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In a world dominated by Hollywood blockbusters, many films from beyond the English-speaking lands fly under the radar. From the most comforting and heartwarming films to awe-inspiring and thrilling movies are being made in different parts of the world. They fail to reach a widespread audience because of accessibility issues and because people are not welcoming to the idea of foreign-media consumption. With the boom of K-pop and Korean dramas, Korean media does not fall into the unwelcome category of things. However, many countries have made exceptional films.

Why Watch Non-English Movies?

When Hollywood as an entertainment industry churns out gems left, right, and center; American audiences are not very likely to tap into the international cinematic landscape. Frequently, foreign language cinema is passed up for pretentious people’s activity. This perception leads to many cinematic gems being undiscovered. As South Korean director Bong Joon Ho rightfully said in his...

It doesn't take much to make me cry when it comes to movies. Whether it's a deathbed scene, a happy reunion, or a coach giving a motivational speech in an underdog sports movie, I'm close to blubbing every time. "It's a Wonderful Life," "The Remains of the Day," and "Atonement" are just a few movies that leave me in a puddle on the floor, and I even get emotional during films that aren't traditionally tear-jerking. I was welling up through much of "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," awed by the guy's lifelong dedication to his culinary art.

It's been tough over the years, watching movies with my partner who is as hard as nails when it comes to this kind of stuff. She takes some of the saddest scenes ever committed to film in her stride and I can feel her giving me the side-eye whenever I start getting choked up,...

Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet, creators of the new Showtime series The Man Who Fell to Earth, talk to hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante about the movies that inspired them.

Show Notes:

Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary

Dirty Pretty Things (2002)

Amistad (1997)

Love Actually (2003)

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)

Blazing Saddles (1974) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s Blazing Saddles Thanksgiving

Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

The Bad News Bears (1976) – Jessica Bendinger’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

Airplane! (1980) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

Bambi (1942)

Singin’ In The Rain (1952) – John Landis trailer commentary

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

The Boy Friend (1971) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Yellow Submarine (1968) – George Hickenlooper...

Giuseppe Tornatore’s romantic ode to the movies charmed America, convincing theater-goers that little Italian kids are the cutest in the world. Little Salvatore Cascio grows up in a projection booth under the life-tutelage of kindly Philippe Noiret. Arrow presents the theatrical version of this Best Foreign Picture Oscar winner in 4K Ultra HD. The (greatly) extended version is on a second Blu-ray — it plays like a different movie entirely.

Cinema Paradiso

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 174, 155, 124 min. / Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Street Date December 8, 2020 / 49.95

Starring: Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Agnese Nano, Brigitte Fossey, Pupella Maggio, Leopoldo Trieste.

Cinematography: Blasco Giurato

Film Editor: Mario Morra

Original Music: Ennio Morricone, Andrea Morricone

Produced by Mino Barbera, Franco Cristaldi, Giovanna Romagnoli

Written and Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

Every so often there comes along a European movie that so captures American audiences, one would...

The Beloved Italian Movie Cinema Paradiso (1989) directed by Giuseppe Tornatore is now available on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD From Arrow Academy

A Celebration Of Youth, Friendship, And The Everlasting Magic Of The Movies

A winner of awards across the world including Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, 5 BAFTA Awards including Best Actor, Original Screenplay and Score, the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and many more.

Giuseppe Tornatore s loving homage to the cinema tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director, returning home for the funeral of Alfredo, his old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood. Soon memories of his first love affair with the beautiful Elena and all the highs and lows that shaped his life come flooding back, as Salvatore reconnects with the community he left 30 years earlier.

The original award-winning theatrical version of Tornatore s...

Mark Harrison May 19, 2017

From the currently playing Their Finest to the likes of Bowfinger and Boogie Nights, we salute the movies about making movies...

If you haven't caught up yet, Their Finest is currently playing in UK cinemas and it's a gorgeous little love letter to perseverance through storytelling, set against the backdrop of a film production office at the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Based on Lissa Evans' novel, Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy play characters whose access to the film industry has been contingent on the global crisis that takes other young men away from such trifling matters, and it's a real joy to watch.

Among other things, the film got us thinking about other films about making films. We're not talking about documentaries, even though Hearts Of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, may be the greatest film about...

Giuseppe Tornatore’s ode to the Italian love of movies was a major hit here in 1990, despite being severely cut by Miramax. In 2002 the director reworked his long version into an almost three-hour sentimental epic that enlarges the film’s scope and deepens its sentiments.

