Many Americans live their entire lives ignorant of the beauty of foreign films. Be it a lack of access, lack of interest, or lack of motivation, foreign films have not gained nearly the amount of traction they deserve.

This is starting to change, however. 2020’s Best Picture Academy Award went to Parasite, the first foreign language film to receive the award. The film industry has always been very much centered on the countries in which the films were made. This leads to people having restricted access to a vast catalog of films that they may never see otherwise. 

Even modern streaming services change their catalogs based on the user’s region. If countries’ people can not view films from other countries, they will have significantly less opportunity to understand the cultures of even their neighboring countries. Movies offer a window into the cultures of the countries in which they’re made.

When American movie-goers think about famous actors or directors, they almost entirely think of Americans, with a few British and Canadian folks thrown in. But every country has stars that shine as bright as those in the Imperial Core. Even the former Soviet Union had an incredible film industry before its dissolution, with directors like Andrei Tarkovsky and Elem Klimov making such masterpieces as Stalker and Come and See. 

The only non-English speaking country whose films were widely viewed in the United States until about 2020 was France. Films like Amélie have captured the hearts of innumerable viewers across the globe, but these are outliers.

I hope that the trend towards the viewing of foreign films, both modern and classic, continues in the direction it is going. More people need to appreciate the incredible talent that goes into every film, not just the ones in English.