Amores Perros (2000), the Mexican film starring the great actor Gael García Bernal, is a gripping thriller right from the opening scene. I highly recommend checking it out.

From imdb.com

A horrific car accident connects three stories, each involving characters dealing with loss, regret, and life’s harsh realities, all in the name of love.

One of the more underrated films on the résumés of both Francis Ford Coppola and Gene Hackman is the estimable The Conversation (1974). Coppola writes and directs this gritty thriller. Hackman stars, and excellent supporting actors include Jon Cazale (Fredo Corleone), Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, and a young Harrison Ford.

From imdb.com

A paranoid and personally-secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be murdered.

The classic and memorable opening sequence, which sets the tone for the rest of the film, can be seen below.

I think it is a must-watch. Check it out.

Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (2006) is an excellent historical action and adventure film. Regardless of your feeling on Gibson, who stays behind the camera as the writer and director here, the no-name cast is phenomenal, as are the detailed historical dramatizations.

From imdb.com

As the Mayan kingdom faces its decline, the rulers insist the key to prosperity is to build more temples and offer human sacrifices. Jaguar Paw, a young man captured for sacrifice, flees to avoid his fate.

On this St. Patrick’s Day, consider watching or re-watching a film with Boston Irish flair, The Departed (2006). On paper, the talent is as loaded as it gets for this Martin Scorsese-directed film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, among many others. And all of that talent does indeed translate into a gripping and entertaining thriller.

From imdb.com

An undercover state cop who infiltrated a Mafia clan and a mole in the police force working for the same mob race to track down and identify each other before being exposed to the enemy, after both sides realize their outfit has a rat.

The great writer/director Federico Fellini’s masterpiece, Amarcord (1973) is easily a top ten all-time film for me.

As with most classic Italian cinema, the expert blending of tragedy and comedy is unparalleled and, frankly, flawless. The story weaves together several different characters and storylines in 1930’s Fascist Italy, set in a coastal town near Rimini, in the Emilia-Romagna region.

Watch it with subtitles if you don’t speak Italian, rather than dubbed in English.

Italian for Beginners (2000) is an underrated subtitled comedy out of Denmark worth checking out.

From imdb.com

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner’s course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives.