A Response to “The 50 Best Foreign Language Movies Of the 21st Century So Far”

As it says in the Good e-Book, “There is no end to the making of lists, and too much Googling will wear you out.” Yet one list, published on Wednesday, got me going at once, and the results are below. The list in question is “The 50 Best Foreign Language Movies Of the 21st Century So Far.” I found myself in instant disagreement with most of the titles included, and before I even realized it, nearly in the time that it took to type flat-out, I filled half a page with my first thirty-two selections. It took a little longer to come up with the remaining eighteen, though I think that the time difference reflects not the latter films’ lesser quality but, rather, simply the accidents of memory—which is to say that, although my list is randomly ordered (except for the first film on it, the best of the century so far), if it were to be ranked, some of the latecomers would be near the top. (The rule is: no more than one film per director.)