ok why in @#%$'s name do apostrophies keep turning into question marks?

Anyways I thought I'd try and offer some reasoning behind my picks.

1. 8 1/2 

For a good 5 years this has been my favorite of all foreign films, and I'm not even sure I've seen it in its proper aspect ratio. Fellini the surrealist in my opinion far dwarfs the neorealist. 8 1/2 wanders from fantasy to reality with ease, and everything in it is bristling with life.

2. Weekend 

Every so often when you see a film you realize that this is exactly what you hope to see in every film ever made. Godard's film combines the illogical, the experimental, the political, and of course my never ending love of extended takes. Godard had been experimenting since his debut, and frequently the results were mixed. For every Pierrot le Fou there was a Le Petit Soldat. None of his early films are bad, but they are all building to something, and for me the culmination of all of this came here. The crowning achievement in a brilliant career.

3. Berlin Alexanderplatz 

Jumping up on my list is probably the least seen film on my list, at least with members here. A restoration project is underway so this will soon change, but allow me the opportunity to inflate its reputation more. Through all but the last episode Berlin Alexanderplatz is Fassbinder's best film. It contains all his frequent themes, the beaten woman, the boorish abusive man, and a veritable who's who of Fassbinder regulars. The last episode however, elevates the film to the crowning achievement in German cinema, and to discuss that final episode will not even come close to doing it justice.

4. Napoleon 

Many people consider the final years of the silent cinema the peak of cinematic art. The medium was advancing, and this growth was evident in the final years. Many view Murnau's Sunrise as the peak of the form, but for me its Abel Gance's Napoleon. The first of a planned series of films on the historical figure. No film, probably ever is as experimental and the wonder that Gance created here seems comperable to revolution of the first edited film. 

5. To Live 

Many years ago this was my favorite foreign film. I watched it on a lark, reading the one sentence plot description. I new nothing of Yimou, nothing of the 5th Generation, but oh what a glorious film I saw. Within 15 minutes I was convinced that this was probably the saddest film ever made, but what wonderous visuals. No film since All Quiet on the Western Front hit me so hard emotionally, and for that this film will always be a favorite. I'm scared to watch it again, not only for how I'd react to it now, but to be that emotionally drained again.

6. La Dolce Vita 

This is the reason why you need to re-watch films. For whatever reason, over inflated reputation, fatigue, I wasn't extremely moved with my first viewing of Fellini's opus. Maybe a year or two later I revisited it, and twenty minutes into the film I was convinced that it was one of the greatest singular visions I had seen. The film marked a turning point in Fellini's career, and Italian cinema in general. A decadent world of the rich and our obsession with them, and a contemporary parable for moral decay.

7. Landscape in the Mist

Well if you like long takes, then there is no way you can't enjoy Angelopoulos. There are films shorter than the average shot length in this film. It was my introduction to Angelopoulos, and remains one of my greatest cinematic experiences. In the course of a shot the film seems at times to shift generations. Yet the films most powerful moment comes from a static camera holding on a parked truck. Landscape is also the ultimate road movie, and for my money the best films with children as protaganists.

8. The Conformist 

Well now its officially available on DVD, but for many years Bertolucci's masterpiece was unavailable. The best print coming from laserdisc, but how many of us have laserdisc players? Having first suffered through a poorly dubbed formatted to fit this screen bad transfer VHS I was spellbound. Having to wait years to see it, though I couldn't help but feel like I would have had a better reaction if I could have seen it sooner and in better conditions. Later on I got a chance to see the restored print, minus the English dubbing, and the scartches and realized that this was the masterpiece I had hoped. It may not pack the emotional devastation of Last Tango in Paris but visually and politically it is Bertolucci's best work. Combining all the best elements and experimentatin of his previous films without the excess of his later pictures. 

9. A Generation/Kanal/Ashes and Diamonds 

It may not be the first Polish film, but it's the first time that the international world took notice. The film isn't a linnear trilogy but each film is a different time, and they are chronological. The first focusing on the early resistance, the second is the most devastating film of the series on the last desperate days of the losing war, and the final on the transition from war to peace. Ashes and Diamonds gets the most attention, but Kanal is the centerpiece of the trilogy and the most devastating. 

10. The Man With a Movie Camera 

City symmphonies weren't new, but Vertov's film far transceneds the boundaries of that avant-garde subgenre. It is one of the hardest films to write about, and one of the most rewarding on repeat viewings. The film is pure cinema, and the most elaborate display of montage in all its glory, peaking just before the advent of sound and a radical clampdown on Soviet style. A film that rightly deserves the high praise its associated with, and far greater than Eisenstein's overblown and overhyped masterpiece Potemkin. I watched this film as a double feature with Potemkin, and although I was impressed with Eisenstein's film I was overwhelmed by Vertov's.