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In 1997, Austrian provocateur Michael Haneke made "Funny Games," one of the scariest and most confrontational films of its decade. "Funny Games" follows the plight of a placid, upper-class family of three as they trek to their lakeside cabin for a miniature vacation. As they are settling in, they receive a visit from two creepy young men in tennis whites and gloves, asking to borrow some eggs. The young men are Paul (Arno Firsch) and Peter (Frank Giering), and they clearly have a dark agenda.

As soon as matriarch Anna asks them to leave, Peter and Paul snatch a golf club and begin inflicting injuries. They reveal they have already killed the family dog, and that the remaining family members are not allowed to leave. Peter and Paul tie them up and announce they are going to play some games. These funny games involve torture, mockery, and death. At one point,...

Cinema from beyond English-speaking borders opens doors to new worlds, packed with raw emotion, bold storytelling, and unique perspectives. These films, crafted in languages from Japanese to Spanish, have shaped global filmmaking and left lasting marks on our hearts.

We’ve curated a list of 20 must-see foreign-language films, each a masterpiece that transcends subtitles. From timeless classics to modern gems, here’s why these stories deserve your attention.

20. Y Tu Mamá También – Spanish (2001) Bésame Mucho Pictures

Two Mexican teens and an older woman embark on a road trip full of lust and life lessons. Alfonso Cuarón’s raw, vibrant film explores youth and desire.

Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal’s chemistry grounds its bold energy. It’s a journey we feel in our bones.

19. Cinema Paradiso – Italian (1988) Rai

A boy in post-wwii Sicily falls in love with movies through his bond with a projectionist. Giuseppe Tornatore’s nostalgic tale...

If The Amateur has you on the edge of your seat with its intense spy drama, smart storytelling, and emotional stakes, then you’re in for a treat. This gripping thriller perfectly blends espionage with personal loss and creates a story that’s as heartfelt as it is suspenseful. And if that’s exactly what drew you in, there are plenty of other movies that strike the same powerful balance.

From lone operatives seeking justice to plots filled with twists and tension, these movies deliver the same adrenaline rush and depth. Whether you’re a fan of undercover missions or a quiet revenge story, this list of 10 must-watch titles is packed with stories that echo the same tone and emotional core of The Amateur. Let’s dive deeper!

10. A Most Wanted Man

If you were drawn to The Amateur for its emotional depth and grounded espionage, then A Most Wanted Man is a must-watch.

There's nothing movie audiences love more than poking around in a character's brain, especially when said character is, well, not particularly well-adjusted. Since the birth of film, movies have been unpacking what makes people tick, using the psychological thriller genre -- which often verges on horror -- to delve into the inner workings of fascinating yet unsettling characters. Whether it's a serial killer, an abusive husband, or an obsessive housekeeper, these cinematic figures give our protagonists plenty to be dealing with as they unleash chaos on all who surround them. 

Dark, twisted, and often disturbing, the psychological thriller keeps audiences on the edge of their seats and constantly wrongfooted, as they attempt to parse the complexity of what they're seeing. This type of movie isn't the best choice to have playing on in the background while you're absentmindedly folding laundry or making dinner, but for the viewer who's willing to give it their full attention,...

War and conflict have affected every corner of the globe in one way or another, so it’s only natural that filmmakers worldwide have made incredible movies depicting warfare from their perspective. While big-budget American war movies often dominate the conversation when it comes to this genre, it’s important not to forget all the astounding non-English-language war movies that have left their mark on cinema. From global conflicts to lesser-known national crises, war movies have the power to educate and inform viewers about historical conflicts.

Many of the best war movies ever made were foreign films that shone a light on different countries' experiences of war. Some of these were all-time classics like Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning triumph Life is Beautiful, while others were not as well known but are equally deserving of attention and praise. The greatest war movies leave their mark on viewers long after the credits...

