Foreign-language cinema has long offered a window into lives shaped by different languages, histories, and landscapes. While mainstream global culture continues to be dominated by Hollywood, these films, rooted in local realities and often shaped by political, social, or existential undercurrents, remind us of cinema’s quiet power to transcend borders.

Some are understated, others formally daring. All resist easy categorisation.

We’ve put together a list that brings together ten essential non-English language films. Each stands as a landmark of its time and place, and each offers something more enduring than spectacle.

 

1. A Separation

Asghar Farhadi | Iran, 2011

Farhadi’s drama begins with a simple premise: a couple at odds over their future, but quickly reveals a tangle of loyalties, class divisions, and ethical ambiguity. Set in modern-day Tehran, the film reflects the quiet tensions of Iranian society without offering judgment. It is meticulously constructed and profoundly human.

2. Seven Samurai

Akira Kurosawa | Japan, 1954

Kurosawa’s epic has often been cited as one of cinema’s most influential works, and for good reason. Its premise is straightforward: a village hires seven samurai to protect it from bandits. Yet what unfolds is not merely an action narrative, but a study of dignity, loss, and shifting hierarchies in post-feudal Japan.

3. In the Mood for Love

Wong Kar-wai | Hong Kong, 2000

Few films have captured the texture of longing quite like In the Mood for Love. Set in 1960s Hong Kong, it follows two neighbours who, after suspecting their spouses of infidelity, form a bond of their own. But the emotional restraint, the deliberate pacing, and the stylised visuals all conspire to say more through silence than speech.

4. Pan’s Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro | Mexico/Spain, 2006

Blending fantasy with historical memory, Pan’s Labyrinth is set in Francoist Spain and told largely through the eyes of a child. While its mythical creatures and labyrinthine quests suggest escapism, the film’s real power lies in its depiction of power, cruelty, and the cost of resistance.

5. Close-Up

Abbas Kiarostami | Iran, 1990

This quiet, genre-defying film reconstructs the real-life story of a man who impersonated the director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Merging documentary with re-enactment, Kiarostami crafts a subtle commentary on class, authorship, and the allure of identity. The film is modest in scale but formally bold, and its legacy continues to shape Iranian cinema.

6. The Lives of Others

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Germany, 2006

Set in East Berlin in the 1980s, this psychological drama centres on a Stasi officer tasked with monitoring a playwright and his partner. As the officer becomes increasingly absorbed in their lives, a slow moral reckoning unfolds. It is a film about surveillance, certainly, but more so about conscience and complicity.

7. Taste of Cherry

Abbas Kiarostami | Iran, 1997

Sparse and contemplative, Taste of Cherry follows a man as he searches for someone to assist with his own planned death. Much of the film takes place inside a car, against the arid landscapes outside Tehran. It is less concerned with narrative than with philosophical reflection on life, death, and the ambiguity of choice.

8. City of God

Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund | Brazil, 2002

This kinetic, unflinching portrayal of youth and violence in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas is based on real events. While its pacing is rapid and its editing visually arresting, what sets City of God apart is its refusal to sentimentalise its characters or their circumstances. It is both a portrait of systemic neglect and a chronicle of survival.

9. La Dolce Vita

Federico Fellini | Italy, 1960

A chronicle of post-war Rome and its social contradictions, La Dolce Vita follows a journalist drifting through parties, celebrity scandals, and moments of existential doubt. The film marked a turning point in European cinema, blending documentary realism with dreamlike interludes. At its core, it remains a reflection on meaning in an era of excess.

10. The Mirror

Andrei Tarkovsky | USSR, 1975

Less a conventional film than a cinematic poem, The Mirror resists narrative structure entirely. Drawing from Tarkovsky’s childhood, the film weaves together images of war, family, and memory. It is both elusive and deeply personal — a meditation on time, loss, and the way the past continues to echo through the present.

Also Worth Seeking Out:

1. Wild Strawberries – Ingmar Bergman

2. The Spirit of the Beehive – Víctor Erice

3. The Battle of Algiers – Gillo Pontecorvo

4. The Handmaiden – Park Chan-wook

5. Where Is the Friend’s Home? – Abbas Kiarostami

These films are not always easy. Many reject linear storytelling or tidy resolutions. But what they offer instead is something rarer: perspective shaped by different languages, philosophies, and lived histories.

Taken together, they are a quiet reminder that cinema, at its most enduring, is not simply about what we watch. It’s about how we see.