Whether it’s your streaming player, smart TV, or your streaming service, Roku TV’s been killing it as the leading American streaming distributor, so it won’t be a surprise to hear that the service has plenty of hidden gems in its library. On top of this, these films aren’t just limited to American-made films, the selection includes great titles from all over the world. So for Roku subscribers wanting a glimpse of something new, here’s our list for the best foreign films on the service.
50 Best Foreign Movies on Roku TV Right Now
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20.
Stray (2021)
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Beautifully directed and blessed to be led by the wonderfully gentle and curious dog Zeytin, Stray commits to its unique point of view by reimagining Istanbul as a place made up of cars, torsos, and trash on the street. Such constraints on one's filmmaking might make it seem like director Elizabeth Lo is in the perfect position to manipulate her animal characters in order to get the "story" she wants, but it genuinely never feels that way. If anything, Zeytin is the one who pulls Lo into orbit, and there's a sense that the director is simply recording what the dog is revealing to us about human beings' daily rituals and how they end up creating structure, culture, and (sadly) outcasts from this culture.
Our staff rating: 7.6/10
Genre: Documentary
Director: Elizabeth Lo
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19.
Secret Sunshine (2007)
For better or worse, death strikes us all, fast and unexpectedly. It’s tough enough if the death is caused by ill health or accidents, but when premeditated by another person– it can be easy to lose faith in a higher power. Secret Sunshine depicts a grieving mother trying to start a new life in the countryside, though certain events make it tough to fit in. There’s a well-meaning, long-term bachelor who’s interested in her, though she’s not ready to reciprocate, and there’s townsfolk that would like to invite her to their church, though she’s reluctant to join. There’s curious, gossipy neighbors ready to comment on her every action. Secret Sunshine reveals a darker layer to the countryside towns we retreat to to cope, but it also examines the ways we grieve, cope, and deal with forgiveness, in a community that would prioritize itself at the expense of what's morally right.
Our staff rating: 7.6/10
Genre: Drama
Actor: Cha Mi-kyeong, Do-yeon Jeon, Go Seo-hee, Jang Hye-jin, Jeon Do-yeon, Jo Young-jin, Kang-ho Song, Kim Jong-soo, Kim Mee-kyeong, Kim Mi-hyang, Kim Min-jae, Kim Yeong-jae, Kim Young-jae, Ko Seo-hie, Lee Dong-yong, Lee Hee-jun, Lee Sung-min, Lee Yoon-hee, Mi-kyung Kim, Oh Man-seok, Park Myeong-shin, Park Myung-shin, Seon Jeong-yeop, Seon Jung-yeop, Shin An-jin, Song Kang-ho, Yeom Hye-ran, Yeong-jin Jo
Director: Chang-dong Lee, Lee Chang-dong
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18.
Bedevilled (2010)
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Despite how the title sounds like, the horror of Bedevilled isn’t a devil, a demon, or a spirit. It isn’t even the way childhood friend Bok-nam snaps, taking up a scythe and going on a murderous rampage to kill all the people that wronged her. No, the actual horror of Bedevilled is that everyday people like bank employee Hae-won would hesitate to do what’s right. Reading that sentence can sound cheesy, but writer-director Jang Cheol-soo structures the film, and her visit to Modo, in a gradually escalating manner. When Hae-won first lands, the mean gossip seems ordinary, but the film takes these ordinary, if overcritical, words, and delves into the subtext, especially the darker implications that makes the film difficult to watch. The film does understand Hae-won’s hesitancy– the scenes do acknowledge that reporting could mean retaliation, and the score consistently meets that very fear. But Bedevilled also understands that, if hesitancy allows abuse to be left unchecked, the very same violence that Hae-won was (and many people are) avoiding will inevitably escalate.
Our staff rating: 7.6/10
Genre: Crime, Drama, Horror, Thriller
Actor: Bae Sung-woo, Baek Su-ryeon, Chun Young-min, Hwang Geum-hee, Jo Deok-jae, Oh Yong, Park Jeong-hak, Seo Young-hee, Son Young-soon, Yoo Soon-chul
Director: Jang Cheol-soo
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17.
