so i saw a post listing films in foreign languages and i thought i could expand on the list a little bit but my addition got so massive i decided to move it to a separate post. this list will focus on my target languages and feature a little bit of french as well just to spice it up. 

films are good for several reasons

usually quite fun

actually challenging if u watch w/o subtitles and the easiest way to achieve immersion in the privacy of your home

“productive procrastination”

might give u cultural insight as well

or encourage you to learn some history!!!!

i’m really tired of people watching almodóvar and being like uuuuuuhuuuu look the great spanish director and forgetting that not only are there spanish films not directed by almodóvar but also that spanish is spoken in other countries as well and GUESS WHAT they produce culture

ok here we go!!!!! im really lazy and my computer is agonizingly slow so i can provide no links. if something interests you search for it et voila

WARNING!!!!! long post 

spanish

magia salvaje - this is an uber cool colombian film showing largely unexplored areas of colombia which i think is the most beautiful country on earth. it was recommended to me independently by a friend from my spanish class and my colombian pen pal gal. from its website: “magia salvaje es la cinta del mundo natural más ambiciosa realizada en el país (…) [realizada en] 85 locaciones y 20 ecosistemas. (…) un tributo a la belleza de colombia“ tl;dr: cool shit u should watch, it’s available on yt

señor ávila - a p good series filmed by the mexican hbo starring tony dalton as an exemplary father and husband that starts working as a paid killer for the mafia, but it’s not all peachy because it affects his personal life and his son gets into some really deep shit. gets a bit grim at times but good nevertheless

retrato de un comportamiento animal - really cute indie film made in uruguay. an unlikely couple on a trip to brazil. expect nice landscapes and voseo

relatos salvajes - dark humour from argentina, a series of episodes in which people go absolutely bonkers over the most petty shit and also get p violent when you wouldn’t expect them to be. produced by pedro almodóvar if that serves as any recommendation.

la historia oficial - another one from argentina. drama. set during the dictatorship and based on true events, follows a family through a period when they would literally tear lil kids from their mothers and drown the parents if they were enemies of the state. watch it

juana la loca - spanish historical drama about their queen joan the mad

el laberinto del fauno - can we just, omg, ok, i love that film so much. fantasy, set during the civil war in spain. a little girl discovers this world with monsters and other creatures and it’s scary as shit but she goes through these adventures because she cares for her family. watch itttt

doce hombres sin piedad - this is the spanish version of the american classic 12 angry men, recorded in 1973. you can watch it on youtube.

gran hotel - spanish tv series, historical drama sort of downton abbey style. weird shit is happening in this lovely hotel, what do we do??? apparently available on netflix

como agua para chocolate - cute film “about how life used to be in mexico” (imdb) based on the p famous novel by laura esquivel. lovely colours, romantic love and a lot of nice food

los diarios de motocicleta - starring gael garcía bernal in an adaptation of che guevara’s memoir in which young che travels the world on his motorbike

no - ok this is some amazing shit (oscar nomination holaaaa). it’s a chilean film with gael garcía bernal set in the 1980s. in 1988 pinochet held a referendum in which basically if u said “yes” he stayed as te country’s official and lawful leader and if you said “no”, well, he went. the film is about the campaign that sought to get rid of him

talento de barrio - sorry but i couldn’t omit that one. it has daddy yankee in it, period.

italian

la dolce vita - please do yourself a favour and watch it

la grande bellezza - as above. this is my favourite film of all time. look for the soundtrack on yt and you will know why

il bidone - early fellini follows petty thieves in rome

il prefetto di ferro - set in the 1920s. giuliano gemma as cesare mori aka the iron prefect who comes to palermo to deal with the gangs. good shit

ladri di biciclette - directed by vittorio de sica, set in post-ww2 rome, “a masterpiece of italian neorealism” (wiki). a desperate family needs their bicycle to survive

amarcord - comedy/drama, set in the 1930s. coming-of-age. “Fellini skewers Mussolini’s ludicrous posturings … that <<imprisoned Italians in a perpetual adolescence>> by mockig himself and his fellow villagers in comic scenes tha underline their incapacity to adopt genuine moral responsibility or outgrow foolish sexual fantasies” (wiki). won oscar for foreign language.

