18 Brilliant Foreign Movies Which Never Got Released In India

World Cinema is booming. With an estimated figure of upwards of 50,000 movies being produced every year, it becomes hard to keep track. And even harder when most of the movies don’t get a worldwide release, or get a select country release.

Among these, many brilliant movies miss their chance of reaching a wider audience because the makers of the film aren’t sure of the reception they might get in those countries. India has had its fair share of movies which never got released in the country.

We list some of the most brilliant ones released in the 21st Century.

1. Requiem For a Dream (2000)

A dark and depressing film by Darren Aronofsky, Requiem For a Dream tells the story of four people who spiral into the messy world of drug addiction and ultimately lose everything, including their minds.

 

2. Amélie [Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain] (2001)

A charming and flimsy girl who works in a café decides to change the world of people around her by changing the lives of her neighbours, and ultimately her own.

 

3. The Pianist (2002)

A Polish pianist who is a Jew escapes deportation in the time of the Nazi era and finds refuge in the Warsaw ghetto, which suffers mass destruction.

 

4. Spirited Away [Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi] (2002)

Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s Oscar-award winning Japanese animation film, it tells the story of a young girl who enters into a mysterious world of spirits with her parents, who get transformed into pigs. She has to find her courage and save her parents and return all of them to the outside world.

 

5. Irreversible (2003)

After a woman is brutally raped and murdered in an alleyway, her boyfriend and his friend take it upon themselves to find the rapist and avenge the woman. A dark and disturbing French film by Argentine acclaimed director Gaspar Noé.

 

6. Oldboy [Oldeuboi] (2003)

This South Korean mystery film chronicles the abrupt capture and solitary confinement for of a man for 15 years. When he is suddenly released without explanation, he must try to find out about his captors and plot vengeance.

PS: The movie wasn’t released in India, but this did not deter us. The movie was the ‘inspiration’ for the Sanjay Dutt-starrer Zinda.

 

7. Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004)

In this trippy romantic comedy-drama, two estranged lovers undergo a medical operation to erase each other’s memories from their minds, but eventually end up meeting each other again.

 

8. Pan’s Labyrinth [El laberinto del fauno] (2006)

This Spanish mystical film is straight out of Guillermo del Toro’s nightmarish brain. The daughter of a tyrannical military officer for a stepfather moves into a new house with him. While letting her imagination run wild, she wanders off into a labyrinth where she meets mystical creatures who help her save her ailing mother.

 

9. Into The Wild (2007)

A man straight out of college abandons his material life, donates all his savings, and embarks on a journey to Alaska to live in the forests. His search for adventure shapes countless lives of the people directly and indirectly connected to him.

 

10. No Country For Old Men (2007)

A man stumbles upon a drug with a stash of cocaine and two million dollars in cash. As he escapes, he sets off a chain reaction of crime and death which not even the law can stop.

 

11. The Secret in Their Eyes [El secreto de sus ojos] (2010)

This Argentine crime thriller tells the story of a retired criminal court investigator who decides to write a novel. But he doesn’t need a plot, because he reflects back on a case in his past which went unresolved, and he writes the novel to achieve closure.

 

12. Under The Skin (2013)

A mysterious woman embarks on a path of self-discovery and spritiual experiences after she lures and seduces multiple men in Scotland.

 

13. Frank (2014)

A down and out of luck musician joins a new pop band led by the mysterious Frank, a maestro musician who hides his face in a large fake head.

 

14. Obvious Child (2014)

A twenty-something comedienne lands herself an unplanned pregnancy and must learn what it’s like to be an adult and accept the care and support she receives from anywhere she gets.

 

15. Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)

A dark and off-beat story about two vampires surviving the mortal world for centuries and finding it increasingly difficult to tolerate human life.

 

16. Anomalisa (2015)

One of the best animated movies of the decade, Anomalisa tells the story of an author of customer service books who escapes the mundaneness of life when he goes on a business trip.

 

17. Selma (2015)

The story of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dangerous campaign in 1965 to secure equal rights to vote. Facing heavy opposition, he marches from Selma to Montgomery.

 

18. Son of Saul [Saul fia] (2015)

In the concentration camps of Auschwitz, prisoners are forced to work with the Nazis. A man finds a dead body of a boy and he thinks it’s of his son. This Hungarian movie chronicles his struggle to save the body from being incinerated and give him a proper burial.

There are still many movies, good and bad, which never got releases in India, but these ones aren’t worth missing.

Guess we’ll have to follow Anurag Kashyap’s advice!
*wink wink*

---

Facts source: IMDb, Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia.
Cover image source