Which foreign film should you actually try first?
One honest match for your Friday night.
Start the quiz →What this quiz explores
People who say they don't like subtitled film have usually been handed a three-hour Hungarian meditation as an entry point. There are four quite different doors into world cinema, and picking the wrong one puts people off for a decade. This finds yours and names what to start with.
How it works
The quiz has 4 possible results. Each answer option was written to lean toward one of them.
Your result is the one your answers pointed to most often. Skipped questions, and the occasional answer that does not lean toward any result, are not counted.
Alongside the result you see your answer profile: the share of your answers that pointed to each result. Close percentages mean you sit between two results, which is common.
Four doors into world cinema
Domestic Observer
You want people in rooms, watched closely, and small events that land hard.
A family in one house over a summer. Under two hours. What ruins it is sentimentality, and what you remember is a conversation. You can take emotional heaviness if it's earned. This is the easiest door into world cinema and the one most likely to make a convert, because it asks nothing except attention. Start here: Hirokazu Kore-eda, and specifically Shoplifters or Still Walking. Then Asghar Farhadi's A Separation, which is a family drama with the tension of a thriller. Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story, which is the quietest devastating film ever made. Then Celine Sciamma's Petite Maman, Mikio Naruse's When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, and Aki Kaurismaki's Fallen Leaves for something drier and funnier. Where to go if it works: Iranian and Japanese cinema both do this better than anywhere, and the Dardenne brothers in Belgium do a harder, more urgent version. Avoid being handed anything described as a masterpiece of slow cinema for now; it's a different door and it's not yours yet.
Genre Gateway
You want to be gripped, and the fact that it's subtitled should be the least interesting thing about it.
A strong plot, under two hours, a hook, and a shared thrill with someone else in the room. What ruins it is a slow first half hour, and you'd feel a film that didn't explain itself had wasted your evening. Nothing wrong with any of that: genre is how most people get in, and some of the best filmmaking in the world is genre filmmaking. Start here: Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder, which is better than the one everybody saw. Then Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden. Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai and Rififi for heists that set the template. The Raid from Indonesia if you want pure kinetics. Headhunters from Norway. Anatomy of a Fall, which is a courtroom thriller and a marriage drama at once. Where to go if it works: Korean cinema from about 2000 onward is the richest seam available to you, and French crime cinema from the 1950s and 60s is where a lot of it comes from. Follow those two threads and you'll never run out.
The Sensory Immersion
You want something extraordinary to look at, and ugly filmmaking is what ruins an evening.
A city at night, in colour. The camera as the reason to watch. What you remember is an image, and what would make you recommend something is that it was gorgeous. Lights off, or a cinema. You're the viewer most rewarded by watching properly rather than on a laptop. Start here: Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love, then Chungking Express. Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her or Pain and Glory. Wu Xia and martial arts as pure design in Zhang Yimou's Hero. Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty. Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. And Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car if you want something quieter with the same care. Where to go if it works: follow cinematographers rather than directors, since that's what you're responding to. Christopher Doyle, Darius Khondji, and Robby Muller between them shot a good portion of what you'll love. Also worth seeking out restorations, which is where these films look how they were meant to.
The Slow Burn
You want to be asked something, and a film that explains itself has already failed.
Three hours is fine. As little plot as it likes. A five-minute shot of someone doing nothing is often the best part, ambiguity is preferable, and not understanding something is the invitation rather than the problem. You always finish things and you always read about them afterward. Start here: Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, then Mirror. Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, which is the most demanding thing on this list and worth it. Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee. Bela Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies. Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light. Lav Diaz if you want to find out where the far end is. Practical advice, since this is the one shape that fails on logistics: watch these early rather than late, on the largest screen available, in one sitting with nothing else happening. Half of what people call boredom with this cinema is watching it at eleven at night on a laptop.
What this quiz can’t tell you
- It matches you on the preferences you report, so the result is only as good as the options offered. Your real favourite may not be among them.
- Taste shifts with mood and season. Treat the result as a suggestion to try, not a verdict.
Read more about how our quizzes are created, including how scoring works and what we do and do not claim.