she had "beautiful breasts"), Ingmar Bergman (To Esquire: "I'd rather be shot in the leg than watch an Ingmar Bergman picture"), and countless other celebrities with whom he crossed paths over his decades-long career.

With his reputation for airing grievances in mind, you'd be forgiven for imagining some beef might have existed between Reynolds...

Subhash K Jha revisits Farhan Alhtar and Vidya Balan’s Shaadi Ke Side Effects, which released in 2014.

“When I do something wrong, I say sorry to my wife. When my wife does something wrong…. I say sorry to my wife.”

One of the gems that flows out of Farhan Akhtar’s mouth while addressing the oldest question on the gender equation is: What does a woman really want in a marriage? Could it be the same things as a man? Maybe the route taken by the two individuals is different.

Director Saket Chaudhary raises some pertinent questions on the fake road signs that could lead to an aborted marriage. Not all of the winking homilies work. But the film holds together primarily because of the intelligent writing and the sharp and crisp way the two main actors interpret the parts of the two individuals in a marriage that has a lot going for it,...

Keanu Reeves. Probably one of the most popular actors in the industry today, who is loved by millions. He’s an unlikely icon in every sense and has helped define eras in Hollywood, from his teen days to his action-star period. The internet can’t seem to get enough of him, and his very image started the Sad Keanu posts, the wholesome Keanu memes, and the never-ending irresistible fandom.

For a person who’s famous for staying off-grid and low-key, nobody would’ve thought Keanu would turn from a cult hero to a guy who’s literally everywhere right now! The internet shouldn’t let us deviate from how talented an actor he is, and his versatility, especially; roles in comedies, romantic dramas, art-house films, and thriller/action flicks, has truly given new definitions to the range of his fan base.

In this article, we’ll be charting his growth...

A new six-part Swedish series, Faithless, adapted from an Ingmar Bergman screenplay, premieres on Sbs On Demand on Thursday, March 27, 2025. All episodes will be available at launch. Here’s the Lowdown: The series, based on a late-career screenplay by the legendary filmmaker Bergman, explores a story of love and betrayal. Originally a film directed […]

Ingmar Bergman’s Faithless Reimagined: New Series Hits Sbs On Demand This March...

The history of any important film festival is the history of the films and filmmakers they’ve showcased and championed: what’s their tally of breakthrough filmmakers and esteemed auteurs who have defined the past century of cinema?

This is why Berlin, Cannes and Venice, after nearly a century of annual unspoolings (as Variety likes to call them) retain their reputations and the vitality of their programming and festival operations.

There is a parallel history as well, one that charts the important fests’ cultural and economic impacts upon the communities and countries where they’re held.

The French film industry is a primary European powerhouse of collaborative private and public financing and film promotion, and it has coordinated beautifully for decades with the Cannes Film Festival. To the good fortunes of both.

Itay’s official cinematic and cultural organizations and departments have partnered effectively with the Venice Festival, even if...

Wes Craven's 1972 directorial debut, The Last House On The Left, is like a strong cup of coffee in the morning. The plot centers on a group of sadistic criminals who kidnap and assault two teenage girls and then leave them to die in the woods. They soon meet their reckoning, though, when they seek refuge with the parents of one of the girls, who eventually discover what they did to their daughter. The film is a reimagining of Ingmar Bergman's 1960 film, The Virgin Spring, but with a horror twist, that heightens the stakes of the rape-revenge story.

In his early 20s, Norwegian director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel held a variety of roles at a primary school, including substitute teaching, leading afterschool programs and working with children with disabilities. The experience was “very profound” and led him to meet “great people,” Tøndel said. It also allowed him to observe parents’ behavior.

Tøndel’s time working with kids preceded his feature filmmaking days, but he’s no stranger to the world of cinema: he’s the grandson of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann. His debut feature trains its eye on the kind of school environment where he spent his early professional life.

“Armand,” which made the Oscars international feature film shortlist for Norway, opened in U.S. theaters on Friday and closely scrutinizes parental reactions to an extreme incident between kids. Renate Reinsve (“The Worst Person in the World”) plays Elisabeth, a single mother whose 6-year-old son Armand is accused...

Now in its 28th edition, the European Shooting Stars platform run by European Film Promotion brings another 10 promising European acting talents to the Berlin Film Festival, with the goal to help them build their careers internationally. From Feb. 14-17, the selected performers will participate in workshops and panels, as well as meetings with international journalists, producers and casting directors. The program culminates in a ceremony at the Berlinale Palast where they will each receive the European Shooting Stars Award.

