27 Best Foreign Movies on Kanopy Right Now

The film opens with Julie in her early twenties, longing to pursue a career in medical school. But after briefly testing the waters, she switches over to psychology, only to drop completely out of school and transform her hobby of photography into a professional career. This indecisiveness carries over in most aspects of her life, including and especially in romance, where impulse and desire drive her to run after what she believes to be love. The movie follows Julie as she navigates adulthood in modern Oslo—at once a specific yet universally relatable story about the growing pains of growing up.

With The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier scores again with another life-changing Norwegian drama about longing, love, grief, and finding your place in the world. His films can be quite sad but amidst all the drama, moments of happiness and hope are scattered throughout, as it is in real life.

It’s a testament to Agnès Varda’s remarkable ability to glean so much raw beauty and truth from the world that this autobiographical documentary is such a rewarding watch, even for people unfamiliar with her. The Beaches finds the pioneering director in reflective mode as she looks back at her work and life, but her artistic impulses are by no means stagnant: she approaches the past with the same — if not more of the — generous candor and youthful spirit that colored her career.

It’s also a testament to Varda’s inimitable artistic touch that she turns a usually-bleak subject — mortality — into something this life-affirming. The Beaches was made when she was 81, aware of her own ticking clock and still nursing the decades-long loss of so many loved ones (chiefly, husband Jacques Demy). Just as her grief-stricken reflections don’t overwhelm the film with sadness, the whimsical impulses she indulges here — like constructing a beach on the street in front of her office — don’t blunt the sharpness of her candor. The overall effect is bittersweet and profoundly inspiring: as with the mirrors she places in front of the tide in the film’s first scene, she’s showing us it’s possible to face the inescapable with a twinkle in your eye.

The first movie to be nominated for both the Documentary and Foreign-Language Oscar categories and the most awarded film of the 2019 Sundance Festival, Honeyland quietly accompanies the last wild beekeepers in Europe over three years. It portrays the lonely and primordial life of Muratova, which is centered around harvesting honey according to the rules of her ancient ancestors and caring for her ailing mother.

Originally planned as an environmental documentary, this film evolved into something completely different, as it often goes with immersive documentaries, when the Macedonian directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov met beekeeper Hatidže. The film takes another sudden turn when Muratova’s life is upended by a nomadic family settling next door, threatening her tradition, her way of life, and her natural environment.

This unbelievable cinematic journey is a feast for the eyes thanks to the amazing work done by cinematographer Samir Ljuma. However, despite the awe-inspiring imagery, Honeyland never imposes on its subject, creating an incredible intimacy with Hatidže’s life and her natural environment. Breathtaking!

German writer-director Christian Petzold tells a story of a fateful encounter trapped in a love triangle. Thomas, Laura, and her husband Ali quickly become enmeshed in a three-way relationship rich with desire, pressure, and betrayal. Another Hitchcockian tribute by Petzold, Jerichow has all the elements of a neo-noir, but it’s set in broad daylight. The plotting, the secret love affairs, the femme fatale with no back up plan: all the necessary ingredients for a chaotic tale, wrangled by desirous tensions, to say the least.  A film whose mystique is rather haunting, but far from spectral, Jerichow doesn’t conceal its clear references to “The Postman Always Rings Twice”.

This movie is a dramatic masterpiece and a tribute to loving middle-aged women everywhere. It is unparalleled in the way it portrays its characters and the subtlety with which it tells their stories. The events are centered around a 52-year-old Georgian woman who decides to leave her family home and live alone without much of a notice. She trades chaos and domestic disputes for solitude, and the prospect of sad old age for an opportunity to build a new life for herself. In other words, she trades being the secondary character to her mother, husband, and children, to being the hero of her own story. A genuine and beautiful film. If like me you grew up with a mother who sacrificed everything for you, this will hit very close to home.

