Some notes about the list

• I excluded BBC productions, Jane Austen, and Shakespeare, because most of them are a given and have multiple versions. 
• I added the notation (Food) if it’s the kind of movie that makes you want to eat, and (Children) if a main character is a child, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a children’s movie.
• Finally, I added a * next to movies I think are really good, and *** by my all-time favorites.

That said, here is the criteria I used:

Criteria: 1) Foreign, 2) Feel-good/happy or Quirky, and 3) GOOD, well made, well acted, etc.

Here’s the list:

About a Boy (British - urban) (Children)

*Amelie (French - urban)

*Antonia’s Line (Netherlands - pastoral)

***Babette’s Feast (Scandanavia - pastoral) (Food)

*Billy Elliot (Irish - town) (Children)

Blow Dry (British - village)

Chlorox, Amonia and Coffee (Norway - less “feelgood” and more “quirky/foreign”)

***Cinema Paradiso (Italian - village) (Children)

Circle of Friends (Irish - village)

Dear Frankie (Irish - town) (Children)

*Delicatessen (French - weird!)

*Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (Japanese) (Food)

*Elling (Norwegian - urban)

Englishman Who Went up a Hill (British/Welsh - village)

Fear and Trembling (French, but in Japan - urban/corporate)

Flickering Lights (Danish)

*GTO: The Movie (Japanese - town)

Hula Girls (Japan - mining village)

***Il Postino (Italian - village)

***Jean de Florette (French - pastoral)

Kinamand (Dutch)

Kitchen Stories (Norwegian)

*Kolya (Czech) (Children - urban)

L’Iceberg (Belgium/French - weird!)

Life in a Metro (Hindi - urban)

Little Voice (British)

***Manon of Spring (French - pastoral)

******Mediterraneo (another favorite – not available on DVD – Italian/Greek island!!!)

Monsieur Ibrahim (French) (Children)

Muriel’s Wedding (Australia)

***My Life as a Dog (Swedish - village) (Children)

***Noi the Albino (Iceland - rural)

O’Horton (Norway - urban)

Outsourced (India - obscure town?)

Sarafina (South Africa/Musical) (Children)

Seducing Dr. Lewis (French Canadian - village)

*Shall We Dance (Japanese - urban)

Shaun of the Dead (British – Special interest for Gen X and into zombies, aliens, sci-fi)

*Shower (Japanese - town)

Smoke Signals (North American Indian Reservation)

South from Granada (Spain, but in English - rural; not so great, but very pretty)

Strictly Ballroom (Australian)

***Tampopo (Might be my all time favorite – Japanese) (Food)

The Band’s Visit (Israel)

The Butterfly (French) (Children)

The Cup (Bhutan - monastery) (Children)

The Girl from Paris (French – pastoral)

The Grocer’s Son (French – village/pastoral)

The Horseman on the Roof (French - pastoral)

The Man Without a Past (Finland - urban poor)

The Secret of Roan Inish (Irish - village) (Children)

*The Way Home (Korean - pastoral) (Children)

***Under the Sun (Swedish - pastoral)

***Waking Ned Divine (Irish - village/pastoral)

***Zelary (Czech - village)

Zus & Zo (Dutch)

Another way of looking at it is that these are all movies that take place roughly between the 16th and early 20th centuries, and mostly in Great Britain. They are almost all romantic. ❤

Some of these are movies, some are 2- or 4-part miniseries, and a few have multiples seasons.

I added a * next to movies I think are really good, and *** by my all-time favorites.

One more thing: Many of these have multiple versions, so I’ve included the year of the version I recommend.

The List

The Borgias (2010)
*Downton Abbey (2010)
Ivanhoe (1997)
***The Jewel in the Crown (1984)
***Elizabeth R (1971)
*Sense and Sensibility (1981)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (2001)
***Pride and Prejudice (1995)
*Persuasion (1995)
***A Man for all Seasons (1966)
Horatio Hornblower (1998)
Brideshead Revisited (1981)
All Creatures Great and Small (1978)
Vanity Fair (1998)
Upstairs, Downstairs (1971)
*Wives & Daughters (1999)
*Emma (1996)
The Way We Live Now (2001)
***The Forsyte Saga (2002)
Aristocrats (1999)
Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1992)
North & South (2004)
The Sharpe’s series (1993-?)
Middlemarch (1994)
Lillie (1978)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996)
Northanger Abbey (2007)
The Mill on the Floss (1978)
***Duchess of Duke Street (1976)
Cranford (2007)
*The House of Eliott (1993)
*The Pallisers (1974)
The Spoils of Poynton (1970)
Jude the Obscure (1971)
Clarissa (1991)
Little Dorrit (2008)
*Silas Marner (1985)
*Bramwell (1995)
***Foyle’s War (2003) - Actually a Mystery! series, but still fits for historical interest

Special mention: Kristin Lavransdatter (1995) - Setting: 14th century Norway.

Danielle, a foul-mouthed, promiscuous teenager with a complete lack of respect for authority reluctantly develops a friendship with Clarke, an overweight, gay boy in her school who suffers from paternal abuse and peer taunting. The language dished out by these two teens verges on shocking, but I actually began to find Danielle’s liberal distribution of verbal lashings charming. I know, that sounds weird. I credit Juno Temple’s nuanced handling of the character Danielle; she managed to evoke a tenderness underlying the vulgar insults, with a smooth transition into complete vulnerability. Meanwhile, Clarke gains strength from Danielle’s hardness, and finds freedom in her façade of fearlessness.

The movie definitely wasn’t perfect; there were many flaws, and the falling action fell a little too roughly. But there was something sweet about the film, and I was moved by the themes of parental neglect, emerging identities, and the tension of the period between childhood and adulthood. This movie isn’t for those with delicate sensibilities: it made me blush! But it also made me cry. If you can sit through the physical violence of say, the movie “300,” then it might be worth suffering some verbal violence to see the healing that comes after it.