Hackman’s surveillance expert Harry Caul is inexpressibly sad and lonely – a classic and poignant American everyman

God’s surveillance is everywhere: this is the thought that weighs heavily on bugging expert and practising Catholic Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s eerie 1974 classic, now on rerelease. It was a movie that intuited Watergate-era paranoia and disillusion: at the nadir of his despair, Harry ends up smashing a figure of the Blessed Virgin in his apartment because he suspects it contains a listening device. The Conversation contains an unforgettable performance from Gene Hackman as Caul: in his glasses and moustache, drab suit, white shirt and tie with clear plastic mac worn indoors, it is a classic and poignant “American everyman” portrayal, to put alongside Ernest Borgnine in Delbert Mann’s Marty from 1955 or Paul Walter Hauser in Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell from 2019. He probably inspired Ulrich Mühe’s East...

Silly Americans…

After concluding spooky season with a reappraisal of Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (the Director’s Cut), we’re moving into November by kicking off a new theme of episodes on toxic masculinity. First up is Michael Haneke‘s fourth wall-breaking film Funny Games!

In Funny Games, Anna (Susanne Lothar) and Georg (Ulrich Mühe) and their son Georgie (Stefan Clapczynski) visit their idyllic lakeside vacation home, only to be terrorized by Paul (Arno Frisch) and Peter (Frank Giering), a pair of deeply disturbed young men. Paul and Peter take the family hostage and subject them to the titular “funny games,” which doubles as a critique of (American) viewers themselves.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 254: Funny Games (1997)

Buckle up...

Stars: Ulrich Mühe, Susanne Lothar, Stefan Clapczynski, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering | Written and Directed by Michael Haneke

An innocuous sight opens this feature from writer/director Michael Haneke, as a car travels while containing the Schober family – made up of husband Georg (Ulrich Mühe), wife Anna (Susanne Lothar), young son Georgie (Stefan Clapczynski), and dog Rolfi. They pass the journey to their holiday home with a song guessing game, until one song stumps Georg. Much like the classical music playing on the car speakers, the film’s sound is then drowned out by hard rock, an effective indication of how any expectations of an arthouse feature is changed to something more hardcore.

While unpacking, the family are visited by two young men – Paul (Arno Frisch) and Peter (Frank Giering) – who ask to borrow eggs. The pair overstay their welcome as Peter clumsily breaks numerous batches of eggs and knocks the family’s phone into water,...

The launch of innovative thrillers like “Glass Onion” and “Bullet Train” has re-ignited the love for this classic genre. These films are a potent concoction of action, suspense, crime, and sci-fi – prepared to keep viewers in an endless loop of anticipation (or fear).

IMDb makes it a breeze for thriller fanatics to find the cream of the crop. From award-winning classics like “Witness for the Prosecution” that form this genre’s identity to worldwide successes such as “Parasite.” It even includes two dark superhero movies from “The Dark Knight” franchise among its top-rated gems.

Ranked Best Thriller Movies [Sortable Table] Rank Title Year IMDb Metascore 18 Witness for the Prosecution 1957 8.4 76 17 The Lives of Others 2006 8.4 89 16 Rear Window 1954 8.5 100 15 Oldboy 2003 8.4 77 14 Psycho 1960 8.5 97 13 Aliens 1986 8.4 84 12 Parasite 2019 8.5 96 11 The Usual Suspects 1995 8.5 77 10 Léon: The Professional 1994 8.5 64 9 Memento 2000 8.4 81 8 Joker 2019 8.4 59 7 The Departed 2006 8.5 85 6 The Prestige 2006 8.5 66 5 The Silence of the Lambs 1991 8.6 85 4 Se7en 1995 8.6 65 3 The Dark Knight Rises 2012 8.4 78 2 Inception 2010 8.8 74 1 The Dark Knight 2008 9 84 More About the Best Thriller Movies List...

By now it’s safe to say that Naomi Watts is a bona fide Scream Queen. After more than a decade in small roles or B movies, the British actress finally found widespread acclaim in 2001 with David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. She followed this up with a star-making role in Gore Verbinski’s The Ring, and sky-rocketted to international fame. Watts has worked steadily since then, winning coveted parts like Ann Darrow in Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Oscar Nominated roles in 21 Grams and The Impossible, and franchise fame in the Divergent series.

