Sugar (2008), The Cuckoo (2002), English Vinglish (2012), Lost in Translation (2003), Lilies of the Field (1963), The Class (2008), Yahsi Bati (2009), Babel (2006) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Language Barrier movies.
Storyline: Like many young men in the Dominican Republic, 19-year-old Miguel "Sugar" Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) dreams of winning a slot on an American baseball team. Indeed, his talents as a pitcher eventually land him a slot on a single-A team in Iowa, but culture shock, racism and other curveballs threaten to turn Sugar's dream sour.
Plot Keywords: sports, dreams, immigration, cultural conflict, struggle, coming of age, independent film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: At the close of Axis-aligned Finland's involvement in World War II, pacifist Finnish soldier Veikko (Ville Haapasalo) is trussed to a wilderness rock formation as punishment for desertion. Nearby, Soviet Capt. Ivan (Viktor Bychkov), en route to his trial for treason, survives the bombing of his transport. Anni (Anni-Kristiina Juuso), a local Sami woman, comes to the aid of both men, and an unlikely relationship is forged as three lonely souls attempt to survive the long winter.
Plot Keywords: war, world war ii, finland, soviet union, germany, soldier, prisoner ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The story of a quiet, sweet tempered housewife who endures small slights from her well educated husband and daughter everyday because of her inability to speak and understand English. She is resourceful and open-minded but somehow these traits don't get noticed by them. Then one day on a trip to visit her sister in Manhattan she decides to enroll in an English Learners class and meets a host of new people who teach her to value herself beyond the narrow perspective of her family.
Plot Keywords: comedy, drama, family, female protagonist, indian cinema, cultural clash, self-discovery ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Middle-aged American movie star Bob Harris is in Tokyo to film a personal endorsement Suntory whiskey ad solely for the Japanese market. He is past his movie star prime, but his name and image still have enough cachet for him to have gotten this lucrative $2 million job. He has an unsatisfying home life where his wife Lydia follows him wherever he goes - in the form of messages and faxes - for him to deal with the minutiae of their everyday lives, while she stays at home to look after their kids. Staying at the same upscale hotel is fellow American, twenty-something recent Yale Philosophy graduate Charlotte, her husband John, an entertainment still photographer, who is on assignment in Japan. As such, she is largely left to her own devices in the city, especially when his job takes him out of Tokyo. Both Bob and Charlotte are feeling lost by their current situations, which are not helped by the cultural barriers they feel in Tokyo, those cultural barriers extending far beyond just not...
Plot Keywords: drama, romance, comedy, loneliness, culture clash, midlife crisis, tokyo ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Homer Smith, an unemployed construction worker heading out west, stops at a remote farm in the desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of East European Catholic nuns, headed by the strict Mother Maria, who believes that Homer has been sent by God to build a much-needed church in the desert...—Christopher J. Thompson <thompson@amath.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: drama, inspirational, race, faith, religion, community, dreams ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Teacher François Marin and his colleagues are preparing for another school year teaching at a racially mixed inner city high school in Paris. The teachers talk to each other about their prospective students, both the good and the bad. The teachers collectively want to inspire their students, but each teacher is an individual who will do things in his or her own way to achieve the results they desire. They also have differing viewpoints on the students themselves, and how best to praise and discipline them. The administration of the school tries to be as fair as possible, which includes having student representatives sit on the student evaluation committee. Marin's class this year of fourteen and fifteen year olds is no different than previous years, although the names and faces have changed. Marin tries to get through to his students, sometimes with success and sometimes resulting in utter failure. Even Marin has his breaking point, which may result in him doing things he would ...
Plot Keywords: education, school, teacher, students, cultural conflict, immigration, multiculturalism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In 1881, two Ottoman Secret Agents travel to the USA, at the Sultan's request, to deliver a valuable diamond as a gift for the President.
Plot Keywords: comedy, adventure, cultural clash, road movie, humor, friendship, travel ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: 4 interlocking stories connected by a single gun converge at the end to reveal a complex and tragic story of the lives of humanity around the world and how we truly aren't all that different. In Morocco, a troubled married couple are on vacation trying to work out their differences. Meanwhile, a Moroccan herder buys a rifle for his sons so they can keep the jackals away from his herd. A girl in Japan dealing with rejection, the death of her mother, the emotional distance of her father, her own self-consciousness, and a disability among many other issues, deals with modern life in the enormous metropolis of Tokyo, Japan. Then, on the opposite side of the world the married couple's Mexican nanny takes the couple's 2 children with her to her son's wedding in Mexico, only to come into trouble on the return trip. Combined, it provides a powerful story and an equally powerful looking glass into the lives of seemingly random people around the world and it shows just how connected we really ...
