Awards
Academy Award - Best International Feature Film Nominees
Sciuscià
At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride...
The life of Vincent de Paul, the 17th-century author and priest who founded two religious orders, is dramatized.
Pierre, un homme recherché par la police française pour le meurtre de sa maîtresse, débarque clandestinement dans le port de Gênes en Italie. Aidé par Cecchina, une petite fille, il fait bientôt la rencontre de la mère de celle-ci, Marta...
Rashômon
In ancient Japan a crime take place as told from three different travelers who have experienced the crime: a man being killed and his wife being raped. Which if any of the stories is true? A Akira Kurosawa film about morals, truth, and communication.
Au cours de l'exode de juin 1940 en France, un convoi de civils est mitraillé. Paulette, cinq ans, perd ses parents et se met à errer dans la campagne, serrant dans ses bras le cadavre de son chien. Dans les bois, elle rencontre Michel, un garçon de dix ans, qui l'emmène vivre dans la ferme de ses parents.
Jigokumon
Japan, 1159. Moritō, a brave samurai, performs a heroic act by rescuing the lovely Kesa during a violent uprising. Moritō falls in love with her, but becomes distraught when he finds out that she is married.
Starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi Miyamoti, this first film in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy won a 1956 Honorary Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Mayamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior. In the film's bracing climax, Miyamoto finally gets a chance to prove himself.
La strada
With this poetically fabulous film classic Italian director Federico Fellini makes a world wide success of emotional melodrama and a highlight of the Italian Neo-realism movement.
A young shoemaker is arrested for stealing a small amount of money, and is jailed for fifteen years. Upon his release, he wants to get a permit to get a job and start anew, but finds that without a job he can't get a permit, and without a permit he can't get a job. Ensnared in the absurd net of Prussian bureaucracy, he can't see any way out. Tha...
Gervaise
An adaptation of Émile Zola’s 1877 masterpiece L’assommoir, the film is an uncompromising depiction of a lowly laundress’s struggles to deal with an alcoholic husband while running her own business.
In Burma during the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier separated from his unit disguises himself as a Buddhist monk to escape imprisonment as a POW.
Qivitoq
A young teacher, Eva Nygaard, arrives in Greenland from Denmark to surprise her fiancé, the Doctor Erik Halsøe, but is crushed to find he has not waited for her and he is about to be married to his assisting nurse. Eva travels to a small fishing village to await the next ship back to Denmark. There she enters into a tense and often confrontation...
Rome, 1957. A woman, Cabiria, is robbed and left to drown by her boyfriend, Giorgio. Rescued, she resumes her life and tries her best to find happiness in a cynical world. Even when she thinks her struggles are over and she has found happiness and contentment, things may not be what they seem.
A serial killer terrorizes Hamburg, Germany, during World War II. When the local police can't seem to catch him, the SS is brought into the case.
Porte des Lilas
Pour échapper à la police, Barbier, un gangster, trouve refuge chez un chanteur anarchiste surnommé "L'Artiste". Cette arrivée va bouleverser l'existence de Juju, un copain de "L'Artiste". Pilier de bistrot, Juju veut à tout prix devenir le protecteur de Barbier, dont il admire l'audace et le succès auprès des femmes.
Mother India
Mother India is an Indian film from director Mehboob Khan from 1957 and is the most successful and popular Hindi film.
Ni liv
The movie takes place during World War II and depicts the true story of Jan Baalsruds amazing escape from the German army from the coast of Northern Norway and across the border to the neutral country Sweden.
Mon oncle
With many idea rich comic situations French director Jacques Tati uses his poetic ways and knowledge of the discrepancy between heart and technique to tell a gentle business satiric tale that won him the Oscar for best foreign film in 1959.
Helden
1865: Swiss captain Bluntschli fights as mercenary in the war between Bulgaria and Serbia. When his group's attacked by a few Bulgarian troopers, he learns that he's got the wrong ammunition for his cannon and has to flee. His flight leads him right into the bedroom of his enemy's fiancée.
La venganza
After spending ten years in prison for a crime he did not commit, John is free. He is determined to kill Luis "The Twisted", which believes that is the blame for his misfortunes, but as he needs money, he has no choice than to work for their enemy.
Italian director Giuseppe DeSantis was the creative force behind this Yugoslavian "slice of life" drama. The title translates as The Year-Long Road and, accordingly, the plot concerns a voluntary joint effort to construct a highway. Naturally, this animosity wreaks havoc on the various Romeo-Juliet romances in the region.
I soliti ignoti
Peppe, formerly a boxer, organizes the break-in of a pawnshop. Tiberio, an unemployed photographer, Mario, a receiver, the Sicilian Michele and Capannelle, an ex-jockey, are the other members of the gang. Though they are advised by Dante, a retired burglar, the task is not so easy...