gomorra - tv series based on famed novel by roberto saviano. rival mob clans. good shit

il vangelo secondo matteo - “trattando in maniera antidogmatica un argomento di carattere religioso, l’opera fece sensazione e scatenò un aspro confronto intelettuale sulla stampa, proseguendo le non sopite polemiche per le accuse di vilipendio della religione” (wiki). three oscar nominations.

una vita violenta - poor kid in rome attempts to transform his life after leaving prison

la notte - marcello mastroianni in a study of a deteriorating relationship

la nostra terra - cute film which is literally my aesthetic aka people working the land. educated guy from bologna comes down south to start a community and sell organic veg he will grow himself. featuring creepy mafia guy freshly released from prison and sneaky southerners

la mafia uccide solo d’estate - drama but also a comedy fresh from palermo. lil boy observes how the mob influences people’s lives

il capitale umano - drama. a car accident ties together the lives of two families. people go crazy. great performance by valeria bruni tedeschi

il rosso e il blu - follows the lives of three school teachers as they get really involved in the fucked up lives of their students. confusing but oddly satisfying

latin lover - fun comedy of how a famed actor dies leaving behind a shitload of lovers, wives and children who all meet for his funeral.

portuguese

trash - an AMAZING brazilian film about two favela boys trying to solve a criminal mystery and unearth corruption before an ill-willed police officer gets to them; all thanks to a wallet found in the dumpster they work in. really good cinema with appearances made by rooney mara and martin sheen

singularidades de uma rapariga loura - modern portuguese film based on a short stories by eça de queirós. a blooming romance meets an unexpected obstacle. spot on aesthetic and cleverly blended cultural references. directed by manoel de oliveira who is THE MAN, check out his ther shit such as the p recent o convento starring john malkovich and catherine deneuve

saneamento básico - p straightforward but fun brazilian comedy in which a small town community will do anything to raise money to fix their sewer system

this is embarrassingly short i will make a separate post to expand 

french

farinelli - an AMAZING film based very loosely on the life of the most famous castrato singer, farinelli. loooveeeee

la religieuse (2013) - a really stuningly made adaptation of denis diderot’s novel about a girl thrown into a convent against her will and desperate to get out who discovers some dark family secrets.

tom à la ferme - weird indie canadian film with xavier dolan, a gay man travelling to meet his dead boyfriend’s family and terrorised by said’s boyfriend’s horrible brother. more dark family shit for u

yves saint laurent - nice biographical film with pierre niney

dans la maison - terrifying and fascinating drama about how one seductive teenager ruins some families. 10/10 would recommend

les choristes - really good film about how a music teacher transforms the lives of a class of “difficult” boys. set in the 1940s to spice it up

les liaisons dangereuses (1959) - adaptation of laclos’ classic novel, set in the present day. directed by roger vadim.

that’s it - I hope at least one person finds it interesting/helpful!!!

POLITICS AND HISTORY

“Why We Fight” (BBC, 2005)

“Fahrenheit 9/11” (Michael Moore, 2004)

“War on Democracy” (John Pilger, 2007)

“Hijacking Catastrophe” (Sut Jhally, 2004)

“Breaking the Silence” (John Pilger, 2003)

“Fog of War” (Robert McNamara, 2003)

HEALTH, FOOD, AND NATURE

“Food Inc.” (Robert Kenner, 2008)

“Super Size Me” (Morgan Spurlock, 2004)

“Planet Earth” (Discovery Channel, 2006)

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS

“Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People” (Jack Shaheen, 2006)

“Control Room” (Magnolia Pictures, 2004)

“Hearts and Minds” (Peter Davis, 1974)

“Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media” (Herman, 1992)

“Weapons of Mass Deception” (Danny Schechter, 2004)

“The War You Don’t See” (John Pilger, 2010)

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

“The Century of the Self” (BBC, 2004)

“Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech” (HBO, 2009)

“Debate: Political Islam – Is it a threat to the West?” (Doha Debates, 2009)

“Bowling for Columbine” (Michael Moore, 2002)

“Hamza Tzortzis: Liberalism & Islam” (LSESU, 2011)

“Jesus Camp” (A&E Indiefilms, 2006)

“A Time for Burning” (William C. Jersey, 1966)

“Malcolm X: Make it Plain” (AE, 1994)

PALESTINE

“Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land” (Sut Jhally, 2004)

“The Israel Lobby” (Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer)

“Defamation” (Norman Finkelstein, 2009)