Born in England, Watts and her brother moved around the UK with her Welsh mother before relocating to Australia at the age of 14 where she broke into acting. Despite this international upbringing, Watts is most known in the horror world for starring in American remakes of acclaimed foreign films. Her role in The Ring was just...

It’s time for a new episode of our video series Best Foreign Horror Movies, and with this one we’re looking back at a movie that is quite disturbing. The 1997 Austrian production Funny Games (get it Here). To find out what we had to say about Funny Games, check out the video embedded above.

Written and directed by Michael Haneke, Funny Games has the following synopsis:

An idyllic lakeside vacation home is terrorized by Paul and Peter, a pair of deeply disturbed young men. When the fearful Anna is home alone, the two men drop by for a visit that quickly turns violent and terrifying. Husband Georg comes to her rescue, but Paul and Peter take the family hostage and subject them to nightmarish abuse and humiliation. From time to time, Paul talks to the film’s audience, making it complicit in the horror.

The film stars Arno Frisch,...

In the middle of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival, we’re taking a look back at some of the best films which have screened there is the past, all available to stream in the UK. Together they illustrate that even though its started small, this festival has consistently punched well above its weight. We haven’t just chosen the biggest names, however, but also a few gems which might have passed you by.

The Lives Of Others

The Lives Of Others - Sky

In a retrospective of Gff favourites this is doubly nostalgic. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's feature debut, it remains a stunning depiction of the mechanisms of East German's autocratic regime. Ulrich Mühe's performance as a weary apparatchik of bureaucratic oppression carries a film that flourishes from detail. Donnersmarck's keen eye would be wasted in odd Depp/Jolie vehicle The Tourist but in Work Without Author...

Our countdown of the top 100 films of the 21st Century (so far) concludes here with the top 25.

Click here for Part 1! (#100-76)

Click here for Part 2! (#75-51)

Click here for Part 3! (#50-26)

The first decade and a half of the 21st century has brought a lot of changes to the landscape of film. The advancement and sophistication of computers has made realistic computer generated effects a mainstay in both big-budget and small-budget films. The internet and streaming technologies have given big Hollywood new competition in films produced independently and by non-traditional means. We went from purchasing films on yards of tape to plastic disks, and now we can simply upload them to the cloud. Advertisements for films have reached a higher, more ruthless level where generating hype through trailers and teasers is crucial for a film’s commercial success. Movie attendance has fluctuated along with the economy, but that hasn...

What Richard Did; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; Mission to Lars; TinkerBell and the Secret of the Wings

The Irish director Lenny Abrahamson really is a remarkable film-maker. His debut feature, Adam & Paul, updated the existential black comedy of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, with two addicts scraping their way through the underbelly of Dublin to grimly comic effect. Garage built upon the acting promise of its predecessor as Abrahamson drew exceptional performances from an ensemble cast including Pat Shortt and Anne-Marie Duff. Both films are eclipsed, however, by What Richard Did (2012, Artificial Eye, 15), a tale of youth, privilege, denial and tragedy that confirms Abrahamson as both a major cinematic talent and a distinctive directorial voice.

Adapted by screenwriter Malcolm Campbell from Kevin Power's book Bad Day in Blackrock (which drew inspiration from real-life events still fresh in the minds of many), this deceptively low-key drama centres on Richard Karlsen (Jack Reynor), a handsome,...

German actor Susanne Lothar, best known for her work with director Michael Haneke, has died suddenly at the age of 51. Her family lawyer, Christian Schetz, confirmed that Lothar died on Wednesday. He added he would not be providing further details "for understandable reasons".

Born in Hamburg, to actor parents, Lothar cut her teeth in theatre before winning the German federal film prize for her screen debut in the 1983 drama Strange Fruit. She went on to star in the likes of Snowland, the political saga If Not Us, Who? and Stephen Daldry's Oscar-winning Holocaust drama The Reader.

