SWEDEN

1. MY LIFE AS A DOG

Director: Lasse Halstrom

Year: 1985

Awards/Recognition: Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film Winner

Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film Nominee

BAFTA Best Film Nominee

Summary: Ingemar spends his summer in his Uncle's place when his sick mother couldn't take care of him and his older brother anymore. Ingemar learns a lot of lessons an ordinary boy could ever get.

Ratings/Comments: I am actually expecting a lot from this film because I have been a lover of heartwarming mellow dramas about kids and their nostalgic childhood that will give bittersweet smile on your face. It fell of a bit short for me, though the film generally has a good form.

9/10

RUSSIA

1. BURNT BY THE SUN

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov

Year: 1994

Awards/Recognition: Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize Winner
Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film Winner

Summary: A colonel who happens to be an exalted Russian War hero relaxes with his family in a countryside. Adorable as he is, he finds the people surrounding him adorable in so diverse ways.

Comments/Ratings: TBA

2. PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS

 Director: Segei Bodrov


Year: 1996


Awards/Recognitions: Nika Awards Best Film and Best Director Winners
European Film Awards Outstanding Single Achievement
Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film Nominee
Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film Nominee

Summary:  Two soldiers are caught and kept captive by Chechen Mountains. The two try to execute a plan of escape.

Ratings/Comments: TBA

JAPAN

1. DEPARTURES

Year: 2008

Director: Yojiro Takita

Awards/Recognition: Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film Winner

Japan Academy Prize Best Picture Winner
Golden Rooster Awards Best Picture Winner

Summary: After a dissolved philharmonic orchestra, Daigo finds himself appreciating one of the most under-appreciated job. The job of preparing a dead person on his coffin. 


Ratings/Comments:
Luscious and emotionally succulent, Departures shows a beautiful and sweet understanding of death. Currently ranked 2nd out of all the films of all time, all genre and all nation that I have watched and the best 21st century film at least for me. See my complete review here.
9.9/10

CZECH REPUBLIC

1. KOLYA

Director: Jan Sverak

Year: 1996

Awards/Recognition: Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film Winner

Golden Globe Awards Best Foreign Language Film Winner

Summary: The film is about a concert cellist whose life is about to change by a five year old boy who doesn't speak his language.

Ratings/Comments:

TBA

SOUTH KOREA

1. HANSEL AND GRETEL

Director: Pil-Sung Yim

Year: 2007

Awards/Recognitions: International Film Fantasy Film Special Jury Award

Orient Express Section Grand Prize

Summary: The film is about Eun-Soo who after a car accident found himself in a house with curse he never expected happening to the family living in it.

Ratings/Comments:
TBA 

2. THE HOST

Director: Bong Joon-Ho

Year: 2006

Awards/Recognition:  Asian Film Award Best Film Winner
Blue Dragon Awards Best Film Winner

Summary: A monster attacking the city bewilders everyone where it comes from.

Ratings/Comments: TBA

USA

1. ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Director:Tim Burton
 

Year: 2010

Summary: 13 years later, Alice goes back to Wonderland as she is believed to be the only savior of the mystique land against the terror dragon owned by the evil Red Queen.


Ratings/Comments: TBA

2. AVATAR

Director: James Cameron

Year: 2009

Awards/Recognition:Golden Globe Awards Best Picture and Best Director Winners

Academy Awards Best Picture, Best Director Nominee

Summary: The film is set to 2154 when a military mining is being operated on a world called Pandora somewhere in the Alpha Centauri system.

Comments/Ratings:
TBA

3. BURN AFTER READING

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Year: 2008


Awards/Recognitions: Golden Globe Best Picture Musical or Comedy Nominee

Summary: Two fitness gym instructors ignorantly set themselves into a blackmail using a memoirs of a terminated Crime Intelligence agent. 

Ratings/Comments:
Highly entertaining, outrageously intelligent, one of the best Hollywood Movies of 2008.
9/10

4. BLINDNESS

Director: Fernando Meirelles

Year:2008


Awards/Recognitions:

Summary: An anonymous city is plagued by an unexplainable blindness. The city doctor who is supposed to take care of the city people and his family has not been spared from the acute disease.

Ratings/Comments: TBA

5. FAST FOOD NATION

Director: Richard Linklater

Year:2006


Awards/Recognitions: Cannes Film Festival Palm d'Or Nominee

Summary: A fast food chain executive receives a report that their "Big One" hamburger contains fecal matters. He sets his feet to the slaughter house and learns about the horror the previous employees of him have left.


Ratings/Comments: TBA

6. THE PIANIST

 
Director: Roman Polanski


Year: 2002


Awards/Recognition: Cannes Film Festival Palm d'Or Winner
BAFTA Best Film Winner
Cesar Awards Best Film
Academy Awards Best Actor (Adrien Brody) and Best Director Winners
Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Summary: The film is about the famous Polish-Jewish pianist and his survival of the second world war that shattered his life.


Ratings/Comment: TBA

SPAIN

1. THE SEA INSIDE

Director: Alejandro Amenabar

Year: 2004

Awards/Recognition: Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film Winner

Golden Globe Awards Best Foreign Language Film Winner

Cesar Awards Best Foreign Film Winner

European Film Awards Best Director and Best Actor (Javier Bardem) Winners

Goya Awards Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress (Lola Duenas), Best Screenplay Winners

Summary: The film is a real-life story of Ramon Sampedro who initiated the campaign of euthanasia and apply it to his own life after being paralyzed.

Ratings/Comments:
The least that I can do for director Alejandro Amenabar and his cinematographer is to give them a standing ovation for the delicate and sensual cinematic experience they provided. However, taking everything into consideration, Ramon's apathy for his past, his charisma engulfing feminism, and most especially what the film is trying to pacify--the drastic change from traditional to modern is quite too much to be taken care of its peaceful cinematography. I feel uncomfortable most of the time.
8.8/10

2. THE ORPHANAGE

 


Director: Juan Antonio Bayona

Year: 2007

Awards/Recognition: Goya Awards Best Picture Nominee
Goya Awards Best Actress Nominee--Belen Rueda
London Film Critics Association Best Foreign Language Film Nominee

 
Summary: Laura buys the orphanage she used to live in when she was young. Her son starts to tell her about some friends he can only see until one day her son is gone. The search for his son discloses a lot of secrets about the orphanage she fortunately had left.


Ratings/Comments:
The mother and son story interestingly gives a sumptuous heart in this sumptuous horror movie that is beautifully photographed. The childishness of the son and of the ghosts trapped in the orphanage are fearful and engaging yet lovable.
8.3/10