Non-American films compiled from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_with_a_100%25_rating_on_Rotten_Tomatoes on July 14, 2022
The Golem: How He Came into the World – 1920 – Germany
The Last Laugh – 1924 – Germany
Battleship Potemkin – 1925 – USSR
Un Chien Andalou – 1929 – France/Spain
M – 1931 – Germany
Mädchen in Uniform – 1931 – Germany
Boudu Saved from Drowning – 1932 – France
I Was Born, But… – 1932 – Japan
L’Atalante – 1934 – France
Pépé le Moko – 1937 – France
Day of Wrath – 1943 – Denmark
Henry V – 1944 – United Kingdom
Rome, Open City – 1945 – Italy
Great Expectations – 1946 – United Kingdom
Black Narcissus – 1947 – United Kingdom
Odd Man Out – 1947 – United Kingdom
Quai des Orfèvres – 1947 – France
The Fallen Idol – 1948 – United Kingdom
Oliver Twist – 1948 – United Kingdom
Kind Hearts and Coronets – 1949 – United Kingdom
Late Spring – 1949 – Japan
Jour de fête – 1949 – France
The Lavender Hill Mob – 1951 – United Kingdom
Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot – 1953 – France
Ugetsu – 1953 – Japan
Tokyo Story – 1953 – Japan
The Wages of Fear – 1953 – France
I Vitelloni – 1953 – Italy
Touchez pas au grisbi – 1954 – France – An aging, world-weary gangster is double-crossed and forced out of retirement when his best friend is kidnapped and their stash of eight stolen gold bars demanded as ransom.
Seven Samurai – 1954 – Japan
Ordet – 1955 – Denmark
French Cancan – 1955 – France – About nightclubs, dancing-girls, etc.
The Ladykillers – 1955 – United Kingdom
A Man Escaped – 1956 – France
Night and Fog – 1956 – France
Jalsaghar – 1958 – India
A Night to Remember – 1958 – United Kingdom – About the Titanic
Classe Tous Risques – 1960 – France/Italy – It tells the story of Abel Davos (Ventura), a French mobster who tries to make his way from Italy through Marseille to Paris
Through a Glass Darkly – 1961 – Sweden
Victim – 1961 – United Kingdom
Ivan’s Childhood – 1962 – USSR
Sanjuro – 1962 – Japan
I Am Cuba – 1964 – Cuba-USSR collaboration – Four short stories set in Cuba
Woman in the Dunes – 1964 – Japan
Au Hasard Balthazar – 1966 – France
Branded to Kill – 1967 – Japan – The story follows contract killer Goro Hanada as he is recruited by a mysterious woman named Misako for a seemingly impossible mission. When the mission fails, he is hunted by the phantom Number One Killer, whose methods threaten his life and sanity.
Le Samouraï – 1967 – France – Gangster movie about a contract killer and the detective trying to trap him
Kes – 1969 – United Kingdom
The Wild Child – 1970 – France
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul – 1974 – West Germany
Stalker – 1979 – USSR
Breaker Morant – 1980 – Australia
The King and the Mockingbird – 1980 – France
Babylon – 1980 – United Kingdom
Fanny and Alexander – 1982 – Sweden
Local Hero – 1983 – Scotland
Sugar Cane Alley – 1984 – Martinique – José is a young orphan boy living in rural Martinique in the 1930s. He lives with his grandmother, Ma’Tine who works in the sugar cane fields.
A Room with a View – 1985 – United Kingdom
My Life as a Dog – 1985 – Sweden
Tampopo – 1985 – Japan
Vagabond – 1985 – France
Law of Desire – 1987 – Spain
Grave of the Fireflies – 1988 – Japan
Henry V – 1989 – United Kingdom
A Grand Day Out – 1989 – United Kingdom – Wallace & Gromit claymation.
Cyrano de Bergerac – 1990 – France
The Juniper Tree – 1990 – Iceland – In medieval Iceland, two sisters, Margit and her elder sister Katla, escape their home after their mother is stoned and burned for witchcraft. They go where no one knows them, and find Jóhann, a young widower who has a son called Jónas. Katla uses magical powers to seduce Jóhann and they start living together.
La Belle Noiseuse – 1991 – France
A Brighter Summer Day – 1991 – Taiwan
Only Yesterday – 1991 – Japan
Rebels of the Neon God – 1992 – Taiwan
The Wrong Trousers – 1993 – United Kingdom – Wallace & Gromit claymation.
Three Colours: Red – 1994 – Poland – Part of a trilogy. Three Colours: Blue (1993) has a 98% rating, Three Colours: White (1994) has an 87% rating, and Three Colours: Red (1994) has a 100% rating.
Bandit Queen – 1994 – India
Maborosi – 1995 – Japan
La haine – 1995 – France – Three boys from the banlieuex of Paris deal with discrimination, class struggle, friendship and hardship in the early 90s
Forgotten Silver – 1995 – New Zealand
A Close Shave – 1995 – United Kingdom – Wallace & Gromit claymation.
Yana’s Friends – 1999 – Israel
Hukkle – 2002 – Hungary
Cama adentro – 2004 – Argentina
C.R.A.Z.Y. – 2005 – Canada – A coming-of-age drama film about Zac, a young gay man dealing with homophobia while growing up with four brothers and his father in Quebec during the 1960s and 1970s
Fireworks Wednesday – 2006 – Iran
Half Moon – 2006 – Kurdistan
Kenny – 2006 – Australia – A comedy about a good-hearted bloke who works in the festival toilet/porta-potty industry. Lots of highly sophisticated poo jokes.
Verdict on Auschwitz: The Frankfurt Trial 1963–1965 – 2007
Still Walking – 2008 – Japan
Boogie – 2008 – Romania
Last Train Home – 2009 – Canada
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno – 2009
Into Eternity – 2010 – Denmark
Poetry – 2011 – South Korea
Wild Bill – 2011 – United Kingdom – Crime-comedy film
Planet of Snail – 2011 – South Korea
The Snows of Kilimanjaro – 2011 – France
Ilo Ilo – 2013 – In 90s Singapore, the friendship between Filipino nursemaid Teresa and her young charge Jiale makes waves in a family, while the Asian recession hits the region.
Of Horses and Men – 2013 – Iceland – A country romance about the human streak in the horse and the horse in the human. Love and death become interlaced and with immense consequences. The fortunes of the people in the country through the horses’ perception.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya – 2013 – Japan – Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthralls all who encounter her, but ultimately she must confront her fate, the punishment for her crime.
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem – 2014 – Israel – After a lukewarm marriage of over twenty years, a woman appeals to her husband’s compassion to obtain the desirable divorce document in front of a court, which proves to be more challenging than she would expect.
Kajaki: The True Story – 2014
Night Will Fall – 2014
P’tit Quinquin – 2014
Rocks in My Pockets – 2014 – Latvian animated film. In the late 1920s, Anna, a young Latvian woman, pretty and educated, falls in love with an adventurous entrepreneur, 30 years her senior. But with marriage comes great jealousy, and the entrepreneur hides Anna away in the forest, far from other men, where she bears him eight children. The Great Depression hits them hard. Then Latvia is overrun with invasions by the Soviets, then the Nazis, then the Soviets once again. Anna is a pillar of strength, defying the hardships, raising her young, teaching them survival secrets of the forest. But something inside her is terribly wrong.
The Circle – 2014 – About a group network of gay men in Zurich in the 1940s and 1950s, centered on The Circle, a gay publication, and the social events it sponsored.
SPL II: A Time for Consequences – 2015 – Hong Kong martial arts film with Tony Jaa. A sequel “in-name-only” to 2005’s SPL: Sha Po Lang (which has an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and preceding 2017’s *Paradox (which has lower ratings)
Chocolat – 2016 – France
Harmonium – 2016 – Japan
Seoul Station – 2016 – South Korea – Adult animated zombie film
My Journey Through French Cinema – 2016
The Age of Shadows – 2016 – Made in South Korea – The film is set in Shanghai and Seoul in the 1920s. Korean police captain Lee Jung-chool has been charged by the Japanese colonial government with rooting out members of the country’s resistance movement. But while Lee has a history of selling out his own people to secure a favorable position with the Japanese, he’s been hit harder than usual by the death of Kim Jang-ok, a resistance fighter who used to be his classmate.