Lothar, however, was most acclaimed for her quartet of films with Haneke, starting with The Castle in 1997. She played an imperilled bourgeois in the controversial Funny Games, an anguished mother in The Piano Teacher...

From animation to epic sci-fi to intimate dramas, here’s our pick of the 50 finest foreign language films of the past ten years…

It is quite clear that mainstream cinema no longer applies just to Hollywood blockbusters, or the odd British comedy. With the advent of mass home cinema in the last decade, and the increasing availability of pretty much anything and everything on DVD, Blu-ray, or streaming services like Netflix, world cinema has finally crossed the divide of being the preserve of the connoisseur, or the type of thing you’d stumble on late at night on TV.

In the last ten years, world cinema has made a massive impact on film-of-the-year lists, and many people’s personal favourites. Starting from 2002 and ending here in 2012, it’s safe to say that you’ll have seen many of the films below, and enjoyed them simply as great pieces of filmmaking,...

• Following the critical and commercial shortfall of his self-remake Funny Games, famed Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke will return to Europe for his next film Das Weisse Band (The White Tape). Shooting is set to begin in June and throughout the summer, with additional shooting in the winter. Set in a countryside school in pre-Nazi Germany 1913, the film will examine the educational system that paved the way for Hitler’s fascist machinations and its subsequent indoctrination of a generation. This marks Haneke’s first German production since the original Funny Games in 1997. Obvious subject matter for the minimalist-auteur, Band continues his fascination with human cruelty and society, here in the form of ritual punishment and subjugation. One has to wonder how Haneke’s predilection for long, bordering on pretentious, static shots and aversion to a musical score will translate to a project of this scope. The film will most likely

...

• Today, Variety added a couple of more details concerning Michael Haneke's next project. Tentatively it used to go by the title of ‘The White Ribbon’ and now goes by The White Tape or the Teacher's Tale. Set in a Northern German village before World War I, the project received $400,000 production support from the French-German Film Funding Commission.Haneke had originally attached actor Ulrich Mühe (who had starred in the filmmaker's Funny Games) - but as we learned this week the actor (who gave a commanding perfomrance in The Lives of Others passed away this past week due to cancer. The script was written by Jean-Claude Carriere....

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COLOGNE, Germany -- German actor Ulrich Muhe, star of the Oscar-winning Stasi drama The Lives of Others, has died. He was 54.

The veteran stage and film actor died Sunday of stomach cancer at his home in Walbeck, Germany.

Muhe's greatest success was his role as the gray, professional Stasi officer Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Lives. The actor won wide acclaim for his performance and picked up a trophy case of awards, including best actor at the German and European Film Awards.

After Lives won the best foreign film Oscar in February, Muhe seemed on the cusp of an international career. His agency in Berlin confirmed they had been swamped with scripts and offers for Muhe, many from U.S. producers.

But Muhe's cancer had already begun to worsen.

After returning from Los Angeles, he had a major stomach operation. He stopped working, breaking off an engagement to play Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie in an upcoming feature film.

In an e-mail to The Hollywood Reporter, Henckel von Donnersmarck said that the original cause of Muhe's stomach ailment was anxiety resulting from his period as a conscript in the East German military.

German actor Ulrich Mühe has died. He was 54. Mühe, the star of Oscar-winning film The Lives Of Others, died at his home in Saxony-Anhalt Germany, on Sunday. He had been receiving treatment for stomach cancer. Despite his illness, Mühe flew to Hollywood with director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck in April to see The Lives Of Others win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. He also won the Best Actor prize at the European Film Awards in 2006. He is survived by his wife and their two children, plus another child from his earlier marriage to actress Jenny Grollmann.

BERLIN -- The marketing concept is a sound one: Sixty years after the end of World War II, Germans want to forget the shame and guilt of the Third Reich and be able to laugh about Hitler.