“Palestine Is Still the Issue” (John Pilger, 2003)

“Occupation 101” (Abdallah Omeish, 2006)

HUMAN RIGHTS

“The Road to Guantanamo” (Michael Winterbottom, 2006)

“Taxi to the Dark Side” (Moazzam Begg, 2007)

“Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre” (Italy, 2005)

“Generation Kill” (Journeyman Pictures, 2004)

“The War Tapes” (Deborah Scranton, 2006)

ECONOMICS AND GLOBALIZATION

“Commanding Height: Battle for the World Economy” (PBS, 2002)

“The Corporation” (Noam Chomsky, 2003)

“Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices” (Brave New Films, 2005)

“Money as Debt” (Paul Grignon, 2006)

“Darwin’s Nightmare” (Hubert Sauper, 2004)

“End of Suburbia” (Gregory Greene, 2004)

“Life + Debt” (Stephanie Black, 2001)

“Smartest Guys in the Room” (Alex Gibney, 2005)

MISCELLANEOUS

“Inside Islam: What a billion Muslim really think” (Dalia Mogahed, 2009)

“Islam: Empire of Faith” (PBS, 2000)

“Inside Mecca” (National Geographic, 2003)

“Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple” (PBS, 2006)

“Death of the Freedom Fighter” (Al Jazeera, 2009)

“The Trouble With Atheism” (Dimitri Collingridge, 2006)

“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” (Premise, 2008)

“To Catch a Predator” (Dateline, NBC)

“An Islamic History of Europe” (Omaar Rageh, BBC)

“Free Fahad” (Siraj Wahaj, 2008)

BEST PICTURE “La La Land” “Moonlight” - WINNER “Manchester by the Sea” “Arrival” “Fences” “Lion” “Hidden Figures” “Hacksaw Ridge” “Hell or High Water”

BEST DIRECTOR Damien Chazelle, “La La Land” - WINNER Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight” Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival” Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea” Mel Gibson, “Hacksaw Ridge”

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE Natalie Portman, “Jackie” Emma Stone, “La La Land” - WINNER Isabelle Huppert, “Elle” Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins” Ruth Negga, “Loving”

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE Ryan Gosling, “La La Land” Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea” - WINNER Denzel Washington, “Fences” Andrew Garfield, “Hacksaw Ridge” Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE Viola Davis, “Fences” - WINNER Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea” Octavia Spencer, “Hidden Figures” Naomie Harris, “Moonlight” Nicole Kidman, “Lion”

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight” - WINNER Jeff Bridges, “Hell or High Water” Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea” Dev Patel, “Lion” Michael Shannon, “Nocturnal Animals”

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY “Moonlight,” Barry Jenkins - WINNER “Arrival,” Eric Heisserer “Lion,” Luke Davies “Fences,” August Wilson “Hidden Figures,” Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY “La La Land,” Damien Chazelle “Hell or High Water,” Taylor Sheridan “Manchester by the Sea,” Kenneth Lonergan - WINNER “The Lobster,”  Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou “20th Century Women,” Mike Mills

Hey Everyone! When I was younger, I used to read a ton. As a direct result of that, my writing and reading were on point. Recently, however, I haven’t been reading as much, and as a result, my writing isn’t as good as I want it to be (albeit, still pretty good). I’ve decided to read all the books on this list over the next 1 and a half years to get back into reading and to improve my writing. Enjoy! :)

