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When we think of a movie, it comes kinda natural to think of a Hollywood movie. And that’s logical, Hollywood movies have the biggest budgets, biggest crews, biggest marketing teams, and they get the biggest exposure. But sometimes, all of this doesn’t make the movie successful. Sometimes movies that were made in a foreign country (foreign to America) are so good and their story is just purely mesmerizing that all of Hollywood is forgotten. This article is for those mesmerizing foreign language movies that won Oscars.
This is one special category that proves that filmography isn’t about humongous budgets, breath-taking visual effects or marketing campaigns that run for several months and make us believe that it will be the best movie we have ever seen, just to deliver a disappointing movie with a lame story, a ton of visual effects and the best and most exposed actors of today basically doing nothing because they’ve stumbled in a bad-written scenario (think of Suicide Squad).
So here is to the movies that won Oscars for “Best foreign language Film of the year” in the past 10 years.
The counterfeiters (Die Fälscher)
This movie comes from Austria and it’s the story of the Operation Bernhard, the largest counterfeiting operation in history, carried out by Germany during WWII.
Departures (Okuribito)
This masterpiece comes from Japan and it’s as good as any other Oscar wining movie. Maybe even better. It’s about a newly unemployed cellist that takes a job preparing the dead for funerals. Chilling.
The secret in their eyes (el secreto de sus ojos)
This time Argentina does it. A thrilling story about a retired legal counselor who 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.
in a better world (Hævnen)
Who knew that Denmark could deliver such a story. A story about the lives of two Danish families who cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud and loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.
a separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)
Iran shakes the world with the filmed story about a married couple who are faced with a difficult decision, to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer’s disease.
Amour
Georges and Anne are an octogenarian couple. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, also a musician, lives in Britain with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple’s bond of love is severely tested. Austria is getting pretty good in doing movies.
The great beauty (La grande bellezza)
This is the first great achievement for Italy since the World Cup in 2006. A movie about Jep Gambardella, who has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades. But after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
Ida
A breathtaking story about Anna, a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland, who is on the verge
of taking her vows when she discovers a dark family secret dating back to the years of the German occupation.
Son of saul (Saul fia)
Who would think that Hungary be on this list? Yet, here they are and it’s terrific. A movie about the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, where a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival upon trying to salvage from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son.
the salesman (Forushande)
Iran once again surprises the world with a dramatic and thrilling story. While both
participating in a production of “Death of a Salesman,” a teacher’s wife is assaulted in her new home, which leaves him determined to find the perpetrator over his wife’s traumatized objections.
We are eager to see who will win the Oscar for “Best Foreign Language film” this year compared with the movies that won Oscars before. Click here to read more which superhero movies you should expect in 2018.