This year’s Shooting Stars were selected by a jury comprised of Romanian director and screenwriter Radu Muntean, Swedish casting director Pauline Hansson, Swiss producer Amel Soudani, French actress and former Shooting Star Ludivine Sagnier and Montenegrin journalist and curator Vuk Perović. They were selected from candidates nominated by their national film promotion institutes and film centers.

What this year’s group of Shooting Stars has in common besides the potential...

In a tough Nordic market that is slowing recovering from the downfall of Viaplay and streamers scaling back on commissions, Miso Film, the Fremantle-owned Nordic powerhouse behind Tobias Lindholm’s “The Investigation” and “Those Who Kill,” isn’t just hanging in there; it’s thriving.

The banner is still helmed by its founding duo Peter Bose and Jonas Allen, who have produced a flurry of iconic series, including “Beck” and “Wallander,” as well as “Those Who Kill,” “Dicte” and “1864.” They’re now celebrating Miso Film’s 20th anniversary with a packed slate of high-end shows and films featuring top Scandinavian talent.

Miso recently premiered Tomas Alfredson’s “Faithless,” an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s movie, in competition at Toronto Film Festival, and they’re now six-episode series based on Linn Ullmann’s bestselling novel “The Cold Song” and “Royal Blood,” a sprawling historical project set in 1807 when royal...

One of the most influential auteurs of all time, John Ford is an icon of the Golden Age of Hollywood whose filmography has had an invaluable impact on the history of cinema. Ford began his directorial career in 1917, amassing 147 credits as a director throughout his nearly fifty years working in Hollywood. A filmmaker of immense range, Ford excelled at making war movies, comedies, crime dramas, documentaries, adventure films, and period pieces. However, it is Ford's prowess within the Western genre that truly made him a legend. During his career, Ford directed 56 Westerns, many of which rank among the greatest Westerns ever made.

Ford holds the Academy Award record for most wins for Best Director, winning for The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Quiet Man. Ironically, Ford never won an Academy Award for any of his iconic Westerns. In 1973, Ford became the inaugural recipient...

In Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice, the distance from hope to despair is a short jump—a chasm crossed with the help of something so immediate as a television transmission. As his birthday celebration winds down on a gloomy summer evening in remote Sweden, retired intellectual Alexander (Erland Josephson) tiptoes half-drunk into his living room to find a group of friends and family bewitched by the soft blue glow of a TV set’s screen, out of which emanates an announcement of nuclear conflict.

The warning winds down, the TV is turned off, and the mood descends—first into stunned silence, then into outright hysteria, and then into a kind of sedated anxiousness from which the film never quite resurfaces. In certain contexts, this dramaturgical pivot might register a bit maudlin, but in 2018, when Twitter and cable news provide an endless gushing stream of outrages, the film’s evocation of...

It’s the laugh that gets you.

Roughly halfway through Armand, the debut feature from Norwegian filmmaker Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, we watch someone fall apart. A mother has been called into a parent-teacher conference. Her name is Elisabeth, she’s an actor of some renown, and is now largely associated with a tragedy that left her husband dead. Elisabeth has no idea why she’s been summoned to her child’s school. Soon, the parents of another student arrive. It seems that Armand, the woman’s son, threatened one of his peers.

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. IFC Films releases “Armand” in theaters on February 7, 2025.

Renate Reinsve, the marvelous Norwegian with just over a decade on the scene, emerged as one of the best actors of her generation through one key performance: in Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World” as a shiftless, drifting millennial without a compass. But her character, Julie, was at least always relentlessly curious, much like Reinsve herself, who won Best Actress at Cannes in 2021 for the film.

She’s back at the festival with “Armand,” a claustrophobic and surreal classroom drama from writer/director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, who’s also the grandson of Swedish cinema giants Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman. Like his grandparents’ own medium-defining work, Ullmann Tøndel’s directorial debut is an intimate character study told in close-ups and breakdowns, as single mother Elisabeth (Reinsve...

You can expect anything from Wei Shujun, the Chinese helmer behind the hypnotizing noir “Only The River Flows” (2023), and the wicked dramedy about the preparations for a film shooting – “Ripples of Life” (2021). He has already proved that each of his projects is unique and incomparable to others. “I Dreamed A Dream” which screens in the Harbour programme of IFFR, a deadpan docu-fiction about five rappers who were invited to participate in a film shoot on an exotic island without the slightest idea what the whole gig is all about, seals that verdict.

I Dreamed A Dream is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam

Summoned to join the project that is supposed to boost their careers and bring them some financial gain, nothing goes the way the young musicians were expecting. The filmmaker who goes by the name of Godod is absent, and his assistant supervises them. He is their proper shadow,...