Updated–for more on the nominations, check out this thread at Scanners.

Here are the movies I submitted to Eddie on Film for the quest to determine who will be America’s Favorite 25 Non-English Language Films. I’ve bolded the ones which didn’t make the final selection, which was chosen from films which received at least 3 mentions.

1. Raise the Red Lantern directed by Zhang Yimou
2. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
3. Rocco and His Brothers directed by Luchino Visconti
4. Grand Illusion directed by Jean Renoir
5. Nights of Cabiria directed by Federico Fellini
6. The Marriage of Maria Braun directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
7. Aguirre: The Wrath of God directed by Werner Herzog
8. Andrei Rublev directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
9. Wild Strawberries directed by Ingmar Bergman
10. La Terra Trema directed by Luchino Visconti–I am hot & cold on Visconti. This is one of my favorites, as is Ossessione below.
11. Rules of the Game directed by Jean Renoir
12. Contempt directed by Jean-Luc Godard
13. Hiroshima, Mon Amour directed by Alain Resnais based on the book by Margaret Duras
14. Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa
15. Fanny and Alexander directed by Ingmar Bergman
16. Ossessione directed by Luchino Visconti–the hottest of all the adaptations of James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice
17. Faithless directed by Liv Ullmann from a script by Ingmar Bergman–This movie is one of the best cinematic dissections of marriage and infidelity I’ve ever seen (though I have not seen Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage)
18.
19. Grave of the Fireflies directed by Isao Takahata–a stunningly gorgeous and sad animated film about Hiroshima
20. Paisa directed by Roberto Rossellini–far superior to the more famous Rome: Open City
21. Lola directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder–With Maria Braun and Veronika Voss, the 2nd best of Fassbinder’s BRD trilogy. I’ve got a poster from the movie hanging behind my desk.
22. Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Blanc, Rouge directed by Kryzstof Kieszlowski–these were broken up for voting so I chose Bleu, the heartbreaking segment with Juliette Binoche
23. Repulsion directed by Roman Polanski–I’m shocked nobody else picked this one.
24. Umberto D directed by Vittorio de Sica
25. La Ceremonie directed by Claude Chabrol from the book A Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell.

Couldn’t make my top 25:

1. Happy Together directed by Wong Kar-Wai–I like this better than the others by Wong that made the list.
2. Ugetsu Monogatari directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
3. High and Low directed by Akira Kurosawa
4. The Red Balloon directed by Albert Lamorisse–one of my favorite children’s movies.
5. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis directed by Vittorio De SicaAnother glaring omission
6. Wages of Fear directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot–Transporting dynamite in a rickety truck in the mountains. Amazingly suspenseful (and Sorceror, the 1970s remake with Roy Scheider, isn’t bad either)
7. Y Tu Mama Tambien directed by Alfonso Cuaron
8. La Femme Nikita directed by Luc Besson–A fun, purely cinematic experience

Made after 2002 & therefore ineligible:

1. Les Triplets of Belleville directed by Sylvain Chomet–A wacky animated film like nothing you’ve ever seen.
2. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days directed by Marc Rothemund–I wept buckets at the conclusion of this forceful dramatic presentation of the transcripts from Nazi Resistance leader Sophie Scholl’s “trial.”
3. 8 Women by Francois Ozon–A musical starring a host of magnificent French actresses, like Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, and more.

Notable omissions from my list:

I have never seen an Eric Rohmer film
I’ve only seen a few Truffaut films, and all left me cold
I’ve never seen an Antonioni film that I cared for
I know next-to-nothing about post-silent Russian cinema
I’ve seen no Satyajit Ray or Ousmane Sembene
My husband had a Bresson festival recently, but unfortunately it took place after I went to bed each night.
I mostly dislike Godard