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Roma (2018)
7.6/10on IMDb
Released
Alfonso Cuarón wrote, produced, directed, shot and co-edited this memory of his childhood in Mexico City's Colonia Roma in 1970 and 1971, centered on Cleo, the family's live-in housekeeper of Mixtec heritage. Yalitza Aparicio had no acting experience before she was cast, and her stillness anchors the whole film.
It was shot in color and turned to black and white afterward, and Cuarón became the first person to win Best Director and Best Cinematography on the same night. Slow at first, it builds to a beach sequence that is among the most intense in recent cinema. Watch it on the biggest screen available, not a phone.
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Parasite (2019)
8.5/10on IMDb
Released
The only film on this list that also won Best Picture, and the first non-English-language film ever to do so. Bong Joon Ho's story of a broke family conning their way, one job at a time, into a wealthy household starts as a sly caper and turns into something far darker, without ever losing its grip.
It took four Oscars in all, including Best Director, after becoming the first South Korean winner of the Palme d'Or. Go in knowing as little as possible. It is the safest bet here for viewers who claim not to watch subtitled films, and the architecture of the house tells the class story on its own.
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Another Round (2020)
7.7/10on IMDb
Released
Four bored high school teachers in Copenhagen test a theory, inspired by the psychiatrist Finn Skårderud, that keeping a constant level of alcohol in the blood makes people more creative and confident. Thomas Vinterberg plays it for comedy first, then lets the cost creep in without ever turning it into a lecture.
Mads Mikkelsen is superb as Martin, a teacher waking from his midlife slump, and his final dance is a jolt of pure joy. The film is dedicated to Vinterberg's daughter Ida, who was killed in a car accident four days into filming, which gives its celebration of living an extra ache.
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Drive My Car (2021)
7.5/10on IMDb
Released
Three hours long, and you will not want it to end. Ryusuke Hamaguchi expands a Haruki Murakami short story into a portrait of Kafuku, a grieving theater director staging a multilingual Uncle Vanya at a festival in Hiroshima, and Misaki, the reserved young woman assigned to drive his red Saab.
The rehearsals, with each actor speaking their own language and one performing in Korean Sign Language, make the film a perfect choice for an audience that spans languages, because it is literally about understanding across them. It was the first Japanese film nominated for Best Picture. Give it a quiet evening and full attention.
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All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
7.8/10on IMDb
Released
Edward Berger's German adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 novel, the third screen version of the book, follows the young soldier Paul Bäumer from patriotic enlistment into the mud of the Western Front. The trench sequences are punishing, and the sound and score make the machinery of war feel physical.
It added a storyline the novel does not have, the armistice negotiations, with Daniel Brühl as the German envoy Matthias Erzberger. It won four Oscars from nine nominations and seven BAFTAs, including Best Film. Straightforward rather than subtle, but the most viscerally powerful war film among the winners.
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The Zone of Interest (2023)
7.3/10on IMDb
Released
A rare case of a British winner: the United Kingdom entered Jonathan Glazer's German-language film, the first non-English British film to take the award. Loosely based on Martin Amis's novel, it watches the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig tend their garden and plan family life on the other side of the camp wall.
You never see inside the camp. You hear it, constantly, which is why it also won the Oscar for Best Sound. Calm, sunlit and quietly monstrous, it asks uncomfortable questions about how ordinary people look away. Not a film to watch casually, but one that starts serious conversations.
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I'm Still Here (2024)
8.1/10on IMDb
Released
Brazil's first win in the category, and a family drama that lands like a political thriller. Walter Salles adapts Marcelo Rubens Paiva's memoir about his mother, Eunice, whose husband, the former congressman Rubens Paiva, is taken away during the military dictatorship and never comes home.
Fernanda Torres was nominated for Best Actress for a performance built on composure: a mother keeping her children's lives normal while quietly fighting the state. The early scenes of a noisy, happy beach house in Rio make what follows hurt more. It was also nominated for Best Picture, a first for a Brazilian film.
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Sentimental Value (2025)
7.7/10on IMDb
Released
The newest winner, and the first Norwegian film to take the award. Joachim Trier reunites two sisters, Renate Reinsve's stage actress Nora and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas's Agnes, with their estranged father Gustav, a fading film director played by Stellan Skarsgård, who wants to make a comeback film inspired by his own mother's life.
It won the Grand Prix at Cannes and earned nine Oscar nominations, Best Picture among them, with acting nominations for all four leads, including Elle Fanning as the American star Gustav casts. Funny, painful and generous about artists and the families who pay for their art.
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