100 Best Foreign Movies on Tubi Right Now

100 Best Foreign Movies on Tubi Right Now

October 23, 2024

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When you get free streaming, all in exchange for just a few ads, it can be a little hard to believe that Tubi would have a great selection. Yet, for some reason, their library, one of the largest among all streaming sites, is packed with rare, hidden gems that you can’t find anywhere else. And on top of these, these films aren’t just limited to American-made films, the selection includes great titles from all over the world. So if you’re willing to get over the subtitles and watch something out of your comfort zone, all for free, here’s the best foreign films on Tubi:

51. Death of Nintendo (2020)

7.5

Country

Philippines, United States of America

Director

Raya Martin

Actors

Agot Isidro, Elijah Alejo, Jigger Sementilla, John Vincent Servilla

Moods

Character-driven, Lighthearted, Slice-of-Life

Unlike in other films that only seem to evoke a previous era to make a target demographic feel warm and fuzzy inside, there’s something vaguely artificial about Death of Nintendo’s air of nostalgia—which is exactly what helps it tell its story. There isn’t anything particularly novel about this movie’s plot or characters, but Raya Martin’s direction has us consider various themes between all the stuff you’d expect to see in a young adult movie. In moments of quiet unease that seem to punctuate every other sequence, we’re drawn towards the absence of father figures, the inability of the women to get through to their sons (already embedded in patriarchal customs), and the idea that one’s childhood in a Catholic country seems to be marked by physical pain. Beyond the film’s feathery lighting and colorful production design, there’s a surprising amount to think about.

52. Be with You (2018)

7.5

Country

South Korea

Director

Lee Jang-hoon

Actors

Bae Yoo-ram, Gong Hyo-jin, Jo Ha-seok, Kim Hyun-soo

Moods

Character-driven, Emotional, Heart-warming

When a woman that looks like the love of your life randomly shows up at an empty train station, but strangely has no memory of you, maybe you should try to confirm their identity first– doppelgangers do exist, after all. But aside from this detail, there’s a certain charm in the way Be With You unfolds, as the family gets a second chance to cherish a loved one, and as Woo-jin indulges in sharing their love story, a story that Woo-jin understandably doesn’t want to forget. Be With You doesn’t reinvent the entire genre, and it would inevitably be compared to the 2004 Japanese original, but this Korean remake does it so well, celebrating the way love transcends lifetimes.

53. Breathe (2014)

7.4

Country

France

Director

Female director, Julien Lambroschini

Actors

Alejandro Albarracin, Anne Marivin, Camille Claris, Carole Franck

Moods

Thrilling, Touching

Mélanie Laurent both directed and wrote this, her fifth movie.

She offers an impressive display of deft film-making and honest, insightful storytelling. Charlie is a teenage high school student, there’s seemingly nothing unusual about her. When Sarah, a Nigerian girl, joins her school, they quickly form a transformative friendship.

Breathe sometimes veers to darkness, which helps to make its portrayal of the bond between two teenagers genuine, and unexpectedly fun.

54. Non essere cattivo (2017)

7.4

Country

Italy

Director

Claudio Caligari

Actors

Alessandro Bernardini, Alessandro Borghi, Angelica Cacciapaglia, Elisabetta De Vito

Moods

Action-packed, Raw, True-crime

Two best friends chase the ultimate high in this Italian movie set in the 90s. Vittorio and Cesare are inseparable, they get in trouble together, fight together, and party together. Suddenly, they start moving at different speeds and one of them wants out, effectively abandoning the other. 

Don’t be Bad is director Claudio Caligari’s last movie before his death, the last installment in his catalog of well-crafted drug-centered stories.

55. Border (2018)

7.4

Country

Belgium, Denmark, France

Director

Ali Abbasi

Actors

Andreas Kundler, Ann Petrén, Åsa Janson, Donald Högberg

Moods

Dark, Intense, Weird

If you like: weird movies and / or Scandinavian mythology, this movie is for you. It’s about unusual looking border agent with super-human abilities (such as smelling fear and shame) who meets someone like her for the first time There is a big revelation in Border that I can’t share but while this movie was directed by an Iranian (Ali Abbasi), it’s deeply rooted in Swedish folklore. Themes of identity, gender, and otherness intersect through a thrilling script and beautifully-shot nature scenes.