The medium of cinema has been used as a tool for revolution, but so too was it complicit in genocide. That was true of the Khmer Rouge regime, as the remaining footage of the time came entirely from the state, to be used in re-education programs and propaganda to hide the difficult realities caused by the administration. In response, three decades later, documentarian Rithy Panh reclaims the medium, juxtaposing archival footage of Pol Pot’s programs and Cambodia before, with clay figurines formed from his memories. It’s a grim recollection, but The Missing Picture takes back cinema to keep a collective memory that must be preserved.

A Spanish 500 Days of Summer mixed with a more urban and up to date You’ve Got Mail. I liked this film a lot. I connected with both the main characters in the film. Their feelings of loneliness on the inside, yet, still going on with their day to day all while being mixed with their phobias, longings, quarks, and vulnerabilities. This movie works, it works on every level. Beautifully shot and beautifully written. Watching this will not be a waste of your time.

The Fabella Hospital in the Philippines is clearly overburdened and understaffed, and though it offers some of the lowest pregnancy delivery rates in the country, it remains unaffordable to most of its patients. It has been dubbed the world’s busiest maternity hospital because of this, and its boundless flurry of activity is what Ramona Diaz tries to capture in her cinéma-vérité film Motherland. 

What’s interesting and ultimately heartening about the documentary is that despite the difficulties the subjects face, they are always presented with warmth and humanity. We don’t observe them from a strict or stylized distance, but rather, we move with them when they laugh, befriend each other, worry about their babies, curse their partners, and eventually leave. Indeed, the film is a land of mothers, filled with their authentic stories before anything else.

Set in a small town in Romania, R.M.N. is a challenging slow-burn that explores what happens to an insular community upon the arrival of immigrants from South Asia. Initially, the discrimination thrown at them seems tame; at the very least, it’s how you’d expect a homogenous and tight-knit group to react to outsiders. But more and more, the prejudice takes on cruel forms. Stakes are raised until it becomes life or death for the people involved. 

It’s a chilling examination of society, of the lengths people are willing to go to to avoid change and prolong their ignorance. But while there are few things scarier than the violence brought on by racism, the phantom elements in this film come close. Director Cristian Mungiu does an impressive job of painting his picture with a haunting tone; there are streaks of the supernatural in this film, making it a biting horror in more ways than one. 

As is often the case in great filmmaking, it’s hard to pin R.M.N. down to one genre, but thanks to its eerie perceptiveness, it goes down in history as one of the best films about xenophobia made. 

Celebrated Malian filmmaker Souleyman Cissé crafted Yeelen (which means ‘brightness’) as an explicit antidote to the “ethnographic” lens through which Western directors often told Africa-set stories. That intention is certainly felt, because Yeelen doesn’t trouble itself to translate its folklore-drawn premise for audiences unfamiliar with 13th-century Malian myths. Rejecting Western storytelling conventions, it instead uses those of the culture it depicts — a looping approach to time and matter-of-fact magical realism — to present the tale of Nianankoro (Issiaka Kane), a supernaturally gifted young man whose sorcerer father (Niamanto Sanogo) plots to kill him because of the threats he poses to the elder man’s power. 

 A basic primer to the customs central to Yeelen is provided in the opening titles, but knowledge of the culture it communicates through isn’t a prerequisite to watching and enjoying the film because its epic conflicts — both Oedipal (father versus son) and religious (flesh versus spirit) — and otherworldly sensibilities make it both instinctively familiar and mesmerizing. A deserved winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, though the fact that it was the first African film to win one of the festival’s awards — 40 years into its existence — makes this an unjustly belated milestone.

With no dialogue, no intertitles, no hired cast, and barely a semblance of a plot, The Man with a Movie Camera doesn’t seem like the kind of film that today’s viewers would seem to enjoy. The film even warns you beforehand that it doesn’t have these things. But as the theater opens, the seats unfold, and the light bursts through the silver film, filmmaker Dziga Vertov presents a vision of the cinematic landscape that was to come, completely crafting a story of a cameraman’s day purely through the use of cinematography and editing alone. Essentially, it’s crafting these two elements completely from scratch, creating a whole body of signs and symbols (and a whole industry) that eventually formed the language of film as we know it today.

