What is the best foreign-language film of the 2020s so far?

By IQ Score on TV Intelligentsia, The Zone of Interest (Glazer, 2023) at 193 is among the highest-scoring films in the entire database. Drive My Car, Anatomy of a Fall, Decision to Leave, and Past Lives round out the canonical entries.

How does TVI rank foreign-language films?

Every foreign film is scored on the same rubric: Cognitive Stimulation (40%), Educational Value (35%), Craft & Quality (25%). No regional or language adjustment. The rubric reads the catalog as it would any English-language entry.

Why so many Asian films in the top tier?

Korean, Japanese, and broader Asian cinema have produced an unusually-dense catalog of canonical work this decade. Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Hirokazu Kore-eda are all currently producing at their late-career peak — a coincidence the rubric just reads as the actual catalog supports.

Foreign-Language Films · 2020s So Far

Best Foreign-Language Films of the 2020s So Far, Ranked by IQ Score

Half-decade into the 2020s — the foreign-language cinema reaching American audiences. Ranked by IQ Score.

The 2020s in foreign-language cinema in American distribution is the decade Korean, Japanese, French, and Asian arthouse work continued to reach U.S. screens at unprecedented scale. Drive My Car (2021) won Best International Feature. Anatomy of a Fall (2023) won Best Original Screenplay. The Zone of Interest (2023) won Best International Feature.

Anchor picks: Drive My Car is the canonical contemplative entry. Anatomy of a Fall is the canonical courtroom-drama entry. The Zone of Interest (Glazer, 2023) at 193 is among the highest-scoring films in the database. Decision to Leave (2022) and Past Lives (2023) round out the canonical entries.

18 titles · ranked by IQ Score