30 Best Foreign Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

30 Best Foreign Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

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The pandemic has taken away our ability to physically travel internationally and interact with other cultures, but movies offer an incredible escape to anyone willing to turn on the subtitles.

Below are the best foreign-language movies on Amazon Prime right now.

27. Monsieur Lazhar (2012)

6.9

Country

Canada

Director

Philippe Falardeau

Actors

André Robitaille, Brigitte Poupart, Daniel Gadouas, Danielle Proulx

Moods

Depressing, Dramatic

After the sudden death of a teacher, 55-year-old Algerian immigrant Bachir Lazhar is hired at an elementary school in Montreal. Struggling with a cultural gap between himself and his students at first, he helps them to deal with the situation, revealing his own tragic past. A strong portrait without any weird sentimentality. 11-year-old actress Sophie Nélisse makes her brilliant debut.

26. Exiled (2006)

7.0

Country

Hong Kong

Director

Johnnie To

Actors

Anthony Wong, Chiu Chi-Shing, Eddie Cheung, Ellen Chan

Moods

Action-packed

Acclaimed director Johnnie To and many stars from the hit series Infernal Affairs reunite for this stylish action drama about a gangster who leads a quiet life but whose murder is suddenly ordered.

When two hitmen arrive to take him out, they discover a second pair of mobsters assigned to protect him. All five men being childhood friends, they end up sharing a meal before deciding where their loyalties lie.

A great score, a gorgeous setting in 90s Macau, and great action sequences make Exiled the perfect summer night thriller.

25. Tel Aviv on Fire (2019)

7.0

Country

Belgium, France, Israel

Director

Sameh Zoabi

Actors

Amer Hlehel, Ashraf Farah, Kais Nashif, Laëtitia Eïdo

Moods

Funny

This funny and charming movie is about a Palestinian slacker named Salam who works on a famous Israeli soap opera. Each day, he has to pass a tough Israeli checkpoint to get to work and in an attempt to make things easier for himself, he agrees to change the ending of the soap opera to please the officer in charge of the checkpoint. At the same time, a temperamental French actress and his Palestinian love interest wish for opposite endings to the show. Stuck between love and politics, Salam has to navigate a complex situation to please all sides. There are a lot of hummus jokes.

24. Ida (2013)

7.0

Country

Denmark, France, Poland

Director

Paweł Pawlikowski

Actors

Adam Szyszkowski, Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Artur Janusiak

Moods

Discussion-sparking, Slow

Ida, the 2015 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, is a stark black & white drama set in the early 60’s about a young Polish nun-to-be and her bawdy Aunt Wanda searching for the truth behind her family’s demise at the hands of the Nazis. What initially comes off as a painfully slow sleep-inducer pretty quickly evolves into a touching and lively contrast between the two lead characters; one virtuous and pure, the other boorish and hedonistic. Their journey is equal parts amusing, insightful and heartbreaking, with Ida’s personal exploration of self playing out as a remarkably humanistic affair. The cinematography by Lukasz Za and Ryszard Lenczewski is particularly striking, each shot a work of art in it’s own right. Logging in at just 82 minutes, the entire story whizzes by in a flash. The kind of film that will stay with you long after you’ve watched it.

23. [REC] (2007)

7.0

Country

Spain

Director

Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza

Actors

Akemi Goto, Ana Isabel Velásquez, Ben Temple, Carlos Lasarte

Moods

Intense

TV reporter documenting a day with a local fire crew, they encounter a deadly virus trapped in a tower block. This film is bloody brilliant! Innovative camera work and a simple idea perfectly executed. When I watched this, I was alone in the dark and ended up constantly jumping around with fright and excitement. A real wake up for other horror filmmakers, Hollywood hasn’t come close to anything like this.

22. Kung Fu Hustle (2005)

7.0

Country

China, Hong Kong, United States of America

Director

Stephen Chow

Actors

Alex Lam Chi Sin, Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, Charlie Yuen Cheung-Yan, Cheung-Yan Yuen

Moods

Action-packed, Funny

Written, directed and starring the auteur Stephan Chow, Kung Fu Hustle is a distillation of decades of Hong-Kong Cinema’s greatest export : the martial arts comedy. Full of numerous allusions and witty nods to other greats in the genre, this film is nonetheless entirely fresh and new. Equal parts hilarious and breathtakingly action-packed, Kung Fu Hustle showcases an enormous amount of raw talent, cinema magic and ass-kicking for any true cinema connoisseur.

21. Ash Is Purest White (2019)

7.3

Country

China, China France Japan, France

Director

Jia Zhangke, Zhangke Jia

Actors

Casper Liang, Diao Yi'nan, Ding Jiali, Dong Zijian

Moods

Original, Smart

Jia Zhangke (who NPR critic John Powers once called “perhaps the most important filmmaker working in the world today”), directed this movie based on the story of a gangster he knew while growing up.

And he is far from being the only noticeable talent here. Actress Tao Zhao shines as a character called Qiao, a dancer who infiltrates the crime scene in Northern China by way of her boyfriend (the gangster). When a boss leader is assassinated, Qiao finds herself in jail after she refuses to incriminate her boyfriend. 

This is a gangster movie but it’s also about how Qiao processes her time in jail and what she does once she gets out. It serves more as a character study and a picture of modern-day China.

20. The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

7.3

Country

France, Mexico, Spain

Director

Guillermo del Toro

Actors

Adrian Lamana, Berta Ojea, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi

Moods

Intense

Pan’s Labyrinth is often considered director Guillermo Del Toro’s best film, and rightfully so. But if you’re looking for a straight-up ghost story, this is the film that gets the job done. Everything about this film is sad and beautiful and unnerving, from the setting (an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War) to the atmospheric visuals.

19. Leona (2018)

7.6

Country

Mexico

Director

Isaac Cherem

Actors

Adriana Llabrés, Carlos Aragón, Carolina Politi, Christian Vazquez

Moods

Character-driven, Discussion-sparking, Dramatic

Present-day Mexico City—Ariela comes from a Jewish family that insists on getting married only to people of the same religion. This rule is complicated when Ariela falls in love with the non-Jewish Iván. She is then faced with the dilemma of choosing herself or her family, who for all their severity, she still loves deeply.

Leona’s modern-day retelling of Romeo and Juliet recalls the likes of Crazy Rich Asians and The Big Sick, but unlike those big-budgeted movies, this intimate Spanish-language film exchanges melodrama for restraint, and it’s all the better for it. Leona is a quietly moving story that’s easy to relate to, despite the specificity of its premise.

18. Biutiful (2010)

7.7

Country

Mexico, Spain, United States of America

Director

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alejandro González Iñárritu

Actors

Adelfa Calvo, Alain Hernández, Ana Wagener, Cheikh Ndiaye

Moods

Character-driven, Dark, Depressing

Ever wondered how much your life will change when faced with the reality that death is about to come? That’s normal, and not nearly as life-altering as being told you only have a few more moments to live. Because of a terminal illness, Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is driven to this situation and tries to right his wrongs in the wake of modern Barcelona. This melodrama is supercharged by Bardem’s unearthly performance as the story’s only hero, demonstrating the selfless love of a destroyed and dying father to his children – paired with cinematography unlike any other, this film is exceptionally beautiful. Directed by González Iñárritu’ (Babel, Birdman, The Revenant).

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

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