Subgenre Sampler
Rental > Foreign Cinema > Classics: 27 Films to Rent on VHS
- Colour of Pomegranates (Color of Pomegranates) (1969)
- Dir. Sergei Paradjanov
Feat. Sofiko Chiaurel, Melkon Aleksanyan, Vilen Galstyan
- A visually exquisite, at times baffling film from the much–censored Armenian director. Retells the life of 18th century mystic poet Sayat Nova…
- Milky Way, The (1968)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Paul Frankeur, Laurent Terzieff, Alain Cuny…
- Bunuel experiments with narrative in relating theories of traditional Catholicism to the encounters of two wandering vagrants.
- Oedipus Rex (1967)
- Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Feat. Silvana Mangano, Franco Citti, Alida Valli
- Striking visual achievement, filmed amidst the Moroccan desert and Bologna, describes the Oedipal tale of a tortured soul who murders his father and…
- Before the Revolution (1966)
- Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Adriana Asti, Francisco Barilli
- Bertolucci's second film – made at the age of 22! – demonstrates his bravura visual style fully formed around this coming of age in the…
- Guerre Est Finie, La (1966)
- Dir. Alain Resnais
Feat. Yves Montand, Ingrid Thulin, Genevieve Bujold…
- (The War is Over). Deeply romantic film in which Spanish Civil War refugee Yves Montand tries in vain to keep alive the memory of his struggle.
- Simon of the Desert (1965)
- Dir. Luis Bunuel
Feat. Silvia Pinal, Claudio Brook
- A short surrealist fantasy concerning the life of Simon Stylites (Claudio Brook), an early Christian ascetic, who stood for years atop a column in…
- Hamlet (1964)
- Dir. Grigori Kozintsev
Feat. Innokenti Smoktunovsky
- The legendary Russian version of Shakespeare's play, which visually at least, stands as the greatest yet.
Staged amidst the massive battlements of…
- Madame (1962)
- Dir. Christian-Jaque
Feat. Sophia Loren, Robert Hossein
- Rags–to–riches tale set in Napoleonic France mirrors the real life of its Italian bomb–shell star, Sophia Loren.
- World of Apu, The (1959)
- Dir. Satyajit Ray
Feat. Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Alok Chakravarty
- Final installment of the 'Apu trilogy' sees the complexities of adulthood painfully and euphorically realised for Apu through ambition, marriage and…
- Magician, The (The Face) (1958)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Max von Sydow
- Bergman's allegorical self–portrait of a controversial travelling magician who exacts revenge on a cynical doctor, but becomes trapped in his…
- Plucking the Daisy (Mademoiselle Striptease) (1956)
- Dir. Roger Vadim
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Roger Vadim
- One of the Brigitte Bardot/Roger Vadim light comedies that relies on Bardot's charms rather more than the simple story of a smalltown woman who is…
- Life of Oharu (1953)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Kinuyo Tanaka, Toshiro Mifune
- The prolific, though rarely seen dir. Mizoguchi came to attention with this chronicled downfall of a court–concubine in 17th century Japan,…
- Summer with Monika (1952)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Harriet Andersson
- Early Bergman turns his lens on a pair of working class, teenage lovers. At first this rebellious holiday boat ride comes across as dreamy escapism…
- Stromboli (1950)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Ingrid Bergman
- After his neo–realist masterpieces, this is one of the dir.'s best films, concerning a WW2 refugee who hastily marries an Italian fisherman and…
- Summer Interlude (1950)
- Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Maj-Britt Nilsson, Birger Malmsten, Alf Kjellin
- Perhaps Bergman's first significant work, about an aging ballerina who reflects on a youthful romance with her now–deceased lover in moody…
- Paisa (1946)
- Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Feat. Carmela Sazio, Robert Van Loon, Benjamin Emmanuel
- Six short films focusing on the minor victories and losses of ordinary folk during WW2. Pioneering the now–familiar use of documentary footage,…
- Torment (Hets) (1944)
- Dir. Alf Sjoberg
Feat. Stig Jarrel, Alf Kjellin, Mai Zetterling…
- Impressionistic study of authoritarian education and adolescent love was scripted by a young Ingmar Bergman, and its universe of cruel twists and…
- Eternel Retour, L' (1942)
- Dir. Jean Delannoy
Feat. Jean Marais, Madeleine Sologney, Yvonne de Bray…
- (Love Eternal) A contemporary take on the legend of Tristan and Isolde, lovers united after death. Jean Cocteau's script is realised with the…
- Les Visiteurs Du Soir (1942)
- Dir. Marcel Carne
Feat. Arletty, Marie Dea, Fernand Ledoux…
- Two of the Devil's henchmen are dispatched to a fairytale–like 15th century castle with an eye to corrupting its inhabitants, especially a pair…
- Jour Se Leve, Le (Daybreak) (1939)
- Dir. Marcel Carne
Feat. Jean Gabin, Arletty
- A renowned example of 'poetic realism', Jean Gabin gives another consummate performance as a doomed anti–hero. His tragic story is told in…
- I Accuse (J'Accuse) (1938)
- Dir. Abel Gance
Feat. Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou
- Dir. Gance’s own remake of his 1919 silent classic, in which a soldier traumatised by the slaughter of WWI attempts to prevent future…
- Marseillaise, La (1938)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Pierre Renoir, Lisa Delamare, Leon Larive…
- Renoir's classic depicts events leading up to the French revolution in the 18th Century, electing to extract history from the heart of the common…
- Jacques Tati Shorts (1936)
- Dir. Jacques Tati
- Three rare short comedies for those that can't get enough of the French funnyman. Watch your Left! (1936), School for Postmen (1947), and Evening…
- Le Crime De Monsieur Lange (1935)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Rene Lefevre, Florelle , Jules Berry
- One of the dir.’s early classics. Rene Leferve rises to newsprint fame as the author of the serial “Arizona Jim” after his boss, a…
- Liebelei (1933)
- Dir. Max Ophuls
Feat. Arthur Schnitzler
- An early work from the German maestro of the tracking shot, whose tale of doomed romance between a young soldier and fraulein (taken from a play by…
- Blood of a Poet (1930)
- Dir. Jean Cocteau
Feat. Lee Miller, Pauline Carton
- Cocteau's first film is a surrealist gem that sewed the seeds of his style. The Dali/Bunuel influence is clear, but this goes one step further with…
- Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)
- Dir. G.W. Pabst
Feat. Louise Brooks
- Exceptional follow–up to the eye–opening PANDORA’S BOX, with Louise Brooks again provoking disorder with her unrestrained vitality and…