20 Best Foreign-Language Movies on Max (HBO Max)

20 Best Foreign-Language Movies on Max (HBO Max)

November 22, 2024

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Don’t let subtitles, unfamiliar storylines, and minor differences in acting styles close you off from discovering the many worlds of non-English language cinema. Once you get over that one-inch-tall barrier (as Parasite director Bong Joon-ho said), it’ll be easy to discover that “foreign” movies already offer so much of what you enjoy from the films you’re used to. And on Max—the streaming service of the network known for its prestige content—the non-English language films available to you possess that same prestige as well. These are titles you may not be very familiar with, but through great storytelling and excellent craft they prove that international cinema isn’t just something to be dismissed as pretentious or weird; these films push the rest of the global industry to be better.

1. In the Mood for Love (2000)

best

9.2

Country

China, France, Hong Kong

Director

Wong Kar-wai

Actors

Chan Man-Lei, Charles de Gaulle, Cheung Tung-cho, Chin Tsi-Ang

Moods

Dramatic, Lovely, Romantic

Called a masterpiece by many and featured on many best-of-the-21st-century lists, Director Wong Kar-wei has created a thing of singular beauty. Every frame is an artwork (painted, as it were, with help of cinematographer Christopher Doyle) in this meticulously and beautifully crafted film about the unrequited love of two people renting adjacent rooms in 1960s Hong Kong. These two people, played by Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, struggle to stay true to their values rather than give in to their desires, while they both suspect their spouses of extramarital activities. The flawless acting, stunning visuals, and dream-like beauty of In the Mood for Love perfectly captures the melancholy of repressed emotions and unfulfilled love. The cello motif of Shigeru Umebayashi’s main theme will haunt you long after you finished watching.

2. Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime) (1999)

best

9.0

Country

Japan

Director

Hayao Miyazaki

Actors

Akihiro Miwa, Akira Nagoya, Akira Sakamoto, Alex Fernandez

Moods

Action-packed

From the legendary Hayao Miyazaki, and courtesy of Studio Ghibli, which also brought you Spirited Away, comes this epic whirlwind of a story. Set during a fantastical late Muromachi period, the medieval era of Japan, in a time when many humans were still living among nature, while others set out to conquer and tame it, the movie follows a young man named Ashitaka, who he seeks cure for the curse of a boar god, giving him superhuman powers but eventually killing him. He rides west on a fantastic beast, where he eventually sees a young woman named San, also known as Princess Mononoke. What unfolds from here, is an epic tale of mythical war on many fronts, between the nature gods and humans. While this may sound like a dichotomy, it never is that morally simplistic. The story is action-packed and fast-paced, drawing freely from Japanese mythology as well as modern hot-topic political issues. Add to this the fantastic visuals: Hayao Miyazaki uses a mixture of hand drawings and 3D rendering that are nothing short of spectacular. In short, Princess Mononoke is movie history. If you haven’t seen it yet, do it now.

3. Beau travail (1999)

7.9

Country

France

Director

Claire Denis, Female director

Actors

Adiatou Massudi, Bernardo Montet, Dan Herzberg, Denis Lavant

Moods

Original, Thought-provoking

Often considered Claire Denis’ best film, Beau Travail is an epic exploration of both masculinity and colonialism. Inspired by Melville’s Billy Budd, she transplants the story to Djibouti where the French Foreign Legion run seemingly aimless drills in an arid desert landscape while largely alienated from the local community.

Denis inverts the male gaze and imbues charged eroticism to the bodies in motion as the men train and wrestle. Accompanied by the music of Britten’s Billy Budd opera, these movements transform into a breathtaking modern dance. Underneath her jaw-dropping direction is a cutting allegory on repression, desire, and violence, working on both the individual and geopolitical level. This incredible tale is capped off by one of the best end credit sequences of all time.

4. The Boy and the Heron (2023)

7.9

Country

Japan

Director

Hayao Miyazaki

Actors

Aimyon, Jun Fubuki, Jun Kunimura, Kaoru Kobayashi

Moods

Dramatic, Original, Thought-provoking

The Boy and the Heron isn’t Hayao Miyazaki’s best film, nor is it his most accessible, seeing as the director himself has admitted to getting lost in the world he’s built here. But it is his most personal film to date (apparently he’s out of retirement!) and consequently, it’s one of the most complex Ghibli films to exist. It eschews structure for pure, raw emotion so instead of dialogue and plots, you get wonderfully abstract fantasy worlds and protagonists with near-imperceptible depths. You don’t have to get the story to understand the heaviness, grief, joy, and hope that Mahito, and in turn Miyazaki, feel. You only have to see the delicate turns in the characters’ expressions and their wildly imaginative adventures.

5. Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron (2024)

7.3

Country

Japan

Director

Kaku Arakawa

Actors

Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Kenshi Yonezu, Masaki Suda

At first, you wonder, couldn’t this behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Boy and The Heron just be a DVD special? But a few minutes in, it becomes clear how rich the material is. It’s not just about Miyazaki and the making of a movie, it’s about him grappling with grief and transforming it into art. A surprising chunk of this documentary is about death. Miyazaki’s friends and colleagues are passing away, it seems, every month, and the only way Miyazaki can mourn and honor them is through his (their) art. The Boy and The Heron itself is a fulfillment of a promise Miyazaki made to his closest friend, Isao Takahata, or Pak-san, as Miyazaki lovingly calls him. It’s Pak-san whom he mourns the most in the movie, but almost everyone who’s passed makes an appearance both in the documentary and the film. The lines between the two are often blurred by Miyazaki, in his failing memory, and by documentary director Kaku Arakawa. Arakawa’s editing is chaotic, if not experimental. He cuts between reality and fiction—documentary footage and Ghibli clips—faster than you can make sense of it all. “I opened my brain way too far for this project,” Miyazaki claims, and you can feel the exhilaration and fear in every second of this brilliant film.

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