My two favorites for repeated viewing:
** La Cage Aux Folles
El Secreto De Sus Ojos** (The Secret In Their Eyes)That it is. Benigni’s The Monster is much funnier IMHO, but it’s certainly not for all tastes, given the subject matter.
Johnny, your reaction to Betty Blue reminds me of a recent film I saw this weekend: Look Who’s Back (Er ist wieder da), a 2015 German movie that imagines how things might play out if Hitler magically returned. It’s a deft blend of slapstick comedy and vantablack political satire. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it before. I cannot recommend it enough. Everyone should see it - especially now.
All that said, my favorite foreign language film is The Seventh Seal. Bergman’s blunt, ultimately life-affirming agnosticism plays out poetically against his backdrop of medieval magical realism. Practically every frame is an art photograph. That, and as an American of Swedish descent, I’m quite prejudiced. I have treasured this film since college; at the risk of invoking Bill and Ted, it is so excellent in so many ways.
Another vote for these two.
Many of my faves have been mentioned. One of my favorite directors is Akira Kurosawa, and I especially like The Seven Samurais, Ran, Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress. My favorite Bergman movie is probably The Seventh Seal. These should also count:
Schtonk, probably my favorite German comedy. It’s about the fake Hitler diaries and very close to the truth, that’s what makes it so hilarious.
Those two were a bit of cheating, because they are not foreign to me, so I hope the next one counts, Jim Jarmusch’s Night On Earth. Two of the episodes in it are in English, but the others in Italian, French and Finnish, with even a smidgen of German by Helmut (Helmet!) the most incompetent taxi driver of NYC, played by the wonderful Armin Müller-Stahl. I love this movie.
ETA: heck, ninja’d by **StusBlues **with The Seventh Seal. It’s all true what he said about the movie.
How could I forget Aki Kaurismäki’s movies??? Recommended:
I Hired A Contract Killer
Kauas pilvet karkaavat
I don’t think there are any more deeply humane movies than Kaurismäki’s.
So many of them, I’d almost have to break it down by which language. But I’ll plop down Fist of Legend because I’ve watched it a hundred times and the act of posting it now will give me the insatiable urge to watch it again tonight 
Chris Marker’s La Jette
I remember loving Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, but I haven’t seen it in years.
Sawdust and Tinsel
Kamikaze '89
The Tin Drum
showing Bergman how it’s done - Whispers of the Wolf and The Dove
- the real art house shit
Another vote for Babette’s Feast. Make sure you watch the subtitled one, not the dubbed one.
Side question: Sometimes when I’m watching a foreign language movie (subtitled), even though I don’t understand the language, I find myself turning up the volume, as though somehow that will make me comprehend what they’re saying. Does anyone else catch themselves doing this? I guess it’s the same principle as talking louder to a person who doesn’t understand your language as if somehow additional volume will magically bridge the language gap. Weird.
Babette’s Feast is one of my top three favorite FOOD movies, along with Tampopo and Big Night (which only counts as a foreign language fil,m because a lotta people in it speak Italian).
I’m shocked that there is no other love for Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc.. You can watch the damn thing FREE on YouTube, although it’s better with Einhorn’s “Voices of Light” cantata, which was especially composed to accompany the film.
Jesus of Montreal
Les Enfants du Paradise
and some of the above-mentioned (Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc being one – I saw this screened with a live symphony & choir singing the cantata, wowzer)
(Raises hand) Me.
Rashomon
Seven Samurai
Yes, but also Onibaba (1964)
I’ve only seen a few through my life. I do find it difficult to concentrate on movies generally these days, and subtitles do not help. So I have to be boring and say Amelie. And if I’m honest it’s the one I’ve watched most often, so it must officially be my favourite.
The director’s cut of Das Boot - best war movie ever.
Nine Queens - I love a good caper movie.
I won’t repeat some of the great ones I see listed above, but I would also add Pather Panchali to my list.
This is a good example of a film that might be considered “great” in the future, as improved English subtitles, adaptations and teaching materials are developed. I could understand if the usual half-assed job of translating to English was done here, it’s a film about language that is difficult to translate, and ideas that are currently unpopular in the English-speaking world. The last scene features an aristocrat who has become a refugee in the English-speaking world.
Ma Vie En Rose (My Life In Pink)
It’s a very small, very low-budged French film about a boy who identifies as and tries to live as a girl. Hijinks ensue.
Normally I don’t care for smaller, “artsy” films, but I have a soft spot for foreign films that get into the minutiae of daily life. Going to work, going to school, going to football practice, that sort of thing; I like seeing the foreign experience portrayed on film. This movie does that in spades.
This is on my list of movies whose high regard I just do not fathom. An entire film of (mostly) silent closeups? Not getting it.
Glad you like it, though. And my friends share your high regard for Babette’s Feast.
Agreed. Kurasawa’s Dersu Uzala, along with High and Low are IMHO his best “outliers.”
As many of my favorites have so far been mentioned, I also nominate the Russian film Ostrov (The Island) as a sublime addition to any foreign collection.