The top 50 foreign films of all time

Day of Wrath (1943)

Carl Theodor Dreyer's soul-shattering tale of a 17th-century witch hunt bears all the unsettling hallmarks of being filmed under Nazi occupation. An old woman in a small Danish village is accused of occultism, resulting in her fiery demise and some equally inflamed accusations among the survivors. The fervor is as much sexual as spiritual—it's impossible to shake the impassioned curse that the beautiful Anne (Lisbeth Movin) bestows on her pastor husband.—Keith Uhlich

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Viridiana (1961)

Luis Buñuel never met a sacred cow he didn't want to grill into a medium-rare steak, and the director's all-out assault on his bête noire—Catholicism—is a virtual buffet of blasphemy. Invited back to Spain after a professional exile, the filmmaker rewarded Franco's government with a scathing tale of a saintly woman whose piety brings her endless pain. The movie's parody of The Last Supper alone was enough to warrant the Vatican banning the satire—which made Buuel's subsequent career revival and win at Cannes that year all the sweeter.—David Fear

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Andrei Rublev (1966)

After pretty much inventing the idea of modern montage in silent classics like Battleship Potemkin, the filmmakers of the Soviet Union beat a sad retreat during the Stalinist era. Andrei Tarkovsky's colossal epic is about the nature of artistic freedom itself: The plot is loosely based on the life of a 15th-century Christian-icon painter whose work transcended politics. Naturally, Tarkovsky himself got into hot water, but his film—initially banned—was worth it.—Joshua Rothkopf

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The Seven Samurai (1954)

A quiet Japanese village is under siege by bandits. The rural residents hire a septet of warriors to defend them. Simple, right? Yet Akira Kurosawa's game-changing chanbara turns that basic concept into one of the greatest, grandest action films of all time. This sword-clashing spectacle not only gave future moviemakers a highly malleable plot (it's been used for everything from The Magnificent Seven to A Bug's Life). It also proved that Hollywood didn't have a lock on vast, visceral epics of courage under fire.—David Fear

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Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

The tradition-shattering innovations of the French New Wave don't belong to only Godard and Truffaut. Director Alain Resnais made his mark with this elegiac black-and-white masterpiece. Emmanuelle Riva plays a French woman in devastated present-day Hiroshima, whose affair with a Japanese man unlocks memories of her relationship with a German soldier. But that barely hints at the film's intoxicating aural-visual interplay, which collapses time and space with overwhelming virtuosity.—Keith Uhlich

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In the Mood for Love (2000)

Our highest-ranking film from the past three decades, Wong Kar-wai's tremulous near-romance should rightly take its place as one the signature works of atmospheric longing. At its core are two exquisitely beautiful people, rakish pulp writer Tony Leung and maritally alienated Maggie Cheung, who tentatively swirl around each other in a sweltering apartment complex in 1960s Hong Kong. Suffused with Christopher Doyle's lush color cinematography and the crooning voice of Nat King Cole, the movie celebrates style and passion in bloom.—Joshua Rothkopf

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The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)

Germany's Rainer Werner Fassbinder tore a feverish path through the world's art houses, making 40 films (and acting in nearly 40, too) before dying of a drug overdose at age 37. Such manic appetites led to a supremely uncompromising cinema, with more impact today than on its initial release. This movie, a tortured power game between a fashion designer and her younger, female model, has become a classic passive-aggressive text, a postmodern All About Eve.—Joshua Rothkopf

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

As explosive as ever, Gillo Pontecorvo's Italian-made thriller charts the guerrilla uprising against the colonial French in northern Africa, a war waged via rioting, street violence, assassinations and caf bombings. Technically, the movie is as gripping as any Hollywood blockbuster, putting its mark on everything from The French Connection to Michael Mann's The Insider. But it's a 2003 Pentagon screening of the film that spoke volumes to its undeniable authority.—Joshua Rothkopf

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Grand Illusion (1937)

Anyone can condemn war; it takes an artist to express that sentiment poetically rather than pedantically. That's exactly what Jean Renoir does with this brilliant plea for peace. His tale of French soldiers trying to escape from WWI prison camps set the standard for every POW movie that followed, but its true currency lies in the way "honorable" battle had became a casualty. Released between two global conflicts, the movie had a message that was immediately relevant—and is maybe more so today.—David Fear

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Open City (1945)

By the mid-'40s, Italian films had begun portraying everyday people in a more vrit fashion. But Roberto Rosselini's groundbreaking tale of life after wartime was the first to politicize a raw, you-are-there aesthetic—and thus became the template for every neorealist film to come. That famous shot of streetwalker Anna Magnani being gunned down is more than just an emotionally overwhelming moment; it's emblematic of a revolution that changed the art form.—David Fear