With its detailed portraits of seven of Istanbul’s most adored felines, Kedi affirms what anyone who’s spent some time with a cat will know: they really do all have fully-fledged, complex personalities of their own. More than just a celebration of some supremely cute kitties, though, this documentary about the city’s teeming street cat population also presents a moving example of a way of living that embraces — rather than tramples over — our animal neighbors.

Immersive cinematography from the cats’ eye levels is weaved with interviews with the people who care for them, whether voluntarily or because the cats simply demand it. That independence emerges as a much-admired characteristic in the documentary; as one interviewee puts it, “Dogs think people are God, but cats don’t. They’re not ungrateful, they just know better.” It’s impossible not to read a wistful note in the interviewees’ odes — indeed, for many of the people featured here, cats are a point of spiritual and personal reconnection, a reminder of what life is really about underneath all the mind-numbing dross we’ve made up. The magic of Kedi is that it not only perceptively recognizes the healing effect that cats have on humans, but recreates it so that these 70-something minutes feel like therapy.

At the first few moments, Song Lang seemed to be something akin to Farewell My Concubine– the film takes a snapshot of a communist Asian country in a different time, through the lens of a regional opera form with painted faces, elaborate costumes, and captivating tunes. But there’s more to Song Lang than this. Tragedy isn’t prophesized through songs of an already existing opera (in fact, the film features all new tunes), but instead, it occurs because Dung, the loan shark, didn’t reflect on the past early enough for him to reclaim the art form his family once loved, a concern shared with cải lương as a declining genre. Song Lang is a moving drama, but it’s also a nostalgic time capsule of 1980s Saigon and cải lương as a whole.

After finishing his contract with Shochiku, Yasujirō Ozu shifted gears with Floating Weeds, an adaptation of one of his previous black-and-white silent films. There are a few differences. It has sound and color, it’s set after World War II, and Ozu works with a new team, including actual kabuki actor Nakamura Ganjirō II. With these changes, Ozu sharpens his parallel romances for a generational conflict split by the war. The classic melodrama had taken on a new meaning. As Komajuro meets his son, and his kabuki theatre fails to sell, Ozu observes a world that has changed for the better, but has left some unable to do the same. Floating Weeds still holds the story’s original themes, but it thoughtfully reimagines the family of its time through Ozu’s appreciation for the everyday.

From Ground Zero doesn’t have the most number of shorts within an anthology film, though it comes pretty close with 22 segments, ranging from 3-6 minutes from different directors in Gaza. That’s a lot of shorts, with not a lot of time for each story. Most anthologies tend to be a set of three, but given the media suppression, the more, the better it gets at capturing life in the area. Every short balances the other in tone, style, and in approach. It’s harder to deny the truth it portrays, not with this many shorts, and this many eyes, on the ground.

Leo and Remi are close. They play, eat, and sleep together, and in between those moments, they share every thought they have with each other, no matter how big or small. Theirs is a precious friendship, as pure and as intimate as can be, but all that changes when they begin middle school. Subject to heteronormative norms and preteen mockery, their friendship starts to crack as Leo and Remi’s different definitions of manhood emerge.

Subtle but evocative, quiet but deeply powerful, Close takes a closer look at boyhood and male friendships—how they’re lived, defined, and seen. Plenty of questions go unanswered in this film, but if you’re comfortable with simply empathizing with the characters rather than knowing every answer, then Close comes highly recommended.

A relatively straightforward story of a village of Sotho people building the courage to resist unwanted development on their land and the erasure of their culture, the rousingly titled This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection wastes no time on the oppressors’ point of view. For director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, there is no debate: these people are more important than any markers of progress hoping to displace them. Their struggle is rendered in some of the most crisp and colorful cinematography you could hope to see, with a powerful performance by the late, great Mary Twala front and center, channeling so much sadness into fury and determination.

