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rubyfruit76
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Tuesday, April 24th, 2018 7:44 AM

Live Poll: Multilingual Movies

List: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls026101695/
Poll: https://www.imdb.com/poll/rvITPHeZAMY/

Each of the following films use two or more languages. Which movie uses the changing languages to best effect, whether by creating authenticity, enhancing atmosphere, or other such uses?

Note: 'Only includes films with real and not fictional languages, with at least 20,000 votes, and with at least a 7.0 or higher rating.

If you have any suggestions, even if they don't quite meet the above guidelines (those can be changed if appropriate), I'd appreciate any that you may have. Thank you!

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1 year ago

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14

Jessica

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7 years ago

Weird, I thought about doing something like this the other day. Great idea. :)

1

rubyfruit76

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Hahaha, great minds think alike.

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7 years ago

urbanemovies

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7 years ago

English, French, Italian, and German of Inglourious Basterds (2009) is the first one that comes to mind. But the best in context, would be that go back and forth between the languages would be best listees followed by the better listees below.

Best back and forth between the languages
The Godfather: Part II (1974)  Language: English | Italian | Spanish | Latin | Sicilian
The Interpreter (2005) Language: Aboriginal | English | French | Portuguese
Schindler's List (1993) Language: English | Hebrew | German | Polish
Das Boot (1981) Language: German | English | French
Life Is Beautiful (1997) Language: Italian | German | English
Traffic (2000)Language: English | Spanish

Better
Braveheart (1995) Language: English | French | Latin | Scottish Gaelic
Torn Curtain (1966) Language: English | German | Swedish | Norwegian
2010 (1984) Language: English | Russian
A Royal Affair (2012) Language: Danish | English | German | French
The Hunt (2012) Language: Danish | English | Polish
The Godfather (1972) Language: English | Italian | Latin
Casablanca (1942)  Language:English | French | German | Italian
 Amélie (2001) Language: French | Russian | English
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Language:English | Arabic | Turkish
Apocalypse Now (1979) Language: English | French | Vietnamese

Good
Léon: The Professional (1994) Language: English | Italian | French
The Pianist (2002) Language: English | German | Russian Polish???
Witness for the Prosecution (1957) Language: English | German
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) Language: English | German
Paths of Glory (1957) Language: English | German Latin
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Language: English | Spanish
The Great Dictator (1940) Language: English | Esperanto
The Intouchables (2011) Language: French | English
The Departed (2006) Language: English | Cantonese

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Multilingual_films

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rubyfruit76

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Ah, these are great! How did I forget about The Godfather, The Pianist, etc. Thank you! 

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7 years ago

urbanemovies

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FYC
I am not sure you want to limit yourself, but I noticed the IMDb Top 250 was chocked full of multilingual movies. You could do regular version, as well as, an IMDb Top 250 only version. I count thirty-five plus IMDb Top 250 titles from the suggestions alone.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) Language: English | French | Arabic | Russian | Spanish
Before Sunrise (1995) Language: English | German | French
 
Touch of Evil (1958) Language: English | Spanish
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Language: English | Spanish

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7 years ago

lisa_thompson_cololh5hs6xzz

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110 Points

godfather - hands down!, best movie, any category (except family films

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6 years ago

lisa_thompson_cololh5hs6xzz

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treasure of the Sierra Madre wasn't really Spanish, just bad stereotyped accents!

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6 years ago

MykolaYeriomin

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I'm pretty sure that The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) had at least few spoken lines in Spanish. 

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6 years ago

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Dibyayan_Chakravorty

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7 years ago

FYCs (All rated above 8/10 with over 20K votes):

Dangal  - Hindi, Haryanvi
Like Stars on Earth - Hindi, English
Black - Hindi, English, Sign Language
A Wednesday - Hindi, English
Swades: We, the People - Hindi, English
Pink - Hindi, English
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India - Hindi, English, Awadhi
PK - Hindi, Bhojpuri, Rajasthani
Special 26 - Hindi, Bengali
Airlift - Hindi. English, Malyalam, Arabic

1

rubyfruit76

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Thank you, Dibby! I might have to make two lists. :)

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7 years ago

Peter_pbn

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7 years ago

3

rubyfruit76

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Thank you, so much, Peter. I can't believe I forgot about Babette's Feast and 8 1/2, especially. I'll be adding several suggestions. 

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7 years ago

Peter_pbn

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Babette only has 15,000 votes, so doesn't meet your original criteria. Still, it certainly fits the spirit of the poll.

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7 years ago

rubyfruit76

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I was surprised to find that it only had 15,000 votes. There are so many multilingual films that I'm having a hard time deciding and, or course, what I often think is that I like to include lesser known movies to give them some exposure. With so many possibilities, however, I have to choose some guidelines. I might change the guidelines, though, not just for this movie but for a few others, as well, and the idea of putting the "little" films in the mix. 

