If you were to recomend a relatively unknown film to a stranger, what would you recomend?

Ushpin (Hebrew), The Betrayal (Laotian), Frozen River, The Class (Entre les Murs).

Cheers!

She meant

Nice one zen

Uh, for funnies… The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

If you’re into foreign films, these two aren’t entirely unknown but most haven’t seen them.
Love Me If You Dare – French.
Facing Windows – Italian

@allen_o Comment me if you watch it and like it and I can recommend others in the Hebrew language. The last two years have been really good for Israeli cinematography (Waltz with Bashir, e.g.)

The Seven Samurai

I’ll be honest, I have never watched an isreali film, but I’ll give it a go, one of my favourite footballers is an isreali

@gambit- seen it! Top film

Burnt By The Sun – the film is a good bit darker than the trailer leads you to believe.

Snow Cake – unique and interesting story, beautiful scenery.

Rain – beautiful and tragic. Wonderful light.

The Lover – satisfying, artful smut

Mulholland Drive – David Lynch (say no more)

Nick Broomfield’s documentaries on: 1) Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love, 2) “Aileen” (Florida’s female seriel killer, which was the basis for the movie “Monster”) and 3) Heidi Fleiss.

Cheers kevbo! I have seen mulholland drive, it’s a top film

‘A Thousand Clowns’ . . . . It puts things in perspective.

If you want a great screwball-esque comedy, try Scavenger Hunt – it’s absolutely hilarious, and chock full of excellent actors. Very few people I know have seen it, but I think everyone should!

The Magic Christian.

Los Amantes del circulo polar directed by Julio Medem.

edit: Hebrew film is “Ushpizin.” Here is a formidable list of the 100 best foreign films chosen by a reputable group, in 16 different languages.

http://www.multilingualbooks.com/foreignvids-top100.html

Cheers guys!

Dance Me Outside (practically no one has heard of it and it is wonderful)
Smoke Signals
Whale Rider
Rabbit Proof Fence
Lakota Woman
Incident at Oglala
Black Cloud

@gailcalled thanks for the link!

If I were to recomend a relatively unknown film to a stranger, what would I recomend? First, I would find out movies he likes, so I could figure out what his tastes might be. Not everyone will like any movie.
You said you like Avalon, which is an American film about Polish people, btw. That is a quiet little picture about a family struggling with change. I might recommend Juno or Testament or A Letter to Three Wives.

Ratcatcher, which is a Scottish film (the accents need subtitling). The story, if a bit bleak, is a grabber and the cinematography is stunning. There’s a Criterion version of this film, which is the DVD of it to see.

Battle Royale, a bloody Japanese flick.

Man Bites Dog, a crazy Belgian movie in French.

how unknown? depends on the person’s preferences

random names that come to mind include

Children of Men
Night on Earth
Four Rooms
Jizda
Tata (since you mention Poland)
Go Trabi Go!
Politiki Kouzina
Goodbye Lenin
Im Juli

@filmfann- avalon is a film set in Poland with polish actors, written and directed by a Japanese director (mamoru oshii) with a fetish for polish women, there is not much that is American about it

@allen_o – Yes afterwards Hollywood made The Magnificent Seven but I like the Japanese version better.

A thousand pardons. There is also a film Avalon about a Polish family come to America, directed by Barry Levison. I checked the IMDB before the last post, and didn’t see a polish film with that name. Sorry.
Battle Royale is great fun. It has the girl who played Gogo in Kill Bill.
A very funny, but poorly edited movie is Idiocracy. They had a gem here, but decided to just throw it into the theaters rather than fine tune it.

Try also Pan’s Labyrinth (in Spanish).

Man On a Wire

@VzzBzz: I’ll second that but it is Man on Wire.

Interesting. I love the movie Avalon,
but probably wouldn’t think to recommend it to a stranger.
It’s so very…particular.

Irreversible
Sex is Comedy