This fiery coming-of-age drama has an unlikely origin story: director Jonas Carpignano was first introduced to the sprawling Roma clan that makes up most of the movie’s cast when one of them stole his car while he shot another film. The charismatic Amato family made such an impression on him that he decided to center a movie around their real lives, naming it for the insular neighborhood they live in on the outskirts of a Southern Italian town.

The Amatos are part of a much-maligned ethnic minority, but not the only one in the film. The Ciambra pokes at the idea of solidarity between the Amatos and local African migrants: while his elders are quick to reject the idea, plucky 14-year-old Pio (Pio Amato) flits across these invisible borders and bonds with Ayiva (Koudous Seihon). But Pio is desperate to win the respect of the men in his family, who might then allow him to take part in their criminal exploits — a crisis point The Ciambra chronicles with raw emotion. This is a movie whose grit and bleakness often recall the uncompromising gaze of neo-realist classics, as a child is heartbreakingly forced to declare his allegiances in the dog-eat-dog world his elders can’t imagine an alternative to.

Dhuin is evidently influenced by the Iranian filmmaker whose work its characters discuss: Abbas Kiarostami. Featuring non-professional actors and full of long observational takes that center everyday conversations in the life of an aspiring actor in a small Northern Indian city, it’s guided by the same social realist impulses that shaped Kiarostami’s work. What’s more, it even ends on an explicit reference to Close-Up. 

But what elevates Dhuin above homage is the acute internal struggle it depicts. Set during COVID lockdown, the film follows Pankaj (Abhinav Jha) as he works on his acting in a bedroom adorned with images of Hollywood stars, chafing against the much less glamorous reality of the home he shares with his financially struggling parents. He’s on the cusp of having enough money to fulfill his dream and move to Mumbai (where he hopes to advance his career), but several meetings with puffed-up filmmakers who are visiting from Mumbai give Pankaj a new perspective on the world he’s desperate to join. A testament to the torment of difficult choices, Dhuin also gently offers an alternative to the trope of abandoning home for the big city, suggesting that there might be greater beauty in the reality of where you’ve always been than the places you dream of.

Michael Jackson’s death triggers the sudden unraveling of a young imam’s buttoned-up life in this idiosyncratic Egyptian character study. The news of the singer’s passing sets Khaled (Ahmed El-Fishawy) straining against reawakened memories of his youth as a mullet-sporting MJ fanatic, before his joyful creative spark was stamped out by two disparate forces: a mocking, macho dad who punished Khaled for his vulnerability and the conservative uncle who took him under his wing.

Sheikh Jackson mostly takes place across two intertwining timelines: Khaled’s free-spirited adolescence and his adulthood, which has so far been defined by a self-flagellating, fire-and-brimstone brand of Islam. These two strands form a neat illustration of the binary options Khaled was led to believe he had to choose from — but, as the movie’s title hints, he might not have to choose at all, a revelation that doesn’t come easy because it flies in the face of everything he’s been taught. Free from the judgemental impulses of Western cinema when it comes to characters like Khaled, Sheikh Jackson is both an introspective portrait of the universal struggle of defining one’s own identity and a refreshingly nuanced look at how that experience might play out in the modern Arab world.

Teenagers forced to grow up quickly and spend their prime years wiling away at garment factories sounds like a grim reality, and it is, but in Youth (Spring), Chinese documentarist Wang Bing captures more than just the inherent tragedy of young labor. Here, they build friendships, find love, discover an affinity for their craft, stand up for themselves against exploitative bosses, and look for ways to have fun. Even if it’s just as simple as eating street food, spending the night at an internet cafe, or finding nice clothes, we’re with them in every way. Though it’s never explicitly political, the documentary makes you think about the conditions that put the kids there in the first place, such as our insatiable need for cheap and trendy clothes, governments turning a blind eye to child labor, and a skewed system that favors these above people’s—especially young people’s—well-being and welfare.