The Young Offenders – 2016 – Ireland – A comedy about teenagers from Cork who get mixed up in a crime adventure
Hotel Salvation – 2016 – India – A comedy-drama about a son who is forced to set his job aside to accompany his elderly father to the holy city of Varanasi.
Daphne – 2017 – United Kingdom – Daphne is an attractive, hedonistic 31-year-old woman who lives in London. She is in a shop when a robber threatens, then stabs, the shopkeeper.
Summer 1993 – 2017 – Catalunya – In 1993, after her parents die of AIDS, a six-year-old orphaned girl goes to live with her uncle and his family.
Wajib – 2017 – Palestine – In this road movie, a father and son travel amid wedding preparations in the lead-up to Christmas in Nazareth.
One Cut of the Dead – 2017 – Japan – zombie comedy film
Nanette – 2018 – Australia – Live comedy show by Hannah Gadsby. She shares personal anecdotes related to her experiences as a lesbian and gender-nonconforming woman
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms – 2018 – Japan – An animated high fantasy drama film about a young girl who is a member of a special race called the Iorph, mystical beings who can live for hundreds of years. While escaping war, she finds a lone surviving infant and decides to raise him as her son.
Flight of the Conchords: Live in London – 2018 – Comedy show of New Zealand performers in London
Penguin Highway – 2018 – Japan – Science-fiction/mystery where penguins suddenly appear everywhere without explanation.
All Is Well – 2018 – Germany
The Load – 2018 – Serbia – War drama
Anima – 2019 – United Kingdom – 15 minutes long. In a short musical film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Thom Yorke of Radiohead scores and stars in a mind-bending visual piece. Best played loud.
So Long, My Son – 2019 – China – Drama about several generations of a family
Host – 2020 – United Kingdom – Supernatural horror about a séance on a Zoom call
His House – 2020 – A refugee couple flee South Sudan for the UK. A supernatural horror film.
Quo Vadis, Aida? – 2020 – Bosnia – Dramatisation of the Srebrenica massacre
The Woman Who Ran – 2020 – South Korea
Luzzu – 2021 – Malta – To support his wife and child, a Maltese fisherman enters the world of black market fishing.
The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet – 2021 – Argentina – Absurdist art movie
Cousins – 2021 – New Zealand – A Māori girl is raised in Anglo culture
Hive – 2021 – Kosovo – A woman, Fahrije, who goes against misogynistic societal expectations to become an entrepreneur after her husband went missing during the 1998-1999 Kosovo War. She starts selling her own ajvar (a condiment made principally from sweet bell peppers and eggplants) and honey, and recruits other women
The Summit of the Gods – 2021 – France/Japan/Luxembourg
Girl Picture – 2022 – Finland
An Cailín Ciúin – 2022 – Ireland – Irish-language coming-of-age film set in 1981. About a withdrawn nine-year-old girl who experiences a loving home for the first time when she spends the summer on a farm with distant relatives in Rinn Gaeltacht, County Waterford.
Documentaries
The Sorrow and the Pity – 1969 – France – Two-part documentary about the collaboration between the Vichy government and Nazi Germany.
Shoah – 1985 – France – Documentary about the Holocaust
I for India – 2005 – India
Afghan Star – 2008 – British-made documentary about an Afghani reality tv music contest
Waste Land – 2010 – Brazil – On the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro is Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, where men and women sift through garbage for a living. Artist Vik Muniz produces portraits of the workers and learns about their lives.
Nostalgia for the Light – 2010 – Chile – A documentary about the lasting impacts of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Focuses on the similarities between astronomers researching humanity’s past, in an astronomical sense, and the struggle of many Chilean women who still search, after decades, for the remains of their relatives executed during the dictatorship.
