@ShaftFromNaboo I'll second
The Hunt, fab film, with a great performance by Mikkelsen. Also, completely agree about The Vanishing
@Mercurygirl, an all-time classic. I think they also removed the fragmented timeline in the remake to make it linear, as well as changing the ending - been a while though, not sure.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Vanishing-Blu-ray/103262/#Review
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Hunt-Blu-ray/77588/#Review
The remake was a mess. It lost all the frightening elements the original possessed.
When I first saw
Spoorloos it reminded me of how I felt while watching
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. That sick feeling one gets when a film captures some unsettling event too closely. That what you were watching was real and you'd stumbled across a creepy VHS tape made by an actual killer. It's like the moment in the pit at Buffalo Bill's house in
Silence of the Lambs when the girl trapped down in the hole in his basement sees the bloody claw marks on the wall of a previous victim and freaks the fuck out realizing (along with the audience) that she isn't the first. In that moment you're in that pit standing next to her. You feel that scared nausea in your stomach, her doom and dark future, as the movie teeters between art and a actual snuff film.
It's a tricky thing to do but
Spoorloos captured that very real mood when one loses their sense that there's a camera and crew involved.
The remake however was simply Hollywood's poorly formulated failed attempt to recapture that cinematic horror magic. Never should have been made.
A few other foreign film I enjoyed:
Mitt Liv Som Hund (My Life as a Dog) (1985 - Sweden) Lasse Hallstrom's classic. I discovered it several years ago after hearing Robert De Niro say in a interview it was his favorite film. Just brilliant.
Amores Perros (2000 - Mexico) Alejandro Iñárritu's first (and best imho) film in his trilogy of death series - 21 Grams and Babel would follow.
Cinema Paradiso (1988 - Italy) Giuseppe Tornatore's beautiful masterpiece. A love story to cinema that all true lovers of film should see.
Amélie (2001 - France) The film is a delicious slice of cinematic cake. Audrey Tautou is utterly captivating in the lead role.
Dogtooth (2009 - Greece) Yorgos Lanthimos is the most interesting original voice to come out in the last few years (the new Charlie Kaufman, Todd Solondz) and this film solidified that. One of those unnerving movies that makes you think and has you talking about it long after you leave the cinema. His more recent creation, The Lobster, continues this pattern of originality and the director's refreshing way of storytelling.
