50 Best Foreign Movies on Spectrum on Demand Right Now

Name: The Village (2023)
Cast: Arata Furuta, Daiken Okudaira, Hana Kino, Haru Kuroki

January 12, 2025

With their history providing internet, mobile, and cable television, it might not be surprising that Spectrum went into streaming with Spectrum on Demand. It’s a handy add-on, especially for viewers already paying for internet or cable, and while their library might not be as extensive as the biggest streaming sites, Spectrum on Demand still holds plenty of great movies. Some of these films are underrated, hidden gems that come from all over the world that may not shoot up the top of the algorithm, but are worth a watch, all the same. So for Spectrum subscribers wanting to take a glimpse outside their usual watchlist, without having to jump ship to another site, here’s some of the best foreign films Spectrum has to offer in their on-demand library.

31. The Village (2023)

6.7

Genres

Drama

Director

Michihito Fujii

Actors

Arata Furuta, Daiken Okudaira, Hana Kino, Haru Kuroki

Moods

Dark, Depressing, Slow

Yu Katayama lives in a remote village with a garbage disposal business that’s slowly turning into a landfill. When his childhood friend Misaki Nakai returns to the village, she encourages Yu to make a better life for himself despite his mother’s gambling and the village ostracizing him. The Village is a slow-burning film interested in Yu’s struggles as an outcast and in discussing the takeover of small villages for capitalistic industrial motives. The film is shot beautifully with dark, brooding visuals and lingering shots of Yu’s quiet intensity throughout the film. Unfortunately, secondary characters are not fully developed outside of their interactions with Yu, causing the film to feel flat outside of pivotal moments. An evocative idea with parts more memorable than the whole.

32. The Abyss (2023)

4.5

Genres

Action, Drama, Thriller

Director

Richard Holm

Actors

Angela Kovács, Edvin Ryding, Felicia Truedsson, Göran Gillinger

Moods

Dramatic, Intense, Suspenseful

Not to be confused with James Cameron’s 1989 film, The Abyss isn’t the worst disaster film, but it could have been so much more. Inspired by the earthquake that actually happened in the real life town of Kiruna, there’s an important story here about worker safety, responsible mining, improving emergency protocols, and preserving the environment. However, like plenty of disaster movies, the film plays out in the most predictable ways, attaching a frankly irrelevant family drama that takes time away from the terrifying, claustrophobic nightmare that could have been. It does have decent effects, and even some decent scenes, but The Abyss is more interested in using the real life earthquake to manufacture drama, rather than actually looking into the manmade disaster.