When depicting a person’s life, most films are chronological. They start from beginning to end, from the character’s birth to their death. However, it’s only fitting for Peppermint Candy to depict the opposite because, mild spoilers: the film starts with a suicide. What would push a person to do such a thing? Director Lee Chang-dong unpacks this tragedy through six personal moments vis-a-vis South Korea’s turbulent history, the violence lurking under peaceful times, and the way Kim Young-ho has ignored his better impulses because of it. In reverse, Kim’s life is not an easy one to watch. Each sequence transforms the one before, as each part of Kim’s past reveals a better path he could have taken, if not for the times he’s lived through.

If you’re looking for some sword fighting from a samurai story, you’re not going to get it so easily from The Hidden Blade. That’s because it’s set in the Meiji era– guns got the glory, the country just opened its borders, and as the shogunate ceded to the Emperor, the samurai began to lose their power. As such, the first act is less about the fighting, and more about a romance blocked by social class. However, that doesn’t mean there’s no fighting. Much like many Westerns, the fight comes to the clan back in the countryside, where they try to make their last stand. It takes a while to get to the action, but on the way, writer-director Yōji Yamada sets the stakes for the samurai so unprepared for what’s to come. As modernity starts to take their place, The Hidden Blade observes the challenge presented: to change or to be replaced.

Shrooms director Paddy Breathnach has als dipped his toes in romcoms and thrillers, but this queer Bogota-set drama has a lot of tenderness in its heart. Micro-budget and full of life as the name suggests, Viva is an inspiring story that centers around Jesus (Héctor Medina) and his own individuation. A hairdresser with the talent of a drag performer, he assumes the role of Viva in the weekend cabaret. As warm and open as his father is detached and somber, Jesus is a likeable protagonist with the vulnerability and dedication to follow his dream, that no wonder the film made the Oscar shortlist in 2016.

Evil Does Not Exist begins a simple enough parable about the dangers of disrupting the delicate balance of nature, particularly through capitalistic greed. It’s easy to follow and root for the right characters, while the majestic views of rural Japan and the curious ways the film is edited (all abrupt musical cuts and shaky cameras) add to the movie’s charm. But fans of director Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy) know better than to trust a seemingly straightforward path, which is of course not what you get in Evil Does Not Exist. The film takes a turn for the supernatural, maybe too late in its run, but it’s beguiling and thought-provoking nonetheless. It’s worth watching for many reasons, but the jarring realization that you might not know what this film—and indeed life—is really about is the true highlight.

Education is a human right, but for many girls around the world, this isn’t necessarily guaranteed– especially if they want to learn past the required years of basic education. Yuni is a coming-of-age drama that depicts a girl in West Java, Indonesia who wants to go to university, but due to the marriage and virginity culture in the area, her main problem isn’t having to pass the entrance exams, or figuring out how to get financial aid. Instead, it’s having to fend off marriage proposals that clearly don’t come from a place of love. Writer-director Kamila Andini depicts the titular protagonist with the freedoms rarely granted to a girl like her, with the happiness and belonging all girls should be able to find solace in, but she also depicts the casual ways oppression lingers in the background, with society just waiting to kill women’s dreams, hopes, and personal goals. Yuni is an honest and powerful portrait of many women around the globe.

Divorce is hard, even with a fairly civil separation and moving to another place entirely free from the divorced parent. The main emotional stakes are usually carried by the parent, but even then, children have some stake in this relationship, seeing that this permanently affects their relationship with both parents and any siblings they may have. I Wish tackles a separated family through the kids’ eyes– taking a rumored wish-making pair of bullet trains to get their family together, but in the optimistic reality kids tend to have, rather than a fantastical fairytale adventure. Through Hirokazu Kore-eda’s frames, and the precocious real life brothers portraying the main duo, I Wish effectively balances its hopeful tone all throughout, capturing the kids’ hopes and dreams in an endearing, but not overly sentimental, way.