Best World Cinema Films for Beginners

One person’s experience, not advice

Favourl Editorial put together a list of publicly available web pages that helped them, with a note on why each one is here. Favourl hosts the list and the notes — not the pages themselves. Those belong to whoever published them, and linking to a public page is neither an endorsement of it nor any relationship with its owner.

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The sequence

In the order Favourl Editorial put them. Each step points at a public page they used; where they left a note, that is the part worth reading.

1
criterion.com
Criterion — the Current
Essays that tell you why a film matters before you watch it.
Source: criterion.com
2
bfi.org.uk
Sight and Sound poll
The decennial critics' list. A canon to argue with rather than obey.
Source: bfi.org.uk
3
nfai.gov.in
Indian parallel cinema
Ray, Ghatak, Sen. The archive documents what survives and what has been lost.
Source: nfai.gov.in
4
mubi.com
MUBI
Curated rather than infinite, which solves the choosing problem.
Source: mubi.com
5
archive.org
Internet Archive — feature films
Public domain classics, free and legal.
Source: archive.org

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Best World Cinema Films for Beginners

The sequence

Criterion — the Current

Sight and Sound poll

Indian parallel cinema

MUBI

Internet Archive — feature films

Save all 5 links in one tap

Read next

How this was published