Cinema Paradiso

Region B Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / Special Edition / 174, 155, 124 min. /

Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Street Date March 21, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Agnese Nano, Brigitte Fossey, Pupella Maggio, Leopoldo Trieste

Cinematography: Blasco Giurato

Production Designer: Andrea Crisanti

Film Editor: Mario Morra

Original Music: Ennio and Andrea Morricone

Produced by Mino Barbera, Franco Cristaldi, Giovanna Romagnoli

Written and Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

Your average foreign import movie, it seems, makes a brief splash around Oscar time and then disappears as if down a rabbit hole. A few years back I saw a fantastic Argentine movie called The Secret in Their Eyes.

Cinema Paradiso is a beautiful examination of the relationship human beings have with film. This connection is explored through the story of a young boy and his friendship with the projectionist at the town’s local cinema. The strength of this friendship is only surpassed in intensity by the boy’s deep desire to become a part of the world of movie making. This is a story not about the medium of film in itself, but about the real people whose lives are illuminated by the stories it relates.

As a tale primarily of ordinary Roma people, the costumes in Cinema Paradiso, as designed by Beatrice Bordone, help create a 1940s/50’s period world where this can be accepted without question. These people are not wealthy or fashionable; they are not movie stars and they are probably never going to leave their home town or make a huge impact upon the world.

Giuseppe Tornatore Remembers as Cinema Paradiso Turns 25

By Alex Simon

Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso won the 1990 Best Foreign Film Oscar after setting box office records the previous year all over the world. Paradiso had a rough journey on its road to glory, however, with the then-32 year-old writer/director being forced to cut nearly 30 minutes from its original running time and facing critical excoriation and box office indifference upon its original release in Italy. It’s a fitting metaphor for a film that has become a classic tale about fate, perseverance, and destiny.

Set in Sicily beginning in the years just after Ww II to the late 1950s, and framed by modern-day flashbacks of a renowned film director (French actor/director Jacques Perrin) returning to his Sicilian town for the first time in 30 years, Tornatore’s hero (and alter-ego) is pint-sized Toto, who finds himself obsessed with the movies,...

This is the @puremovies review of Cinema Paradiso, starring Philippe Noiret, Enzo Cannavale, Antonella Attili and Isa Danieli, and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. If your spirits need lifting through the cold and dark winter months, the beautifully saturated tones of Guisepe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso are just the ticket to warm the cockles. This classic film, made in 1988 and fully restored to celebrate its 25th anniversary, is Tornatore’s love letter to cinema, and is imbued with the nostalgia for the Italy of bygone days. Based in a small Sicilian town, Cinema Paradiso explores how film can bind a community, as witnessed by the film’s protagonist, Salvatore, who works in the local cinema during his formative years. Played by three different actors throughout the different stages of his life, Salvatore experiences firsthand the impact his local cinema has on the small community, creating a microcosm of society where the villagers laugh,...

Watch Giuseppe Tornatore's nostalgic film about a small Sicilian village cinema that took the world by storm 25 years ago

• Salvatore Cascio: 'Cinema Paradiso is about the power of dreams'

• Cinema Paradiso: the little movie that could

We've given it the big buildup, and now it's time to actually watch it ... the Guardian Screening Room is proud to present Giuseppe Tornatore's 1988 classic Cinema Paradiso for your viewing pleasure.

Despite a slightly rocky reception when it was first released in its home country, Cinema Paradiso went on to become a global arthouse blockbuster, and remains perennially popular to this day. It's been restored for its 25th anniversary, so it's a perfect opportunity to immerse yourself in its wonderfully romantic and nostalgic vision of smalltown Italy allied to an unquenchable love of the movies themselves.

As if you needed any more encouragement, the legendary Stuart Heritage will be...

This classic gem of nostaglic cinephilia is a real experience, albeit a sugary one

If ever a movie came from the heart, it was Giuseppe Tornatore's nostalgic Cinema Paradiso (1988) now getting a rerelease to celebrate its silver jubilee. A successful but jaded film director recalls his Sicilian childhood: he was a cheeky scamp called Totò (Salvatore Cascio) helping out in the cinema booth, learning to love movie magic and becoming a friend to the old projectionist Salvatore (Philippe Noiret), in a special place whose movies were censored by the local priest, and whose interior was designed to look like a church, with an altar under the screen. Cinema Paradiso is much loved, though I have occasionally been the man in the Bateman cartoon: the reviewer who confessed to finding Cinema Paradiso a bit sugary and the kid really annoying.

There's a scene in which Salvatore confesses to the appalled...

Readers tell us why they love Giuseppe Tornatore's 1988 drama

• Cinema Paradiso: the little movie that could

• Salvatore Cascio: 'Cinema Paradiso is about the power of dreams'

Last week we asked readers to let us know what they think of Cinema Paradiso, the much-loved Italian drama which passes its 25th anniversary this month.

