Kandahar Feminist Iranian (!) film about a journalist returning to her native Afghanistan; authenticity gets it past some amateur acting—as does an eye for the surreal (and even darkly comic) aspects of Taliban-era misery.
Amores Perros Like a Mexican mirror image of Traffic, this raw, intense drama interweaves three tales of unrequited love that sweep from the serene penthouses of the rich to the sardine-packed flats of the criminal poor.
L.627 The camaraderie, casual corruption and absurdity of everyday police work in a Paris of drugs and immigrants, captured with the charged-up realism of a great 70s movie like Dog Day Afternoon.
My Son the Fanatic From the writer of My Beautiful Laundrette, another tart and lively multicultural mix, about a worldly Pakistani cabbie in England whose son is drifting into fundamentalism.
Lamerica Sardonic take on how the post-Communist East opened up to the capitalist West; an Italian seeking a fast buck in Albania winds up on a journey through that land that history forgot.
Lagaan Epic musical about an Indian town that challenges the cruel British to a life-or-death cricket match (played out between dreamily romantic song and dance numbers). What’s that doing on this list? Well, nothing illustrates the paradox of global culture better than a fun piece of pop candy like this, nominally anti-Western—but happy to use every trick in the Hollywood book.