Two Days, One Night (2014)
This movie originally caught my eye for all the attention it got at the Cannes festival, but I assure you, all of the hype is more than warranted. Two Days, One Night takes you on an emotional journey with Sandra, recovering from depression and ready to get back to work, when she discovers that her co-workers, having to choose between receiving a bonus and Sandra keeping her job, hold her fate in their hands. And thus, barely convinced herself and with her husband as her only support, she sets out on an unlikely mission to convince the people to vote against the bonus so that she still has a salary. This movie will strike a chord for anyone who has encountered depression or even simply tried to understand the abstract concept that it is. Marion Cotillard flawlessly portrays through Sandra the desperate struggle of having to put up a fight despite the utter hopelessness that she finds herself drowning in. At strife with herself, watching her try even though every cell in her body has given up, is gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring at the same time. Before long Sandra's fight on the lay-off and on her own hopelessness seem to blur together. Whether she wins, is what keeps you hooked to the very end.
Our staff rating: 7.7/10
Genre: Drama
Actor: Alain Eloy, Baptiste Sornin, Batiste Sornin, Ben Hamidou, Catherine Salée, Christelle Cornil, Christelle Delbrouck, Fabrizio Rongione, Laurent Caron, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Marinne, Myriem Akeddiou, Myriem Akheddiou, Olivier Gourmet, Philippe Jeusette, Pili Groyne, Simon Caudry, Tom Adjibi, Yohan Zimmer
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
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16.
Han Gong-ju (2013)
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This South Korean coming-of-age story, an award-winning debut from Lee Su-jin, is centered around a high school student named Han Gong-ju. There's a dark aura surrounding our teenage protagonist, as she avoids making new friends and closes herself off from the world. More than anything, she is afraid that people will discover the secret behind her shy persona, and the past events that changed her life forever. This is an intricate and truly devastating tale, sensitively told, and is likely to leave even the most hardened viewers filled with rage at those who have wronged Han Gong-ju.
Our staff rating: 7.7/10
Genre: Drama
Actor: Baek Ji-won, Baik Ji-won, Beom-taek Kwon, Chun Woo-hee, Dong Hyun-bae, In-seon Jeong, In-sun Jung, Ji Soo, Jo Dae-hee, Jung In-sun, Kim Hyun-joon, Kim Ji-soo, Kim Jung-pal, Kim So-young, Kimchoi Yong-Joon, Kwon Beom-taek, Kwon Bum-taek, Lee Young-lan, Min Kyung-jin, Oh Hee-joon, Oh Hee-jun, So-young Kim, Son Seul-gi, Woo-hee Chun, Yeong-ran Lee, Yim Dong-seok, Yoo Seung-mok, Young-lan Lee
Director: Lee Su-jin, Su-jin Lee
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15.
Cairo Conspiracy (2022)
When he’s accepted into the prestigious Islamic university Al-Azhar, fisherman’s son Adam (Tawfeek Barhom) gets an eye-opening education — but not the kind he expected. A place associated with notions of purity is imagined as a hotbed of hypocrisy and corruption here, as naive young Adam finds himself unwittingly embroiled in a state plot to seize control of Al-Azhar (because, as one government official puts it, “We can’t accept having two pharaohs in the land”). Cairo Conspiracy's intricate plot confronts monsters in government and strips away religious leaders’ veneer of divinity as a reminder that they’re merely fallible men. What's more, the film grapples with the knotty mess of politics raging inside the institution’s walls in such a way that even its palatial courtyard feels claustrophobic. Rife with paranoia and subterfuge, Cairo Conspiracy feels utterly unique thanks to this skillful transposing of the shadowy machinations of courtly intrigue dramas and '70s paranoid thrillers into a very contemporary Egyptian setting.
Our staff rating: 7.7/10
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Actor: Fares Fares, Jalal Altawil, Makram J. Khoury, Mehdi Dehbi, Mohammad Bakri, Sherwan Haji, Tawfeek Barhom
Director: Tarik Saleh
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14.
Undertow (2009)
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The death of a loved one is always a tragedy, but it’s always different when things have been left unresolved, and so that love lingers, not moving on, perpetually haunting the lover left alive. Undertow takes this ghost story with a gentle, magic realism that doesn’t just bring the tears, but also frees Miguel to experience the hold of Santiago’s hand in public, to experience the moments other lovers share without prejudice. And as Santiago lingers, Miguel is left to reckon with the love that he never was allowed to have, as it’s outside the straight, monogamous dynamic expected of everyone in the small town. Contracorriente beautifully transforms the ghost story with its thoughtful juxtaposition of the latino queer experience.
