Genre: Foreign Movies

Writing on cinema from beyond the English-speaking world — the films, traditions, and voices that tell their stories in other tongues.

  • Oldboy (2003) Cover

    Oldboy (2003)

    Park Chan-wook's 2003 Korean revenge film. Oh Dae-su imprisoned 15 years in one room. The hammer hallway take. Peak of Park's vengeance trilogy.
    Foreign Movies • Thriller
    May 17, '26
  • Spirited Away (2001) Cover

    Spirited Away (2001)

    Miyazaki's 2001 fantasy. A ten-year-old girl trapped in a bathhouse for spirits. First non-English Best Animated Feature Oscar winner.
    Animated • Foreign Movies
    May 17, '26
  • Princess Mononoke (1997) Cover

    Princess Mononoke (1997)

    Miyazaki's 1997 environmental fantasy. Iron age Japan, forest gods, no clear villain. The film that defined Studio Ghibli's mature period for Western audiences.
    Animated • Foreign Movies
    May 17, '26
  • Grave of the Fireflies (1988) Cover

    Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

    Takahata's 1988 Studio Ghibli WWII drama. Two siblings starve in firebombed Japan. The animation widely cited as the most devastating ever made.
    Animated • Foreign Movies
    May 17, '26
  • Battle Royale (2000) Cover

    Battle Royale (2000)

    Fukasaku's 2000 teen-survival film. Junior high students sent to an island to kill each other. The source The Hunger Games stole from and softened.
    Foreign Movies • Thriller
    May 17, '26
  • Yojimbo (1961) Cover

    Yojimbo (1961)

    Kurosawa's 1961 samurai-noir. Mifune as the masterless ronin who plays two factions against each other. Direct source for Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing.
    Foreign Movies • Samurai
    May 17, '26
  • 13 Assassins (2010) Cover

    13 Assassins (2010)

    Takashi Miike's 2010 samurai siege film. Forty-five minute climax. Pairs with Seven Samurai as the modern remake the genre needed.
    Foreign Movies • Samurai
    May 17, '26
  • Harakiri (1962) Cover

    Harakiri (1962)

    Kobayashi's 1962 anti-samurai film. A ronin requests ritual suicide at a clan's gate. The most ruthless dismantling of bushido ever committed to film.
    Foreign Movies • Samurai
    May 17, '26
  • High and Low (1963) Cover

    High and Low (1963)

    Kurosawa's 1963 kidnapping procedural. Mifune as the shoe executive. First hour in one room, then the film cracks open. Adapted from an Ed McBain novel.
    Crime • Foreign Movies
    May 17, '26
  • Throne of Blood (1957) Cover

    Throne of Blood (1957)

    Kurosawa's 1957 Macbeth set in feudal Japan. Mifune as Washizu. The arrow finale is among the most committed practical-effects sequences ever filmed.
    Foreign Movies • Samurai
    May 17, '26
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