56. Heartstone (2017)

7.4

Country

Denmark, Iceland

Director

Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson

Actors

Baldur Einarsson, Blær Hinriksson, Diljá Valsdóttir, Katla Njálsdóttir

Moods

Slice-of-Life

This coming-of-age drama is set in a remote fishing village in Iceland. It follows a group of boys during a summer who catch a break from the harsh Icelandic nature. They spend a lot of time outdoors bonding together and discovering themselves.

One of the boys develops feelings for his best friend, Kristian, while Kristian chases a girl.

Watching the boys wrestle with their growth in this wasteland playground is amazing, but the shots of fjords, beautiful coastline, and living so in touch with nature, all of that almost steals the show.

57. Microhabitat (2017)

7.4

Country

South Korea

Director

Female director, Jeon Go-woon

Actors

Ahn Jae-hong, An Jae-hong, Cho Soo-hyang, Choi Deok-moon

Moods

Character-driven, Depressing, Dramatic

Miso may be living day to day on her meager earnings as a cleaner, but she is decidedly content. She insists that all she needs to get by are cigarettes, whiskey, and time with her boyfriend, so when a spike in rent and prices invites her to reassess her priorities, she doesn’t budge. Instead of forgoing these luxuries, she gives up her tiny place and couch surfs with her old bandmates. What follows is a reunion of sorts, where darkly humorous epiphanies are had on both ends about adulthood, responsibilities, and what it really means to be happy in an increasingly indifferent, profit-oriented world.  

Microhabitat treads on very grave themes, and the images it conjures can be unsettling. But it is also surprisingly light on its feet, displaying sharp satire and sweet empathy for its unyielding protagonist. Miso is portrayed with a smartness and softness that evades rational judgment, and this endearment makes the story, especially the ending, all the more painfulul, poignant, and impactful.

58. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021)

7.4

Country

Belgium, Cambodia, France

Director

Arthur Harari

Actors

Angeli Bayani, Chiba Tetsuya, Issey Ogata, Kai Inowaki

Moods

Character-driven, Raw, True-story-based

It’s an incredible story, but it’s one that only really deserves to be told a certain way, which director Arthur Harari gets right. Onoda’s one-man crusade to continue World War II is nothing short of delusional, and Harari spends most of the film following the soldier as his companions die one by one, worsening his delusions even further. Unfortunately, even with how impressively strange this story is, 10,000 Nights in the Jungle still misses the opportunity to look through the lens of Onoda’s victims. He is, after all, a literal embodiment of colonization’s lingering effects, so it’s sad that the Philippines here is just window dressing more than anything.

59. Mario (2018)

7.4

Country

Switzerland

Director

Marcel Gisler

Actors

Aaron Altaras, Beat Marti, Doro Müggler, Jessy Moravec

Moods

Character-driven, Depressing, Discussion-sparking

When striving towards your life goal, some concessions have to be made in order to get there, e.g. you would forgo some wants in order to fulfill that higher purpose. But how much are you willing to sacrifice? Mario is a sports drama about an aspiring football player that wants to make it higher up in the league, but it’s also a queer drama, since to be that professional means to stick to a rigid notion of masculinity for the fans, for the sponsors, and sometimes for fellow homophobic teammates competing against them. At two hours, the naturalistic depiction of Mario’s experience might be a tad too long for some viewers, but the film understands the fear, the pressure, and the compromises gay athletes are forced to go through.

60. Marshland (2014)

7.4

Country

Spain

Director

Alberto Rodríguez

Actors

Adelfa Calvo, Ana Tomeno, Ángela Vega, Antonio de la Torre

Moods

Challenging, Character-driven, Dark

When a regime falls, what follows isn’t a clean slate– it lingers, and it haunts those that were able to survive, part due to what was done to them and part to what they have done. Marshland ostensibly is a police procedural investigating a series of women murdered in rural Spain, but it’s also a clash of ideologies between New Spain, that wants to unearth the injustices that haven’t been acknowledged, and Old Spain, that wants to let sleeping dogs lie. The two plot threads don’t weave together as neatly as it could be, but La Isla Minima still works on both fronts, recreating that feeling of betrayal within that key transition period of Spain.

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