Enemies of the People – 2010 – Cambodia – About the Killing Fields and the Khmer Rouge
More than Honey – 2012 – Switzerland
Fifi Howls from Happiness – 2012 – Documentary about an artist in Iran
The Square – 2013 – Egypt – Documentary about the Tahrir Square events of 2011
Next Goal Wins – 2014
Democrats – 2014 – In politically unstable Zimbabwe, a new constitution is being put together by the ruling party of strongman Robert Mugabe and the divided opposition. Various political, local and personal interests are bogging the process down.
Virunga – 2014 – It focuses on the conservation work of park rangers within the Congo’s Virunga National Park during the rise of the violent M23 Rebellion in 2012 and investigates the activity of the British oil company Soco International within the UNESCO World Heritage Site
Maidan – 2014 – Ukraine – Documentary about the 2014 uprising
The Hard Stop – 2015 – British documentary about a guy who died in police custody in Tottenham
Sonita – 2015 – Documentary about a 15-year-old rapper who fled Afghanistan and lives in Tehran.
Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten – 2015 – Documentary about Cambodian rock
Nowhere to Hide – 2016 – Documentary about a nurse in Iraq
Tickling Giants – 2016 – Egypt – Documentary about the 2011 revolution in Egypt
One More Time with Feeling – 2016 – Documentary made in Britain about the recording of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ sixteenth studio album, Skeleton Tree, in the aftermath of the accidental death in England of Australian musician Nick Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur.
Older Than Ireland – 2016 – Tells the story of a hundred years of a life as seen through the eyes of thirty Irish centenarians.
The Islands and the Whales – 2016 – Documentary. Thee whale hunters of the Faroe Islands believe that hunting is vital to their way of life, but, when a local professor makes a grim discovery about the effects of marine pollution, environmental changes threaten their way of life forever.
Destination Unknown – 2017 – A documentary combining immersive archive footage with the personal stories of 12 holocaust survivors.
Nothingwood (aka The Prince of Nothingwood) – 2017 – French documentarist Sonia Kronlund follows actor and director Salim Shaheen, an Afghan movie star who produced more than 110 low-budget movies in a country devastated by war.
The Judge – 2017 – Palestine – Documentary about the first female sharia judge in the Middle East
Dead Souls – 2018 – China – Documentary about Chinese labour camps
Sharkwater Extinction – 2018 – Canada – Documentary about the sea
The Silence of Others – 2018 – Spain – Documentary which tells the story of the silenced fight of the victims from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
Honeyland – 2019 – Macedonia – Documentary about a beekeeper
Mystify: Michael Hutchence – 2019 – Documentary about Michael Hutchence of INXS, the Australian hard rock band
Midnight Traveler – 2019 – Documentary filmed by an Afghani refugee family about their journey out of Afghanistan. They filmed it on their smartphones.
Coup 53 – 2019 – British documentary about the 1953 Iranian coup d’état to overthrow Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh
Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy – 2019 – A documentary about a British chef who popularised Mexican food
This Is Not a Movie – 2019 – Canadian documentary about Robert Fisk
White Riot – 2019 – United Kingdom – A documentary about Rock Against Racism
2040 – 2020 – Australia – A documentary about climate change
A Thousand Cuts – 2020 – Philippines – A documentary about the conflicts between the press and the Philippine government under president Rodrigo Duterte. It primarily follows Maria Ressa, the founder of the online news site Rappler, which has been subject to scrutiny by Duterte and his supporters, and writers for the website.
76 Days – 2020 – China – A documentary about the battle to survive the early spread of the Covid-19 in Wuhan, China
Mayor – 2020 – Palestine – Documentary that dollows Musa Hadid, the mayor of Ramallah, the de facto capital of Palestine, for two years.
Sabaya – 2021 – Sweden – A documentary about a group who risk their lives to save sex slaves held captive by ISIS in Al-Hawl.
Writing with Fire – 2021 – India – Documentary film about journalists running a women led newspaper Khabar Lahariya, as they shift from 14 years of print to digital journalism using smartphones.
Fire of Love – 2022 – Canadian production about French volcano-scientists who died in Japan