That's the zeitgeist that almost certainly will make "My Fuehrer -- the Really Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler" (Mein Fuehrer -- Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit ueber Adolf Hitler) a hit in Germany, where it opens Thursday, and it also provides a slogan ("Germany's first comedy about Hitler!") that will generate respectable ticket sales in art house theaters internationally.

The only problem is that "Mein Fuehrer" is not actually funny.

The film is being marketed as a comedy and is being compared to other great Third Reich comedies, from Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" to Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful". But it is not so much a comedy as a bland, politically correct fantasy about a Jew who teaches Hitler how to be Hitler.

As played by stand-up comedian Helge Schneider, Hitler is a lovable sad sack who has lost his will to triumph in the final months of the war at a time when the German people need him most. Goebbels has a great idea: We'll take a Jewish actor named Adolf Gruenbaum out of a concentration camp and get him to coach Hitler to make a single last-ditch effort inspire the Germans to support the war at an upcoming rally.

What follows is a chamber play between the two, in which Gruenbaum (played with quiet precision by Ulrich Muehe, fresh off his success in "The Lives of Others") devotes most of his time to therapy, getting Hitler to crawl around on hands and knees, barking, and to talk about his relationship with his father.

There are flashes of humor: Hitler in a track suit, Hitler playing with a toy battleship in a bubble bath or Hitler being humped by his dog Blondi. But director-screenwriter Dani Levy seems to avoid more opportunities for jokes than he takes. There are even flashes of controversy, as when the dictator tauntingly asks Gruenbaum why the Jews didn't fight back. (This question is mirrored in Gruenbaum's situation: Although the opportunity is repeatedly handed to him on a silver platter, Gruenbaum never has the nerve to kill Hitler.) But the theme is neither developed enough to inspire controversy nor funny enough to entertain.

Levy, a Swiss-born Jewish auteur who tackled German-Jewish issues in his recent hit "Go for Zucker!" seems less interested in comedy than he is in getting across a moral: We learn that Hitler had a small penis and was compensating for an unhappy childhood. That might be true, but we've heard it before, and from real historians. In the meantime, it has lost its allure as history or as potential for humor.

The final joke in the movie is a pun: When Hitler loses his voice, Gruenbaum has to bark the speech into a microphone while the Fuehrer lip-syncs it. Gruenbaum takes the opportunity to instruct the German nation to "Heal yourselves" (instead of "Heil Hitler", since heil also means "heal" in German). It's an important message but a weak pun.

The mood is light throughout, production values are excellent, and the film works as entertainment directed at an older set of viewers who are opposed to excitable fare. (Three state-funded public broadcasters, whose core audiences are largely older than 50, were involved in the production.) But to duplicate the success of "Life Is Beautiful", Levy would have done better to concentrate on the characters and comedy and leave the preaching to others.

MY FUEHRER -- THE REALLY TRUEST TRUTH ABOUT ADOLF HITLER

X Filme Creative Pool/Y Filme Directors Pool

Credits:

Director-screenwriter: Dani Levy

Producer: Marcos Kantis

Executive producers: Stefan Arndt, Barbara Buhl, Andreas Schreitmueller, Bettina Reitz

Director of photography: Carl-F Koschnick

Art director: Christian Eisele

Music: Niki Reiser

Costume designer: Nicole Fischnaller

Editor: Peter R. Adam

Cast:

Adolf Hitler: Helge Schneider

Prof. Adolf Gruenbaum: Ulrich Muehe

Dr. Joseph Goebbels: Sylvester Groth

Elsa Gruenbaum: Adriana Altaras

Albert Speer: Stefan Kurt

Heinrich Himmler: Ulrich Noethen

Rattenhuber: Lambert Hamel

Martin Bormann: Udo Kroschwald

Running time -- 90 minutes

No MPAA rating...

Volver, an opulent melodrama from veteran Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, and The Lives of Others, a claustrophobic look at life in communist East Germany from first-timer helmer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, garnered the most nominations for this year's European Film Awards.

