75 Best Foreign Movies on Criterion Channel Right Now

In rural Korea a policeman starts to investigate peculiar and violent events that most of the people in his village attribute to the arrival of a new Japanese resident. As the occurrences keep multiplying, and different perspectives in the film are shown, you start to lose touch with reality in the face of what can only be described as genius film-making. As critic Jada Yuan puts it, the film operates on a level “that makes most American cinema seem clunky and unimaginative”. For this reason, and while The Wailing is a true horror flick with a great premise, it’s also more than just that: it boosts a mind-boggling, interesting plot that will have you thinking about it long after the credits roll. Protip: grab the person next to you and make them watch this movie with you so you can have someone to discuss it with after!

Manon des Sources (Manon of the Springs), directed by Claude Berri, follows a young woman named Manon living reclusively in the rural countryside. This film is the sequel to Jean de Florette, during which a young Manon watched her father fall victim to the greedy manipulation of two men. Now, a decade later, Manon is older and more cunning—and when she sees the opportunity to gently avenger her father, she exacts tragic revenge.

Perhaps the greatest strength of Manon of the Springs lies in its actors. Emmanuelle Béart is captivating as Manon, quiet and observant, while Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil are fittingly terrible as César Soubeyran and Ugolin. Manon and the springs she must protect are worthy heroes of this epic saga.

While produced by Wong Kar Wai, Chinese Odyssey 2002 isn’t a moody, melancholy drama that we’re used to. Instead, the Ming Dynasty-set adventure directed by Jeffrey Lau comically spoofs plenty of the beloved genres that captivated Chinese audiences– wuxia epics, musical dramas, and historical romances. The ludicrous crossdressing plot is played in such an over-the-top way, with Lau visually delivering his jabs, with a narrator providing droll commentary on the events, and with intercuts of faux interviews and excerpts from everyone, even including the disgruntled innkeeper spying on the crossdressing princess and the confused restaurant owner. It’s actually quite impressive how the ridiculous plot leads to such a wholesome, moving conclusion.

We’ve seen anthology films with three, four, sometimes even five parts, but Songs from the Second Floor comprises forty six separate vignettes, quickly shifting in and out without any connecting thread inbetween, except for the dull gray color palette. Yet, even as the film abruptly transitions between vignettes, from tanning beds, construction sites, cars, trains, or buildings, writer-director Roy Andersson crafts meticulously framed breakdowns of modern day living, some of which works based on individual experiences, but all coming together as several miniature portraits of how absurd and depressing our lives have become. Songs from the Second Floor is a bold way to return after a twenty five year hiatus.

See, usually, when American violence in media is critiqued, it’s usually through analytic studies or overly exaggerated lectures stirring moral panic. Instead of doing this, however, auteur Michael Haneke decided to surpass the crime genre, playing with the form and emotions in Funny Games. It’s terrifying, not because it immediately delves into the violence, but because it starts off with an ordinary, innocuous visit, that gradually escalates into an unpredictable home invasion where two teenagers inflict needless violence in such a scary yet spectacular way, even involving the viewer into their shenanigans. Ironically, this led to Haneke creating a shot-for-shot American remake of this same story, but Funny Games’ break in form made Haneke a director to remember, as he started to film outside his native Austria after the standout thriller.

Like people, places have things that change and things that remain the same. Most of us keep our thoughts about our hometowns to wistful conversations and the recesses of our memory, but Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho instead captures Recife in Pictures of Ghosts. It’s a meandering tour, shifting from topic to topic, place to place with not that much structure, but through the journey, Kleber shares so much of himself (his home, his film sets, the theaters he formed his taste in), and Brazilian society, combining archived clips, personal memories, and even a ghostly mystery into one interesting map of Recife.

Given the controversial subject matter, there’s something remarkably placid about the way About Dry Grasses proceeds. Amidst the snowy white steppes of Eastern Anatolia, writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan slowly lets the plot unfold through multiple conversations, where an accusation of inappropriate contact leads to a he-said, she-said investigation, all centered around a misanthropic protagonist Samet. By focusing the entire film on Samet, Ceylan takes the time to understand this difficult, exhausting character in a detached manner, with the camera oftentimes taking in the whole lived-in, rundown places where Samet lives and works in. It’s an interesting perspective, depicting the ways everyone’s fumbling around, trying to create boxes to understand one’s place in the world, but it’s not an easy one to explore. About Dry Grasses dares to do so, anyway.

While the market for animation is mostly dominated by American 3D and Japanese anime, once in a while, a film outside the two industries comes up with an entirely new style of its own, with the design inspired by their respective countries. European animation has garnered some interest with Loving Vincent, but Chicken with Linda! takes it further, taking a more vibrant than impressionistic approach to its art. Somewhat like a neon-colored Fauvist Madeline, the film proceeds with a series of hijinks that wouldn’t be out of place in a children’s storybook, but it charmingly captures the mother-daughter relationship healed through the power of homemade food. It’s sweet and chaotic, much like childhood and the art movement that inspired the film, and it’s undeniably human. Chicken with Linda! is an unexpected delight for both kids and adults.

In a few seconds, a mistake can change your life forever. Insomnia is centered on a Swedish detective trying to solve a murder while trying desperately to cover a mistake made from the difficult mix of the fog and human exhaustion, but in doing so, his guilt, shame, and suspicion that no one would believe him due to past mistakes, weigh down on him, twisting the police procedural upon itself. Stellan Skarsgård holds an incredibly restrained performance throughout the entire film, and it’s well-framed by writer-director Erik Skjoldbjærg, whose use of cold white light in this debut feature eventually became the staple of on-screen Scandinavian noir.

Written like a stage play, directed like the viewer is a fly on the wall, and shot with a love for deep shadows and warm candlelight, Flowers of Shanghai is about as immersive a chamber drama as one could ask for. Having most of the “action” take place off screen, director Hou Hsiao-hsien draws our eye instead to how his characters (including one played by an exceptionally stoic Tony Leung) continue to negotiate for their own freedom against patriarchal norms, pushing against cultural notions of proper decorum. It’s a film brimming with repressed emotion, but without ever raising its voice. The vibes, as the kids say, are immaculate.