There are some amazing films worldwide with different plots, languages and cinematography. Some films are multilingual and feature multiple different languages or have a different language altogether. These 8 films make reading subtitles worth it. Languages featured are: French, German, Italian, Czech, Spanish and Russian, Bulgarian, Hebrew.
Psychout For Murder (1969)
Original Title: Salvare la faccia
Language: Italian
Director: Rossano Brazzi
Psychout for Murder is about a young woman who is sent to a mental hospital because her parents found her too promiscuous. After her release she begins a rampage of revenge against the family who put her there. This Italian film is unique and it's fashion is iconic. It gives the perfect femme fatale aesthetic.
Center Of My World (2016)
Original title: Die Mitte der Welt
Language: German, English
Director: Jakob M. Erwa
Center of My World is about a young man named Phil who comes back from a summer camp to see his families life is in shambles. He goes back to school and meets a new classmate named Nicholas who causes him to question his feelings towards him. This film is impressive due to the deep topics it covers along with the romance between Phil and Nicholas. Overall, it was beautifully bittersweet.
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Language: Italian, French, English, German, Hebrew
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Call Me By Your Name is about a young man named Elio who spends his summers with his family in Italy. He meets Oliver, a student who intern's for Elio's father. They share a summer love that will stay with them forever. This film has many languages in it with Italian and English being the most prominent. It's one of the most beautiful romantic films with an equally beautiful film score.
The Beautiful Person (2008)
Original title: La Belle Personne
Language: French
Director: Christophe Honoré
The Beautiful Person is about a girl named Junie who transfers to a different high school. She keeps to herself but still wins the attention of fellow students. She begins dating a student but finds herself drawn to the Italian language teacher Nemours who feels the same. This film is a little risqué but beautifully and interestingly shot.
The Dreamers (2003)
Language: English, French
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Bertolucci is known for his risqué films due to his refusal to censor his work.
"I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important."-Bertolucci
The Dreamers is about an exchange student in Paris named Matthew who befriends twins named Théo and Isabelle. Matthew begins fascinated by the closeness of the two twins who were born conjoined and they bond over cinema. When the twins parents go away for a month Matthew is asked to live with them and they lose reality while riots are happening in the streets. This film is beautiful and the cinematography is aesthetically pleasing along with a great film score.
The Little Mermaid (1976)
Original title: Русалочка
Language: Russian, Bulgarian
Director: Vladimir Bychkov
The Little Mermaid is set in the 13th century and based off of the original story of the little mermaid. In this one, it starts off the same but she keeps her voice and loses her hair color. The human legs are painful for her to have and when she meets the Prince he is getting married to a woman she befriends. Her sidekick is a handyman instead of the red crab we know from the Disney movie. This film was a unique and beautiful way to tell the tale of The Little Mermaid.
Pans Labyrinth (2006)
Language: Spanish
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Pan's Labyrinth is a dark fantasy film about a young girl named Ofelia who is living in 1944 and witnessing her stepfather's brutality. She is drawn to Pan's Labyrinth, a world with mythical creatures and a faun who is telling her she needs to past a test because they believe she is the reincarnation of a princess of the underworld. This is a hauntingly beautiful film that has amazing cinematography.
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)
Original title: Valerie a týden divů
Language: Czech
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a horror/fantasy film about a girl named Valerie who lives with her grandmother. When she puts on a pair of magic earrings she sees the world differently. Her family starts to change as a vampire priest named Gracian turns her world for the worse. This film was very different and a bit confusing. It has a great aesthetic and is beautifully strange.
The beauty of watching foreign films is experiencing a culture different from your own. The censorship is sometimes different than most Hollywood films. All of these films are impressive and aesthetically pleasing. The languages sound beautiful and the dialogue is poetic. Remember to open your mind to different cultures and experience the beauty of films in different languages.