Volver and Lives each picked up six EFA noms, including ones for best European film, best director and best actress -- for Penelope Cruz (Volver) and Martina Gedeck (Lives). Lives co-star Ulrich Muehe picked up a best actor nom for his portrayal of a Stasi surveillance expert.

Cruz and Gedeck are up against some tough competition, including Sandra Hueller, nominated for her performance as a girl possessed by demons in Requiem; Mirjana Karanovic, as woman scarred by the Balkan war in Jasmila Zbanic's Grbavica; Nathalie Baye as a tough police detective in Le petit lieutenant, from Xavier Beauvois; and Sarah Polley as a hearing-impaired woman caring for a disabled man in The Secret Life of Words.

Close behind Volver and Lives in the EFA-nomination stakes was Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winner "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," which received five nominations, including film, director and actor for Cillian Murphy.

Murphy's nom also was for his performance as an Irish transvestite in Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto, a best European film nominee.

BERLIN -- The Lives of Others, a gripping drama about the East German secret service, the Stasi, overthrew the competition Friday, winning seven Lolas, Germany's top film prize, including best film. First-time director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck took home the best directing Lola as well as the best screenplay statuette for his self-penned script. Ulrich Muehe won the best acting Lola for his portrayal of a by-the-book Stasi agent who begins to question the system he has dedicated his life to. Part thriller, part love story, part German history lesson, The Lives of Others is the most talked-about film of the year in Germany. Speaking after the awards, von Donnersmarck said in an interview that he hopes his Lola success will translate into greater international attention for the film.

BERLIN -- The Lives of Others, a gripping drama about the East German secret service, the Stasi, overthrew the competition Friday, winning seven Lolas, Germany's top film prize, including best film. First-time director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck took home the best directing Lola as well as the best screenplay statuette for his self-penned script. Ulrich Muehe won the best acting Lola for his portrayal of a by-the-book Stasi agent who begins to question the system he has dedicated his life to. Part thriller, part love story, part German history lesson, The Lives of Others is the most talked-about film of the year in Germany. Speaking after the awards, von Donnersmarck said in an interview that he hopes his Lola success will translate into greater international attention for the film.

BERLIN -- The Lives of Others, a gripping drama about the East German secret service, the Stasi, overthrew the competition Friday, winning seven Lolas, Germany's top film prize, including best film. First-time director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck took home the best directing Lola as well as the best screenplay statuette for his self-penned script. Ulrich Muehe won the best acting Lola for his portrayal of a by-the-book Stasi agent who begins to question the system he has dedicated his life to. Part thriller, part love story, part German history lesson, The Lives of Others is the most talked-about film of the year in Germany. Speaking after the awards, von Donnersmarck said in an interview that he hopes his Lola success will translate into greater international attention for the film.

BERLIN -- The Lives of Others, a gripping drama about the East German secret service, the Stasi, overthrew the competition Friday, winning seven Lolas, Germany's top film prize, including best film. First-time director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck took home the best directing Lola as well as the best screenplay statuette for his self-penned script. Ulrich Muehe won the best acting Lola for his portrayal of a by-the-book Stasi agent who begins to question the system he has dedicated his life to. Part thriller, part love story, part German history lesson, The Lives of Others is the most talked-about film of the year in Germany. Speaking after the awards, von Donnersmarck said in an interview that he hopes his Lola success will translate into greater international attention for the film.

BERLIN -- The Lives of Others, a gripping drama about the East German secret service, the Stasi, overthrew the competition Friday, winning seven Lolas, Germany's top film prize, including best film. First-time director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck took home the best directing Lola as well as the best screenplay statuette for his self-penned script. Ulrich Muehe won the best acting Lola for his portrayal of a by-the-book Stasi agent who begins to question the system he has dedicated his life to. Part thriller, part love story, part German history lesson, The Lives of Others is the most talked-about film of the year in Germany. Speaking after the awards, von Donnersmarck said in an interview that he hopes his Lola success will translate into greater international attention for the film.