Orfeu Negro
Young lovers Orfeu and Eurydice run through the favelas of Rio during Carnaval, on the lam from a hitman dressed like Death and Orfeu's vengeful fiancée Mira and passing between moments of fantasy and stark reality. This impressionistic retelling of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice introduced bossa nova to the world with its soundtrack b...
Die Brücke
A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge.
La grande guerra
Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.
Paw
In this youthful adventure, a young orphan is sent to live in a Danish village where he is cast out because his mother was a West Indian. With nowhere to turn, the ingenious survivor begins devising a new life outside of town.
An independent-thinking doctor in a rural community with his own ideas of how medicine should be practiced begins to find himself ostracized from the community after one of his patients commits suicide.
Jungfrukällan
Set in beautiful 14th century Sweden, it is the somber, powerful fable of peasant parents whose daughter, a young virgin, is brutally raped and murdered by goat herders. By a bizarre twist of fate, the murderers ask for food and shelter from the dead girl's parents, who, discovering the truth about their erstwhile lodgers, exact a chilling revenge.
Kapò
A young Jewish girl leads an escape attempt from a concentration camp.
La vérité
A liberated small-town girl stands on trial to determine whether she killed her lover in a crime of passion or in premeditation.
Macario
Poor, hungry peasant Macario longs for just one good meal on the Day of the Dead. After his wife cooks a turkey for him, he meets three apparitions, the Devil, God, and Death. Each asks him to share his turkey, but he refuses all except Death. In return, Death gives him a bottle of water which will heal any illness. Soon, Macario is more wealthy...
Deveti krug
In order to save friend's daughter, a 17-year-old Jewish girl from the Ustashas, Croatian family arranges her to be wed to their son Ivo.
Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger brother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his...
A gentle comedy offering the promise of easy social consensus. Harry (Helmuth) is a simple old-time shop porter offered a chance at self-realisation when he's bequeathed a sum by an unknown relative (via several levels of fiscal blood suckers). He decides to engage a butler to take good care of him for a time. This is a man of distinguished uppe...
Eien no hito
A young woman is forced by circumstance into a loveless marriage while still in love with another. This episodic tale follows their story through three decades of bitter conflict which engulfs their children and those around them.
Animas Trujano is a colorful but irresponsible Indian in a small Mexican village. He hopes above all things someday to be chosen mayordomio of his village, a place of great honor usually conferred upon the wealthiest and most respected citizens. Animas has a loyal wife, but cheats on her and gambles away every cent they raise. Chances arise for ...
Plácido
An ill-advised charity campaign encouraging wealthy citizens to break bread with the less fortunate sweeps across a small industrial Spanish town on Christmas Eve.
The tragic story of a young orphan girl who is befriended by an innocent but emotionally disabled veteran of the French Indochina War.
Ilektra
Living in exile after their father's death, the children of an usurped and murdered king converge to exact eye-for-an-eye revenge.
September 1943. After Italy surrenders to the Allies, people in Naples believe the war is finally over, but soon they realize Germans are still in control — and as ruthless as ever. Armed with makeshift weapons, civilians rise up en masse against the invaders — and overwhelming odds.
Zé is a very poor man whose most prized possession is his donkey. When his donkey falls terminally ill, Zé makes a promise to Saint Bárbara: If his donkey recovers, he will carry a cross - like Jesus - all the way from his city to Saint Bárbara's church, in the state capital. Upon the recovery of his donkey, Zé leaves on his journey. He makes it...
Tlayucan
A man becomes a thief out of desperation. If his identity becomes known, his neighbours might lynch him. The only friendly face in town is the local priest.
8½
With 8 ½ Frederico Fellini leaves a self-portrait where dreams and reality are a mix. With help from a most excellent cast and unique scenery this self reflecting film is one of his master works.
Nóz w wodzie
A couple pick up a hitchhiker on the way to their yacht. The husband invites the young man to come along for their day's sailing. As the voyage progresses, the antagonism between the two men grows. A violent confrontation is inevitable.
Los tarantos
Gypsy Romeo and Juliet: A boy and a girl from rival families fall in love.
Koto
In this Japanese drama, a dry goods merchant's daughter is surprised to discover that she has a twin sister. In rural Japan it was thought that twins bring bad luck, so the sister was abandoned at birth. Later her parents tell her that her sister was kidnapped. The woman doesn't believe this and when she eventually meets her twin, both women are...
Three tales of very different women using their sexuality as a means to getting what they want.
Kvarteret Korpen
In the middle of this film, about the working class in pre-world war II Sweden, is Anders who wishes to become an author. His father who is a notorious dreamer and liar, and his mother, who struggles to keep their family alive.