We particularly enjoyed these reviews from Dave, Eric Stormoen and Asif Baul – as a thank you we'll be sending the authors a copy of Cinema Paradiso each in the post.

And look out for Stuart Heritage's live watchalong of Cinema Paradiso on Friday at 19:30 UK time.

A meditation on the passage of time

Giuseppe Tornatore both celebrates and mourns life in a small Italian town via a young boy's infatuation with the local fleapit cinema. The story is deceptively simple, but the ending is profound. I recall seeing it for the first time...

Twenty-five years ago, a nostalgic Italian film that flopped on release in its own country went on to become a worldwide hit. What was the secret of its success?

• Interview with Salvatore Cascio

• Cinema Paradiso and the rise of the postcard-arthouse movie

Twenty-five years on, it seems extraordinary that a critically underperforming Italian movie – a nostalgic, sentimental movie about moviegoing, to boot – by an unknown 32-year-old director should, after flopping on initial release in its own country, have gone on to win the Grand Prix at Cannes and the best foreign film Oscar for 1989, and become one of the most successful foreign-language movies of all time.

Stephen Woolley, whose Palace Pictures was responsible for the UK release of Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso, remembers the first time he saw it at an unofficial screening at Cannes, on the recommendation of Harvey Weinstein, whose Miramax company had at that time a...

If nostalgia is life through a rose-tinted lens then Cinema Paradiso celebrates that illusion and the power of film to immortalise precious moments. 25 years after its initial release the Italian Oscar-winner returns to the big screen this weekend, lovingly re-mastered and it is sumptuous, highlighting all the richness and texture of good old-fashioned celluloid. In short, it is pure film magic.

The story from writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore is loosely autobiographical, revisiting his childhood in post-war Sicily via the adorably cheeky Salvatore Cascio as Toto. The boy is constantly making a nuisance of himself at home (his father was lost at war) and in the projectionist's booth at the Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo (a wonderfully hangdog turn by French actor Philippe Noiret) tries to convince him that he should turn his mind to higher matters.

Even so, Alfredo is set on a pedestal. Peeking between the curtains Toto sees that...

The Italian classic is 25 years old this year. We'd like to hear what you think of it

What's the single greatest factor behind the enduring appeal of Cinema Paradiso? Its celebration of the power of cinema? The atmospheric Sicilian locations? The spellbinding performances from Philippe Noiret and Salvatore Cascio?

To celebrate the 25th anniversary release of the film, next week we'll be collecting together readers' reviews of the film, its impact and its legacy. If you'd like to contribute, use the form below to tell us, in no more than 300 words, what you think of Cinema Paradiso.

We'll be publishing the best submissions on theguardian.com/film – and we've got a couple of copies of the 25th anniversary edition on Blu-Ray to give away to the two readers whose submissions we like best. Submit yours by 5pm on Monday 9 December to be in with a chance of receiving the film on Blu-Ray.

The release of Cinema Paradiso was the point at which foreign-language film developed a new sheen for global audiences – complete with heartwarming stories and a hint of the exotic

• Salvatore Cascio: 'Cinema Paradiso is about the power of dreams'

• Cinema Paradiso: watch the trailer for the 25th anniversary edition

From the start, Cinema Paradiso carries itself like one of the classics its adorable scamp gazes at, open-mouthed, from the projection room. It has an adorable scamp, for starters – and plenty besides: the timeless Sicilian locations, the Felliniesque social carnival, the thunderbolt love affair, humanism lashed about as freely as olive oil. Giuseppe Tornatore's film is a cosy passeggiata down a celluloid Möbius strip looping art into life. When it arrived in the Us in February 1990 – all gilded sequences and grand themes – it seemed like the distillation of the idea of classic foreign cinema.

The two-hour cut – simplifying the characterisation,...

Kicking off our coverage of the 25th anniversary of the perennially popular Italian classic, we catch up with Salvatore Cascio, who played the saucer-eyed Totò as a child

• Cinema Paradiso: watch the trailer for the 25th anniversary edition

• Hats off! The Observer's 2000 interview with Philippe Noiret

In 1988, during the first round of auditions to cast the lead boy in his next film, the director Giuseppe Tornatore asked eight-year-old Salvatore Cascio what cinema meant to him. The young Cascio thought for a moment. "For me," he said, "cinema is like an enormous television."

"He looked a bit taken aback, and then he laughed," says Cascio, now 34, and speaking from his home near the Sicilian town of Palazzo Adriano, where Tornatore shot much of Cinema Paradiso. "I'd never even been to the cinema before – I didn't really know what it was. So I think my answer amused him. Perhaps it's what got me the part.

