Top Ten Foreign Travel Films

The weekend has arrived. Full of fun…full of despair…full of whatever you decide.

No matter what’s going on in your life this weekend, surely at some point you’ll be in movie-watching mode. Here I share with you my top ten favorite foreign travel films of all time. Maybe you’ll find one that will become your favorite too.

These are not American-style fun-n-cutesy little road trip movies. They are artistic films that I think have depth and meaning. I have purposefully excluded well-known movies, instead homing in on the lesser-known. After watching any one of these films, you might just want travel off into your own adventure.

1. Lovers of the Arctic Circle – Spain - In a desolate Spanish forest, a little boy and girl meet. Soon, their lives become tightly intertwined by a series of what the girl calls coincidences. Eventually they both feel strongly compelled to take solo trips to the Arctic Circle. Here, they encounter their final coincidence.

2. Amelie – France – An isolated and imaginative young lady leads a quirky and multifaceted life. One small but very important aspect of her existence consists of encouraging her widowed father to travel. This goal she decides to accomplish by stealing his yard gnome and sending it around the world with a flight attendant friend, who then takes photos of the gnome in different locales. Yes, she is quirky.

3. Syrian Bride – Israel - The difficulties between Israel and her Arab neighbors is the focus of this film. Set in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, the parents of a young woman arrange for her to marry a Syrian television star. In order to do so, she must travel alone across the border from Israel into Syria. On her way across, Israel stamps her passport, causing Syria to refuse to recognize it and leaving the bride-to-be stranded in No Man’s Land.

4. Monsieur Ibrahim – France and Turkey – A Turkish Muslim man living in Paris becomes a father figure to a young Jewish boy who frequents his shop. Their friendship becomes so tight that the two head off on a road trip to Turkey, a trip which determines who the boy will grow into as a man.

5. Rabbit-Proof Fence – Australia – It is the early 20th Century, an era when the Australian government routinely kidnaps half-caste children from their Aboriginal mothers, taking them far from home to train them up as servants. This is the true story of three little girls who escape the lives their government imposes upon them, traveling through over 1,500 miles of Australian outback to return to the reality they want.

6. The Great Match – Mongolia, Nigeria and Brazil – The audience is the traveler in this film, as we follow three groups of people who live utterly disparate lives – a primitive tribe living in a Brazilian rain forest, nomads wandering through Mongolia, and a caravan traveling through the Sahara desert. Their lives find a common thread for a few hours on just one day, as they all gather around television sets in their homelands to watch the final 2002 World Cup match.

7. Bread and Tulips – Italy – Forgotten and left behind at a rest stop while on a bus trip with her family, a mild-mannered Italian woman becomes an impromptu solo traveler. She decides not to chase after her husband and children and instead hitchhikes her way to a new life in Venice.

8. The Red Violin – Italy, Austria, England, China and Canada – A master violin maker, grief stricken by his wife’s and baby’s deaths during childbirth, creates his final violin, coloring it red with his wife’s blood while using a paintbrush made of her hair. The instrument travels through five countries and three centuries, fulfilling its grim destiny all along the way.

9. Schultze Gets the Blues – Germany – A recently retired German salt miner, lonely and bored, develops an interest in American Zydeco music. Friends encourage him to embark on his first overseas trip to a music festival in Texas. Although he is afraid, he boards a plane and flies to America. Once he arrives, excitement erases his fear, and he embarks on a singular adventure.

10. The Bothersome Man – Norway – A man finds himself in a strange city, with no memory of how he arrived. Here he discovers a ready-made life – a perfect job, a perfect home, a perfect wife. Just one thing is amiss, though. He cannot leave.

Let me hear what you think. Have you seen any of these films? If so, how did you like them?

Thumbnail marquee photo by titicat

Travel Blogs