Plot Keywords: drama, thriller, multi-narrative, cross-cultural, morocco, usa, mexico ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Jewish-American writer Jonathan Safran Foer is a collector of his family's memorabilia, although most of the items, some which he takes without asking, would not be considered keepsakes by the average person. He places most of those items in individual Ziploc bags, and hangs them on his keepsake wall under the photograph of the person to who it is most associated. He has this compulsion in an effort to remember. He is able to tie a photograph that he receives from his grandmother, Sabine Foer, on her deathbed - it of his grandfather, Safran Foer, during the war in the Ukraine, and a young woman he will learn is named Augustine - back to a pendant he stole from his grandfather on his deathbed in 1989, the pendant of a glass encased grasshopper. Learning that Augustine somehow saved his grandfather's life leads to Jonathan going on a quest to find out the story at its source where the photograph was taken, in a now non-existent and probably largely forgotten town called Trachimbrod that...
Plot Keywords: drama, comedy, adventure, historical, war, family, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In a village of fishermen in Japan, Takata misses his son Kenichi, to whom he has been estranged for many years. When his daughter-in-law Rie tells him that Kenichi is sick in the hospital, she suggests Takata to come to Tokyo to visit his son in the hospital where he would have the chance to retie the relationship. However, Kenichi refuses to receive his father in his room, and Rie gives a videotape to Takata to know about the work of his son. Once at home, Takata sees a documentary in the remote village Lijiang, in the province of Younnan, about the passion of Kenichi, the Chinese opera, where the lead singer Li Jiamin promises to sing an important folk opera on the next year. When Rie calls Takata to tell that her husband has a terminal liver cancer, Takata decides to travel to Lijiang to shoot Li Jiamin singing the opera to give to Kenichi.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Keywords: drama, family, father-son relationship, zhang yimou, japan, cultural differences, journey ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: During World War II, a shot-down American pilot and a marooned Japanese navy captain find themselves stranded on the same small uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. Following war logic, each time the crafty Japanese devises something useful, he guards it to deny its use to the Yank, who then steals it, its proceeds or the idea and/or ruins it. Yet each gets his chance to kill and/or capture the other, but neither pushes this to the end. After a while of this pointless pestering, they end up joining forces to build and man a raft...—KGF Vissers
Plot Keywords: war, survival, world war ii, cooperation, human nature, cultural conflict, language barrier ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Victor Navorski reaches JFK airport from a politically unstable country. Due to collapse of his government, his papers are no longer valid in the airport, and hence he is forced to stay in the airport until the war cools down. He makes the airport his home and develops a friendship with the people who work there until he can leave.
Plot Keywords: comedy, drama, romance, immigration, cultural clash, hope, loneliness ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In Buenos Aires, the bitter and methodic Roberto is a lonely man and the owner of a hardware store. Roberto collects bizarre worldwide news in an album as a hobby and his acquaintance Mari has an unrequited love for him, but Roberto is always evasive. One day, Roberto sees a Chinese named Jun being expelled from a taxi while he is watching the landing of airplanes in the airport and he helps the man to stand up. Jun does not speak Spanish and shows a tattoo with an address on his arm. Roberto heads to the spot with Jun and discover that the place belonged to Jun's uncle that sold it three and half years ago. Roberto goes with Jun to the police station, to the China's embassy and to a Chinese neighborhood to seek out his uncle but it is a fruitless search. Roberto lodges Jun in his house and after a series of incidents, he finds a delivery boy to translate Jun and he learns the dramatic story of his life.
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, cultural clash, china, argentina, immigration, cross-cultural ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Borat Sagdiyev is a TV reporter of a popular show in Kazakhstan as Kazakhstan's sixth most famous man and a leading journalist. He is sent from his home to America by his government to make a documentary about American society and culture. Borat takes a course in New York City to understand American humor. While watching Baywatch on TV, Borat discovers how beautiful their women are in the form of C. J. Parker, who was played by actress Pamela Anderson who hails from Malibu, California. He decides to go on a cross-country road trip to California in a quest to make her his wife and take her back to his country. On his journey Borat and his producer encounter a country full of strange and wonderful Americans, real people in real chaotic situations with hysterical consequences.
Plot Keywords: comedy, satire, mockumentary, cultural clash, politically incorrect, social commentary, travel ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Leni Dali (Marián Aguilera), a successful television reporter, decides the time is finally right to bring the new love in her life, Rafi (Guillermo Toledo), to meet her rather eccentric Jewish family. As could be expected, Rafi harbors some anxiety about the meeting, and his concern is not unfounded. Each family member turns out to have a different personality flaw that makes feeling at home hard to do -- especially when they discover Rafi is Palestinian.
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, family, cultural clash, cross-cultural, love, humor ...
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