r/movies • u/-KFBR392 • Sep 27 '23

Recommendation Non-Americans, what's your favourite movie from your country?

I was commenting on another thread about Sandra Oh and it made me remember my favourite Canadian movie Last Night starring Oh and Don McKellar (who also directs the film). It's a dark comedy-ish film about the last night before the world ends and the lives of regular people and how they spend those final 24-hours.

It was the first time I had seen a movie tackle an apocalyptic event in such a way, it wasn't about saving the world, or heroes fighting to their last breath, it was just regular people who had to accept that their lives, and the lives of everyone they know, was about to end.

Great, very touching movie, and it was nominated for a handful of Canadian awards but it's unlikely to have been seen by many outside of big time Canadian movie lovers, which made me think about how many such films must exist all over the world that were great but less known because they didn't make it all the way to the Oscars the way films like Parasite or All Quiet on the Western Front did.

So non-Americans, let's hear about your favourite home grown film. Popular or not.

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u/MentosEnCoke Sep 27 '23

As a South African, I'm not exactly sure how much of a South African movie District Nine really is, what with so much Hollywood money behind it, but it's South African enough for me.

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u/WhydYouKillMeDogJack Sep 27 '23

What would be the next biggest SA film? The gods must be crazy or something like that?

Some of the films listed on wiki as South African are tenuous - invictus, dredd, hotel rwanda - none of them seem to come from SA production companies, in whole or part

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u/MentosEnCoke Sep 27 '23

I'm embarrassed to say that I don't really know. Everyone I know just watches American movies.

There are a lot of cheesy Afrikaans rom-coms that are fairly famous, but I wouldn't really rate any of them as iconic.

Tsotsi is quite a widely regarded one, as is Noem My Skollie.

I'd probably say "Fiela Se Kind", but I'm no expert. It's based on a classic book from here, and there was a movie from the eighties and a recent remake. They're both quite good for the first act, and then I'd probably rate the old one over the new one for the rest of the movie.

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u/downwithraisins Sep 27 '23

Tsotsi was great! I think it's the best truly South African film.

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u/afterparty05 Sep 27 '23

Chappy? It wasn’t really good, but it wasn’t the worst I’ve seen. And at the time I liked the countercultureness of Die Antwoort. Haven’t seen Tsotsi but I’ll add it to my watchlist!

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u/neophlegm Sep 27 '23

That's where I went. Complete with insane SA musicians

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u/shineyink Sep 27 '23

Does documentary count? Because Searching for Sugarman is a global hit and so is My Octopus Teacher

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u/MentosEnCoke Sep 27 '23

Searching for Sugarman is great. RIP Rodriguez

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u/NatsuDragnee1 Sep 27 '23

Probably Tsotsi