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7 years ago

stephennrussell

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7 years ago

Das Boot, Sicario, Passion of the Christ,Blood Diamond

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MykolaYeriomin

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7 years ago

What a great suggestion! I am a big fun of multilinguality in movies. Always trying to use more then one language in my own filmmaking  endeavours as I know three and learning a few more (to be precise so far I'm trying to learn with bad to mediocre results Arabic, Vietnamese, Dutch, French, Hebrew and Akan). My feature film in works for 10 years already has 17 languages listed and that's work in progress with a few so far missing from IMDb. 

There were a lot of great suggestions in the comments and the list already has quite great examples but of what I haven't seen being suggested so far a few more the list could use:
Hostel (2005) (uses 9 languages: English, Czech, German, Dutch, Slovak, Japanese, Icelandic, Russian and Spanish; it was a record for unsubtitled langauges featured for significant time in a wide US release)
Hostel: Part II (2007) (4 languages: English, Slovak, Italian, Czech; fun fact: both were banned theatrically in Ukraine, although sequel was released on DVD and shown on TV) 
Just Follow Law: Wo zai zheng fu bu men de ri zi (2007) (5 languages: an unusual combination of Mandarin, English, Hokkien, Malay and Tamil). 

3

rubyfruit76

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Thank you so much for the suggestions! I really want to add Hostel, even though I've never seen it, because I like that it adds some diversity of genres represented - and then I saw that is includes some Slovak language: Slovak is such a rare language from such a small country so that makes me want to add 'Hostel' even more, especially because my ancestry is half Slovak. :). Both Hostel I and II have fairly low ratings, though, and I have to keep some inclusion criteria. I will end up making two lists so I'll reconsider the guidelines for the second list.

I had 'Just Follow Law' originally but took it off because it doesn't have 20,000 votes but I may change that guideline for this list and add it back, as well as a few others. 

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7 years ago

rubyfruit76

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Oh, I meant to ask you about your filmmaking endeavors. What do you do?

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7 years ago

MykolaYeriomin

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Well, mostly a lot of weird, "outsider art"-like filmmaking: short films, web-series, collaborative projects, freelance gigs... The feature film in question is a main passion project for now, although I have 250+ more ideas for feature films so I hope that starting with the second one it will become a faster process. Second close passion project is a surreal sketch comedy web-series called "The Bucket". You can watch it here, if you're curious, but I should warn that it is quite weird. Especially considering that being filmed since 2012 quality of footage in the series shifts frequently and that is evdent no matter how hard I try to fix it in post... 

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7 years ago

ferry_silitonga

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7 years ago

FYC:

Django Unchained tt1853728 English, German, French, Italian
Life of Pi tt0454876 English, Tamil, French, Japanese, Hindi, Chinese

1

rubyfruit76

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Thank you! I already have 35 but I think I will make a second list and I will definitely use yours. I might put one on this list and one on the second list. 

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7 years ago

jen_264364

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7 years ago

Since there are so many options at this point, maybe up the number of languages required? Three, four, five?

My two immediate thoughts:
Night on Earth - English | French | Finnish | Italian | German
The Red Violin - French | English | Mandarin | Italian | German

But also:
The Bourne Identity - English | French | German | Dutch | Italian
Paris, je t'aime - French | English | Spanish | Mandarin | Arabic
Dances with Wolves - English | Sioux | Pawnee
Snowpiercer - English | Korean | French | Japanese | Czech
Blade Runner 2049 - English | Finnish | Japanese | Hungarian | Russian | Somali | Spanish

6

rubyfruit76

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That's a good idea, Jen. I might do that or do two lists. Either way, I will definitely use your suggestions. Thank you, so much!

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7 years ago

urbanemovies

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Oooh, Red Violin and Dances with Wolves are must movies for integrating multilingual dialogue into the heart of the movie.

The original Blade Runner is a great multilingual example it had English, Chinese, German, Japanese and "Cityspeak"  It also used elements of Japanese, Spanish, and German,Korean, Hungarian, Chinese, and French all mixed together to create "Cityspeak"


Blade Runner Wikia
https://web.archive.org/web/20130507121611/http://www.brmovie.com/FAQs/BR_FAQ_Language.htm

Cityspeak is the "street" language of the denizens in the Blade Runner world .

In the movie, the first person to say something in Cityspeak was Gaff, when he first accosts Rick Deckard at the noodle bar. In the voice-over for this scene, Deckard says:

That gibberish he talked was Cityspeak, gutter talk, a mishmash of Japanese, Spanish, German, what have you. I didn’t really need a translator. I knew the lingo, every good cop did. But I wasn’t going to make it easier for him.
Background

Much of the Cityspeak used in the film was devised by Edward James Olmos, during background research for his character (Gaff).

In addition to Japanese, Spanish, and German, Olmos also used elements of Hungarian, Chinese, and French. Other street dialog in the film uses Korean.

External links

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7 years ago

urbanemovies

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I would disagree on upping the the number, I think a movie that uses two extensively like Traffic (2000)Language: English | Spanish would be better choice that one that uses five different ones only briefly in the movie. How well movies use the changes in languages to best effect should be the primary factor.

