BBC's 100 Greatest Foreign Language Films Ever

The result: 100 films from 67 different directors, from 24 countries, and in 19 languages. French can claim to be the international language of acclaimed cinema: 27 of the highest-rated films were in French, followed by 12 in Mandarin, and 11 each in Italian and Japanese. At the other end of the scale, several languages were represented by just one film, such as Belarusian (Come and See), Romanian (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), and Wolof (Touki Bouki).



(25-1):

25. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)

24. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M Eisenstein, 1925)

23. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)

22. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)

21. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)

20. The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)

19. The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)

18. A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)

17. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)

16. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

15. Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)

14. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (Chantal Akerman, 1975)

13. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)

12. Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)

11. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)

10. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)

9. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)

8. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)

7. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)

6. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)

5. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)

4. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

3. Tokyo Story (Yasujirô Ozu, 1953)

2. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

1. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)