(Credit: Netflix)

How often do you come across a thought that pushes you to learn a new language? Sure, you can keep holding onto your Duolingo streak every night, somewhat threatened to knowledge, but with Netflix‘s help, the process can also be entertaining.

Netflix is a place for some great English-language content, but viewers often ignore the fact that it is a heaven for those who want to explore other tongues. In which case, what’s better than cinema?

If you are tired of scrolling the platform’s tapstry that makes everything look the same, it’s high time you explore some non-English content. These are some of the boldest, most emotional, and strangest films, but they give you the opportunity to explore various cultures and languages and open windows to stumble into unfamiliar lexicons.

Break out of your usual watchlist trappings for five films in different languages that deserve a spot in your globetrotting weekend queue.

Five non-English Netflix films for the weekend binge

I Lost My Body (Jérémy Clapin, 2019)

The somewhat incredulous premise sees us follow a severed hand that escapes from a lab and crawls through Paris to find its absconding body. This journey from the dissection table to meeting its originator, Naoufel, is as poetic as it is heartbreaking.

In another sense, it is the story of Naoufel as he struggles through grief, finding love and, also, the weight of his unfinished dreams, signalled by his incomplete body missing a hand. The hand’s odyssey contrasted by Naoufel’s backstory plays out with a deeply affecting rhythm, nudging the narrative to a crescendo at the point of union that is never to be. The masterfully blended 2D and 3D animation styles hands us a non-linear story of traversing the four stages of grief to hold on to the final acceptance in the process of moving on.

A Sun (Chung Mong-hong, 2019)

We bring you A Sun from the streets of Taiwan, and this film does not come at you with morning noise. Contrary to its name, the film opens with a shocking act of violence, but it’s always darkest before the end of a tunnel. Hence, eventually the narrative shifts into something quieter yet still devastating in its unfolding. It won’t be wrong to call it a family drama that takes you through guilt, forgiveness, and the fragile ways parents and children hold each other together, beyond blood.

The film is about the Chens, a run-of-the-mill Taiwanese family who stick out like a sore thumb following the suicide of one of their sons due to familial pressures and another one finding himself in juvenile detention. By the end of the long runtime, the rumination is less about the crime and more about starting anew on the ashes of all gone wrong.

The White Tiger (Ramin Bahrani, 2021)

The White Tiger retires the hackneyed assumption that Bollywood is melodrama and flashy dance breaks. It is adapted from Aravind Adiga’s titular Booker Prize-winning novel, and it drags you straight into the heart of modern India. At the centre of the film, we meet a class divide with Balram, who is a disenfranchised driver for a wealthy family. On the surface, he is obedient and even charming at times, but underneath is sheathed ambition, which is sharp enough to cut through the chains of servitude.

The film follows his journey from a loyal servant to a ruthless entrepreneur, which is thrilling and horrifying in equal measure. It shows you a harsher truth about the country that is still facing a suffocating class divide and the corruption that greases the system. At the same time, it doesn’t let you forget the price of trying to escape it, feeling like part thriller, part dark comedy, and part social gut-punch.

Society of the Snow (JA Bayona, 2023)

Society of the Snow is one of those survival dramas on Netflix that will always hit differently when you know find out they are true. This Spanish film revisits the infamous 1972 Andes plane crash, when a Uruguayan rugby team was stranded in the mountains and forced to make impossible choices to stay alive.

The director of the film, JA Bayona, has shot it with such a dose of realism that you can almost feel the frostbite. At times, you will find yourself suffocating like the team, but you still keep rooting for them in this ultimate game of survival. What’s striking is that the film never loses sight of the people at the heart, demonstrating team spirit as they navigate rough storms and incorrigible hunger, yet never leave each other’s side.

The Invisible Guest (Oriol Paulo, 2016)

Spain has quietly been producing some of the most addictive thrillers on Netflix over the past years and has tilled itself a niche fanbase. The Invisible Guest is one of the gems from the industry that follows a typical setup where a wealthy businessman is accused of murder and hires a high-powered lawyer to prepare his defence. But from the very first interview, the ground keeps shifting from underneath your tried and tested plot walks.

Every detail feels like a clue that will pick at the criminal’s sweater, but his money makes him a slippery catch, and by the time the film ends, you’ll want to rewind just to check if you missed anything. Oriol Paulo’s script is meticulous with layering twists, proof that international thrillers don’t just match Hollywood; they often outshine them.