5 Exceptional Non-English Language Films on Netflix

The Italian Happiness Train (2024), Cristina Comencini

Anna Camerlingo / Netflix

In 1946, a seven-year-old boy, born in the poor alleys of Naples, was separated from his mother to board one of the so-called “trains of happiness”, an initiative that took children from the war-torn south to families in northern Italy. Accustomed to hunger and the harshness of the streets, he arrives at a new home where affection is as unknown as abundance. Little by little, the woman who welcomes him teaches him gestures of care, and the boy discovers what it is to live without fear, but he also learns that love, sometimes, requires leaving. Winter in the north becomes a silent crossing between belonging and guilt, and when the train calls him back, he must choose between blood and tenderness. Years later, as an adult, he will understand the truth that his childhood did not know how to translate: love is not about arresting, it is about allowing the other person to go, even if it breaks your heart.

On An Island Far Away (2023), Vanessa Jopp

Disclosure / Netlflix

Tired of living to please others, a woman decides to break things off after her mother’s chaotic funeral, her husband who ignores her, her daughter who demands her and her father who is too supportive. Suddenly, she leaves Munich for a small island in Croatia, carrying only the weight of a life that was never really hers. In the village, he discovers that the house left by his mother is not empty: a rude man, a lifelong resident of the island, still lives there, and the forced coexistence between the two turns into a silent war of stubbornness and longing. But isolation and the sea end up diluting the defenses. Between discussions and shared silences, the two find, in each other, what they no longer knew how to look for, lightness. It is a reunion with life, with time and, above all, with the courage to choose your own path.

Drive My Car (2021), Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Disclosure / Diaphana Films

An actor and theater director, still dealing with his wife’s death, agrees to direct a play in Hiroshima. Loneliness accompanies him until he meets a young driver assigned to take him to work every day. The silent coexistence between the two reveals hidden wounds, secrets and the slow reconstruction of those who have already lost almost everything. The journey that unfolds inside the car becomes a powerful metaphor for time, memory and forgiveness. Between the sound of the engine and the shared silence, a complicity is born that transcends words.

Rosa and Momo (2020), Edoardo Ponti

Regine de Lazzaris / Netflix

In a humble neighborhood of Bari, a former Jewish prostitute and an orphaned Senegalese boy are forced to live under the same roof. The beginning is marked by distrust and friction, but coexistence reveals an unexpected tenderness. As she faces the ghosts of her past and her deteriorating health, the boy tries to understand what belonging means. The relationship between the two grows with delicacy and irony, transforming into a moving portrait of love, acceptance and survival. In the end, affection emerges as the purest form of resistance.

A Lucky Man (2011), Bille August

Rolf Konow / Netflix

An ambitious engineer abandons his religious upbringing and family comfort in search of professional recognition and love. Determined to prove his worth, he becomes involved with an aristocrat and plunges into a world of privilege and expectations. However, social ascension has a high price: the loss of one’s essence. Torn between duty and desire, he must choose between glory and inner peace. It’s a story about pride, guilt, and redemption—an elegant portrait of the struggle between what you dream of being and what you are destined to be.