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

4. Animal Farm by George Orwell

5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

6. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

8. Macbeth by William Shakespeare

9. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

10. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

11. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

12. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

13. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

14. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

15. The Ecological Rift by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, Richard York

16. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate by Naomi Klein

17. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

18. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

19. The Odyssey by Homer

20. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

21. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

22. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

23. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

24. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer 

25. The Stranger by Albert Camus

26. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

27. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

28. Beowulf by Unknown

29. The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra, Luigi Luisi

30. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

31. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

32. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

33. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

34. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams 

35. Faust: First Part by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

36. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

37. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

38. Candide by Voltaire

39. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

40. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

41. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

42. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

43. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

44. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

45. The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath

46. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

47. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

48. Antigone by Sophocles

49. Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) by Chinua Achebe

50. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

51. The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales #2) by James Fenimore Cooper

52. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

53. Beloved by Toni Morrison

54. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

55. Selected Tales by Edgar Allen Poe

56. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

57. 1984 by George Orwell

58. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 

59. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

60. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

61. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

62. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor

63. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

64. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

65. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

66. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

67. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

68. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

69. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

70. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

71. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

72. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

73. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville

74. The Iliad by Homer

75. Inferno (The Divine Comedy #1) by Dante Alighieri

76. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

77. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 

78. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

79. Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill

80. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

81. Cyrano de Bergac by Edmond Rostand

82. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo

83. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliot

84. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

85. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

86. Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

87. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

88. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

89. Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

90. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

91. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

92. Call it Sleep by Henry Roth

93. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

94. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

95. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

96. A Death in the Family by James Agee

97. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

98. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

99. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

100. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Carther

Aries: “I tried my hardest. I don’t know what else to do.” The Darjeeling Limited (2007) dir. Wes Anderson

Taurus: “I want us to be together for as long as we’ve got, and if that’s not very long, well, then that’s just how it is.” The Theory of Everything (2014) Dir. James Marsh

Gemini: “I’m a connoisseur of roads. I’ve been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world.” My Own Private Idaho (1991), Gus Van Sant

Cancer: “I’m worried about you. I mean, how can you live like that? Anyway, would you call me back? Let’s get together again. I love you.” Enemy (2013) dir. Dennis Villeneuve

Leo: “I learnt long ago to hate my enemies, but I’ve never loved one before.” Peaky Blinders (2013– ) Created by Steven Knight

Virgo: “They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that’s true. What they don’t tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up.” Big Fish (2003) dir. Tim Burton

Libra: “You think beauty’s in some classroom or some textbook, and it’s not. That’s not what it’s about. This right here. This is beautiful. All of this. That’s all you need.” The spectacular now (2013) dir. James Ponsoldt

Scorpio: “Everyone’s a whore. We just sell different parts of ourselves.” Peaky Blinders (2013– ) Created by Steven Knight

Sagittarius: “Sometimes you need to do something bad to stop you from doing something worse.” Stoker (2013) dir. Chan-wook Park

Capricorn: “Life goes on. It always does, until it doesn’t.” Eyes Wide Shut (1999) dir. Stanley Kubrick

Aquarius: “I have all these things that I want to say to her, like… Like how I can tell she’s a lonely person, even if other people can’t. Cause I know what it feels like to be lost and lonely and invisible.” The double (2013) dir. Richard Ayoade

We know, we know, we know practice makes perfect, but sitting down to learn is also important. Let’s be real, if you want to be a good writer, reading is a must. You cannot escape this fact. You must eat and breathe words, not just your words but the entire library.

Below, we present a list of books that will improve your writing. Their wisdom is incomparable and as valuable as writing. Do yourself a favor and learn from them.

films about teenagers and coming of age: ghost world, a bronx tale, the breakfast club, girl interrupted, perks of being a wallflower, blue is the warmest color, rushmore, the last picture show, the virgin suicides, submarine, stand by me.

films about running away from home to find yourself: frances ha, spirited away, moonrise kingdom, 127 hours.

films about transgression, nihilism, and altering reality: fight club, american psycho, donnie darko, naked, the matrix, the piano teacher, martyrs.

films about finding your passion: kiki’s delivery service, american beauty, reality bites, school of rock, harold and maude.

films about drugs and existentialism: requiem for a dream, enter the void, trainspotting, spun, fear and loathing in las vegas, the trip, christiane f. 

films about deconstructing the manic pixie dream girl trope: scott pilgrim vs. the world, amelie, fucking amal, paper towns, shame, annie hall.,  500 days of summer.

films about punk rock: sid and nancy, we are the best!, jubilee, rock n roll high school, suburbia, the runaways, rocky horror picture show, ladies and gentlemen the fabulous stains. 

films about lesbians: fucking amal, bound, saving face, blue is the warmest color, heavenly creatures, the kids are all right, high art

films about unconventional love: eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, adventureland, silver linings playbook, amelie, lars and the real girl, when harry met sally, lost in translation.

films about art & artists: the antics roadshow, ai weiwei: never sorry, fame high, just like being there, woodmans, who the fuck Is jackson pollock, jean-michel basquiat: the radiant child, my kid could paint that, mona lisa smile

films about girl best friends: thelma & louise, spring breakers, thirteen, pitch perfect, dreamgirls, mystic pizza, the last days of disco, frances ha