General Audience Film Recommendations
for ages 16 and older.
Below is a list of some of our favorite films from series past, as well as some recent international films that we’ve loved, but weren’t able to show. Click on the film name for a streaming link to the film (usually Amazon, Netflix, Vimeo, or YouTube, which are sometimes offered for free if you subscribe to the service or with a trial subscription), or you may be able to find them on alternate streaming servicess or for free on Kanopy through your local library.
Belmont World Film Faves
Directed by Fatih Akin
(Germany | 2015)
Venice Film Festival award winner. The first film to cover the events of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire that resulted in the forced migration and diaspora of the Armenian minority, co-written by the late Mardik Martin (Raging Bull).. Tahar Fahim (A Prophet) stars as a husband and father who is initially deported by the Turkish authorities from his native village and forced into punishing labor in the desert.
Directed by Jan Hrebejk
(Czech Republic | 2000)
Best Foreign Language Film Oscar Nominee. Based on the true story of a childless couple in a small German-occupied Czechoslovakian village during World War II, who struggle to evade detection when they provide shelter to a Jewish neighbor who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp.
Directed by Fatih Akin
(Germany | 2008)
Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film & Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or Winner. A complex story of intersecting lives that moves back and forth from Turkey to Germany where the hopes and dreams of the characters become intertwined in a search for love and parents. Stars Hanna Schygulla in an unforgettable performance.
Directed by Ali Rafie
(Iran | 2008)
Atieh’s singular passion is food, and her small but popular restaurant on the sleepy Caspian coast is her pride and joy. But when her former fiancé appears after a twenty-year absence, she believes he has intentions of closing the restaurant. So Atieh prepares his favorite dishes, one after the other, in a desperate effort to convince him otherwise. Stars Golshifteh Farahani.
Directed by David Gelb
(USA | 2011)
Chronicles the life of 85 year old Jiro Ono, the most famous sushi chef in Tokyo, who works from sunrise to well beyond sunset to taste every piece of fish, meticulously train his employees, and carefully mold and finesse the impeccable presentation of each sushi creation. Although his restaurant only seats ten diners, it has earned three Michelin stars.
Directed by Tian-Ming Wu
(China | 1999)
In 1930s Shanghai, the skills of the king of masks, a rare master of an ancient art, are sought out by the most beloved star of the esteemed Sichuan Chinese Opera. But tradition dictates that the aging master’s trade only be passed on to a male heir. Desperate for his art to survive, he finds an apprentice in a destitute child purchased on the black market. When the child reveals an unexpected secret, their relationship is suddenly tested by both the old man’s stubborn sense of tradition and the China’s established customs.
Directed by Phillippe Falardeau
(Canada | 2011)
Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. Tells the poignant story of a Montreal middle school class shaken by the death of their well-liked teacher. Monsieur Lazhar, a 55-year-old Algerian immigrant, offers the school his services as a substitute teacher and is quickly hired. As he helps the children heal, he also learns to accept his own painful past.
Directed by Fabián Bielinsky
(Argentina | 2002)
Two small-time swindlers, team up after meeting in a convenience store and become involved in a half million-dollar deal. As the deceptions and duplicity mount, it becomes more and more difficult to figure out who is conning whom. Stars renowned Argetine actor Ricardo Darin.
Directed by Zhang Yimou
(China | 2001)
The predecessor to director Yimou’s Oscar-nominated The House of Flying Daggers. A Chinese man from the city returns to the village where he was born when his father dies. His elderly mother insists that all the traditional burial customs be observed, despite the fact that times have changed. He spends three days with his mother, thinking back to the period in which his parents met and fell in love.
Directed by Beat Schlatter
(Switzerland | 2017)
In order to get out of a financial crisis an out-of-luck high school teacher starts recruiting and training streakers and setting up bets on how long a streaker can stay on the soccer field. If you want to laugh your head off, watch this!
Directed by Martin Butler & Bentley Dean
(Australia | 2016)
Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. About the universally transformative power of love and the transition from old ways to the new among the Yakel tribe of the Vanuatu Islands in the Pacific. Based on a true story and performed by the Yakel, one of a number of tribes that have held on to their fully traditional lifestyle.
