Travel the world from your couch by checking out the best foreign films Netflix has to offer on instant watch. Here we’ll suggest films from India, Sweden, Belgium and France.
“Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” or “The Big Hearted Will Take the Bride,” recommended by Rebecca Sedlak
Freshman year I took a History of the Motion Picture@@http://courseconnector.uoregon.edu/eng-265@@ class, and one week we watched the Bollywood classic “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge”@@http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112870/@@ — and even though it was three hours long, the entire class in PLC 180 was laughing and cheering by the end of the romantic comedy. No joke. Raj (Shahrukh Khan)@@imdb link, is correct when spelled two different ways@@ and Simran (Kajol)@@imdb@@ are both first-generation British Indians living in London. Raj is easy-going and spoiled by his wealthy father, while Simran’s conservative father works at a convenience store and dreams of returning to India. While traveling Europe, Raj and Simran meet and fall in love — the only problem is that Simran’s father has arranged a marriage for her back in India. Thus commences Raj’s attempts to win over her family. It’s a pretty basic story, focusing on the struggle between traditional family values and modern individualism, but you’ll love every minute of it. DDLJ is an experience and one of the biggest Bollywood hits of all time. A theater in Mumbai has been showing it continuously since it came out in 1995. Though it feels a little dated, the cliches merely add to DDLJ’s charm. It is best watched on a big screen with a bunch of friends, but you can enjoy it by yourself with a laptop just fine too.
“Let The Right One In,” recommended by Kaitie Todd
This is how vampire movies are supposed to be made. Not in the slightest bit cheesy or overwrought, “Let The Right One In” is a dark, atmospheric and at times startlingly gory movie about love and revenge. Made in Sweden@@http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/@@, this film takes place in a small city during the 1980s and follows Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), a lonely 12-year-old boy who is bullied by kids at school. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with Eli (Lina Leandersson), a young girl who has just moved into his apartment complex and who he later finds out is a vampire. The strength of this film lies in its focus not on blood and gore, but on the relationship between Oskar and Eli. It spends most of its time building this friendship between the two through simple, touching scenes. These scenes are crafted beautifully by director Tomas Alfredson@@imdb@@ and impressively acted by Hedebrant and Leandersson@@imdb@@. Through its simplicity and darkness, this film creates a startling closing scene that one is not likely to forget and leaves viewers with a happy and yet kind of creepy thought to consider. My advice: Watch this movie in Swedish with English subtitles. The dubbed version is not recommended.
“L’iceberg,” recommended by Alando Ballantyne
While all cultures make some pretty unique foreign films, the French definitely stand alone in their dry, reality-of-life style. “L’iceberg,” a deadpan French-Belgian comedy@@http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0484113/@@, is an excellent film. Fast food restaurant manager Fiona gets locked in a walk-in freezer. After miraculously surviving the night, she goes home in the morning to find out that her family didn’t even realize that she was gone. Soon after, Fiona runs away from her life to seek out her new obsession (cold things) and to build a happier life. Over the course of the film she falls in love with a deaf-mute sailor, is pursued by her former husband and crashes a sailboat into an iceberg. This unique, quirky comedy is sure to keep you entertained with its affable characters and odd sense of humor.
“Delicatessen,” recommended by Ben Kendall

“Delicatessen” is obviously a French film in that it takes the bleak environment of a post-apocalyptic society and adds “whimsy.” Only a French director could take such a somber subject and make it funny. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet@@http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000466/@@ also directed “Amelie” and “The City of Lost Children,” good films by any stretch of the imagination. But it shocked me to find out he directed “Alien: Resurrection.” If you asked me why, I could only venture to guess that Hollywood held his children for ransom and only released them unharmed on the condition that he direct that stinker of a crapsterpiece. Be that as it may, “Delicatessen” is a beautiful film with an ensemble cast of remarkably talented artists. An out-of-work clown gets hired on as a maintenance man in a building owned by a butcher, where his last maintenance man mysteriously “vanished.” He falls in love with the mad butcher’s daughter and hilarity ensues. “Delicatessen” is a well-done film and is one of my favorites.