Our staff rating: 7.7/10
Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Attilia Boschetti, Cristian Mercado, Emilram Cossío, José Chacaltana, Manolo Cardona, Tatiana Astengo
Director: Javier Fuentes-León
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13.
I Wish (2011)
Divorce is hard, even with a fairly civil separation and moving to another place entirely free from the divorced parent. The main emotional stakes are usually carried by the parent, but even then, children have some stake in this relationship, seeing that this permanently affects their relationship with both parents and any siblings they may have. I Wish tackles a separated family through the kids’ eyes– taking a rumored wish-making pair of bullet trains to get their family together, but in the optimistic reality kids tend to have, rather than a fantastical fairytale adventure. Through Hirokazu Kore-eda’s frames, and the precocious real life brothers portraying the main duo, I Wish effectively balances its hopeful tone all throughout, capturing the kids’ hopes and dreams in an endearing, but not overly sentimental, way.
Our staff rating: 7.7/10
Genre: Drama
Actor: Hiroshi Abe, Isao Hashizume, Joe Odagiri, Kanna Hashimoto, Kirin Kiki, Koki Maeda, Kyara Uchida, Masami Nagasawa, Nene Otsuka, Oshiro Maeda, Rento Isobe, Ryoga Hayashi, Yoshio Harada, Yui Natsukawa
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
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12.
Us and Them (2018)
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Us and Them follows two former lovers who reminisce and reassess their decade-long relationship over one night. They both seem to be in better places, certainly financially if anything else, but their shared wistfulness for the past threatens to prove otherwise.
The film was an immediate hit when it was first released in China, and it’s easy to see why. With just the right balance of realism, romance, and comedy, the movie makes for a simple but deeply moving and involving watch. You can’t help but root for the exes to get back together, even though you know as well as they do how minimal the chances of that happening are.
Our staff rating: 7.8/10
Genre: Drama, Reality, Romance
Actor: Andrew Tiernan, Boran Jing, Dongyu Zhou, Jack Roth, Jing Boran, Liu Di, Liu Qiheng, Qu Zhe Ming, Qu Zheming, Rene Liu, Shi Yufei, Sophie Colquhoun, Su Xiaoming, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Tim Bentinck, Zhang Zixian, Zheming Qu, Zhou Dongyu, Zhuangzhuang Tian
Director: Rene Liu
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11.
Sheikh Jackson (2017)
Michael Jackson’s death triggers the sudden unraveling of a young imam’s buttoned-up life in this idiosyncratic Egyptian character study. The news of the singer’s passing sets Khaled (Ahmed El-Fishawy) straining against reawakened memories of his youth as a mullet-sporting MJ fanatic, before his joyful creative spark was stamped out by two disparate forces: a mocking, macho dad who punished Khaled for his vulnerability and the conservative uncle who took him under his wing.
Sheikh Jackson mostly takes place across two intertwining timelines: Khaled’s free-spirited adolescence and his adulthood, which has so far been defined by a self-flagellating, fire-and-brimstone brand of Islam. These two strands form a neat illustration of the binary options Khaled was led to believe he had to choose from — but, as the movie’s title hints, he might not have to choose at all, a revelation that doesn’t come easy because it flies in the face of everything he’s been taught. Free from the judgemental impulses of Western cinema when it comes to characters like Khaled, Sheikh Jackson is both an introspective portrait of the universal struggle of defining one’s own identity and a refreshingly nuanced look at how that experience might play out in the modern Arab world.
Our staff rating: 7.8/10
Genre: Drama
Actor: Ahmed Al Fishawy, Ahmed Malek, Amina Khalil, Basma, Bassma, Dorra, Hazem Ehab, Ibrahim Farah, Maged El Kedwany, Mahmoud Al Bezzawy, Mahmoud El-Bezzawy, Mahmoud Gomaa, Omar Ayman, Salma Abu Deif, Yasmin Raeis, Yasmine Raeis, حازم إيهاب, محمود البزاوي
Director: Amr Salama
Go to Roku Channel
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