Directed by Khyentse Norbu
(Bhutan | 2005)
A young government official obsessed with America dreams of escaping there while stuck in a beautiful but isolated village in Bhutan. He hopes to get a visa to the U.S. He misses the one bus out of town to Thimphu, however, and is forced to hitchhike and walk along the a long road through the Himalayas to the west, accompanied by an apple seller, a Buddhist monk with his ornate, dragon-headed dramyin, a drunk, a widowed rice paper maker, and his beautiful daughter.
Films We Love but Haven’t Shown
Directed by Anne Fontaine
(France, Poland | 2016)
In 1945 Poland, a young French Red Cross doctor who is sent to assist the survivors of the German camps discovers several nuns in advanced states of pregnancy during a visit to a nearby convent.
Directed by Ofir Raul Graizer
(Israel | 2017)
Oscar Submission Best Foreign Language Film. A German pastry maker travels to Jerusalem in search of the wife and son of his dead lover.
Directed by Ciro Guerra
(Colombia | 2016)
Best Foreign Language Film Oscar Nominee. The story of the relationship between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his people, and two scientists who work together over the course of forty years to search the Amazon for a sacred healing plant.
Directed by Ruben Ostland
(Sweden | 2014)
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival. During a skiing holiday in the French Alps a model Swedish family is caught in avalanche during lunch. The husband makes a decision that will shake his marriage to its core and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as family patriarch.
Directed by Jan Hrebejk
(Czech Republic | 2000)
Best Foreign Language Film Oscar Nominee. Based on the true story of a childless couple in a small German-occupied Czechoslovakian village during World War II, who struggle to evade detection when they provide shelter to a Jewish neighbor who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp.
Directed by Fatih Akin
(Germany | 2005)
Double award winner at the Berlin Film Festival. A passionate and erotic love story between two self-destructive individuals, who are forced into a marriage of convenience, only to find that love can be a reason to live.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
(Canada | 2010)
Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. International actress Lubna Azabal plays a dying Middle Eastern woman living in Montreal, who leaves separate letters to her twin children to be read once she passes away. The siblings then travel to the Middle East separately, where they each uncover a startling family history and have revelations about themselves.
Directed by Ziad Doueiri
(Lebanon | 2017)
Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. In today’s Beirut, an insult blown out of proportion finds a Lebanese Christian, and a Palestinian refugee in court.
Directed by Gustavo Pizzi
(Brazil | 2018)
A couple live with their four children on the outskirts of Rio de Janiero. Their teenage son has had a great season in handball and is offered the opportunity to play for a team in Germany. His departure is a shock to everyone in the family, but his mother has a particularly difficult time dealing with the impending separation from her oldest child.
Directed by Ildikó Enyedi
(Hungary | 2017)
Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. When two slaughterhouse workers discover they share the same dreams – where they meet in a forest as deer and fall in love – they decide to make their dreams come true but it’s difficult in real life.
Directed by Juan Jose Campanella
(Argentina | 2009)
Best Foreign Language Film Oscar Winner. A retired legal counselor writes a novel hoping to find closure for one of his past unresolved homicide cases and for his unreciprocated love with his superior – both of which still haunt him decades later. When Campanella is not busy directing episodes of Law & Order, he directs movies.
Directed by Ruben Ostland
(Sweden | 2017)
Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film and Palme D’or winner at the Cannes Film Festival. This satirical look at the contemporary art world focuses on a museum curator, who struggles with various personal issues, including the theft of his mobile phone and being a divorced father of two. When a controversial promotional video for an art installation is published without his knowledge, it threatens his career and sparks a debate about freedom of expression and political correctness. Features Elizabeth Moss and Dominic West.
Directed by Naji Abu Nowar
(Jordan | 2015)
Best Foreign Language Film Oscar Nominee. In 1916, Theeb lives with his Bedouin tribe in a remote part of the Ottoman Empire. When his older brother has to escort a British officer across the desert, Theeb tags along for the adventure.
Directed by Christian Petzold
(Germany | 2018)
In an attempt to flee Nazi-occupied France, a man assumes the identity of a dead author but soon finds himself stuck in Marseilles, where he falls in love with a young woman searching for her missing husband.