Observer film critic Philip French explores the dreamlike qualities of the cinema

From early in the 20th century, cinemas became prominent features of the urban landscape and later, in the form of drive-ins, of the American countryside. As the late John Updike observed in his poem Movie House:

No windows intrude real light

Into this temple of shades, and the size of it,

The size of the great rear wall measures

The breadth of the dreams we have there.

It dwarfs the village bank,

Out looms the town hall,

And even in its decline

Makes the bright-ceilinged supermarket seem mean.

Very soon cinemas began to appear in the films themselves, as dream palaces to escape the world, trysting places for lovers, temporary refuges for fugitives, secret rendezvous for spies, or just places in which to work, most suggestively as that key cultural figure, the projectionist.

Gangster John Dillinger was ambushed...

Anna Magnani in (what looks like) Luchino Visconti's Bellissima At the end of Giuseppe Tornatore's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner Cinema Paradiso, small-town projectionist Philippe Noiret has died and the Nuovo Cinema Paradiso has become a pile of rubble. The bratty Italian boy Salvatore Cascio has grown into the classy Frenchman Jacques Perrin (like Noiret, dubbed in Italian), a filmmaker who sits to watch a mysterious reel of film the deceased projectionist had left him. It turns out the reel contains clips from films censored by the prudish local parish priest, whose family values found kisses, embraces, and bare breasts and legs a danger to society. Now, who's doing all that kissing, embracing, and breast/leg-displaying in that film reel? (Please scroll down for the Cinema Paradiso clip.) Here are the ones I recognize: Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman in Giuseppe De Santis' Bitter Rice (1949); Mangano...

The mark of a truly classic film is that its themes and subject matter are timeless, relatable to each successive generation even if the direct circumstances have passed. Cinema Paradiso falls perfectly into that mold. I had often heard that Cinema Paradiso was cinema’s greatest ode to motion pictures, and such could not be more accurate. Hit the jump for our review of Cinema Paradiso on Blu-ray. The film follows Salvatore “Toto” Di Vita as he grows from a young boy (Salvatore Cascio) to a teenager (Marco Leonardi) under the tutelage of the projectionist at the local movie theatre, Alfredo (Philippe Noiret). As a young boy Salvatore would sneak into the movies until Alfredo agreed to teach him the trade. When a projector fire burns down the Cinema Paradiso and takes Alfredo’s sight, a local lottery winner builds a new theater for which Salvatore becomes the new projectionist.

Rank the week of October 4th’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Fast Five

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #803

Win Percentage: 57%

Times Ranked: 5781

Top-20 Rankings: 40

Directed By: Justin Lin

Starring: Dwayne Johnson • Vin Diesel • Paul Walker • Jordana Brewster • Elsa Pataky

Genres: Action • Action Thriller • Chase Movie • Crime • Drama • Thriller

Rank This Movie

Scream 4

(Blu-ray & DVD | R | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #1420

Win Percentage: 49%

Times Ranked: 6843

Top-20 Rankings: 26

Directed By: Wes Craven

Starring: Alison Brie • Neve Campbell • David Arquette • Hayden Panettiere • Courteney Cox

Genres: Horror • Mystery • Slasher Film • Thriller

Rank This Movie

Submarine

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2010)

Flickchart Ranking: #2772

Win Percentage: 60%

Times Ranked: 1079

Top-20 Rankings: 10

Directed By: Richard Ayoade

Starring: Craig Roberts • Yasmin Paige • Sally Hawkins • Paddy Considine • Noah Taylor

Genres: Comedy Drama • Coming-of-Age • Drama

Rank This Movie

Classics & Re-releases Salo, Or The 120 Days Of Sodom

(Criterion Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 1976)

Flickchart Ranking: #4386

Win Percentage: 43%

Times Ranked:...

A colorful, sentimental trip through the happy days when the Italo film biz wasn’t in a perennial ‘crisis’, this Amarcord about a marvelous Sicilian hardtop and a boy who loves the movies boasts eye-catching technical work and a solid cast. Young helmer Giuseppe Tornatore (The Professor) is an able storyteller who knows the value of cute kids and easy emotion. Beneath the schmaltz lie buried a lot of good ideas.

Clocking in at an overlong 2 1/2 hours (cut from three), film divides into three parts, corresponding to the three ages of cineaste-hero Salvatore. As an adorable 10-year-old moppet (first-timer Salvatore Cascio), the boy sneaks into the parochial Paradise Cinema to watch a priest (Leopoldo Trieste) snip out all the kissing scenes. He worms his way into the heart of crusty peasant projectionist Alfredo (a well-balanced Philippe Noiret) who speaks in film dialog.

With Alfredo the cinema is magic – like the...