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7 years ago

MykolaYeriomin

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I honestly don't know why on Earth (no pun intended) "Night on Earth" haven't came to my mind. It fits rather perfectly with the concept. 

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7 years ago

Peter_pbn

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Two different lists, one "bilingual", the other "multilingual", would be another option.

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7 years ago

rubyfruit76

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Peter, I like your idea the most. As of now, however, there are 26 bilingual movies but 45 films with three or more languages. I could cut ten from the multi list or I might just make two lists, as combined there are enough for two 35-option lists, if I just cut one. I think I'll think about this again tomorrow morning and, if nothing changes, decide which way to go. Thanks for the good suggestion. 

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7 years ago

albstein

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47K Points

7 years ago

FYC:

Victoria (2015) - German and English

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rubyfruit76

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Thank you, alb! I added it to the second list. According to IMDb, it actually includes four languages, which is great, although I read that German and English are certainly predominant. Thank you, as well, for letting me know of this film; it looks really good so I added it to my watch list. 

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6 years ago

albstein

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Victoria was a real thrill in the movie theater (it was made in one single shot but doesn't feel too gimmicky).

To be honest I couldn't even remember that there were other languages spoken in the film. They must only come up briefly.

I guess the movie works even without subtitles, that is as long as the foreigners' English is clear enough for native speakers' ears. The most significant dialogue is in English, or is summed up in English for the protagonist.

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6 years ago

rubyfruit76

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I'm really looking forward to seeing it. It has a great cover/poster image. I like everything I know about the film, so far, so I'm sure I'll like the actual film. 

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6 years ago

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ElMaruecan82

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7 years ago

I immediately thought of Babel, perhaps the quintessential multilingual movies.

A few comments:

- I would make a distinction between bilingual and multilingual movies, if you go for movies that feature two languages, I can provide you 30 examples right now, all you've got to do is look for movies about people from different backgrounds or simply war movies, The Dirty Dozen is a multilingual movie on that basis.

- I wouldn't consider Latin as a language, it is... technically, but for me a language is only viable if it allows two persons to exchange information or just communicate, Latin in The Godfather is only used for ceremonial purposes and enhances the atmosphere of tension during the climax, but to say that the film is multilingual on this basis is a bit of a stretch. I wouldn't consider Hebrew or Arabic as well if they're only used in a scene where the Torah or the Qur'an are read.

- I don't think dialects from the same country should count, of course, they are languages but you've got to consider the foreign perspective as well, yes, Italian and Sicilian languages are different, and Native tribes in Dances With the Wolves don't speak the same, but let's be practical and associate one language with one culture or one country, otherwise, I can tell you that in Morocco, in the Babel scenes, you had both Arabic and Berber language, but would you make the difference? No, of course, let's just say it was Moroccan language.

This is not to establish arbitrary rules, but this is such an interesting poll one should take some criteria in a broader way and be more specific on others.

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rubyfruit76

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Thank you, Elmo, for your thoughtful response, as usual. I agree with you about a few things and disagree with you on others. Furthermore, I agree with you, theoretically, about another but there are practical considerations that come into play.

But all of that is for another time when it's not 2:30 in the morning and I'm more well rested. :) Thanks, again, though, for the intelligent discourse. 

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7 years ago

ElMaruecan82

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No problem ruby, I guess the third point is the weaker one, a dialect is a language, I only meant that the "multilingual" aspect had to be instantly identifiable by a viewer who're not necessarily familiar with these dialects, we all have an ear to tell when an Asian, a Latin or a Nordic language is spoken but when it comes to dialects, we're not all that subtle :)

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7 years ago

jen_264364

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7 years ago

Looks like you're all booked up, but I just remembered this - Wonder Woman - English | German | Dutch | French | Spanish | Chinese | Greek, Ancient (to 1453) | North American Indian

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rubyfruit76

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Thank you! I'll include that on the second list.

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7 years ago

rubyfruit76

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7 years ago

I consider this poll to be complete. I will also create a "part two" as I have enough good suggestions for another 35 options. :)

Thank you, so much, to every one who posted such great suggestions!

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jen_264364

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I hope Night on Earth and The Red Violin will be in part two.

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7 years ago

rubyfruit76

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They absolutely will. 

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7 years ago

urbanemovies

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@rubyfruit76​ A possible Part Two candidate???? (We will have to wait for release and final version, but I would be surprised if it wasn't multilingual.)

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1 year ago

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dan_dassow

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7 years ago

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dan_dassow

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7 years ago

Congratulations rubyfruit76 on your 133rd live poll! As of 2-May-2018 8:47 PM Pacific your polls have 202,460 or more votes, for an average of 1,522 votes per poll.

Multilingual Movies
6434th Live Poll: https://www.imdb.com/poll/rvITPHeZAMY/
Seen: http://www.imdb.com/seen//ls026101695

This is the 2,836th Title poll. Such polls have a total of 6,926,440 votes for an average of 2,442 votes per poll.
Total Number of Votes			15,378,481
Projected Date of 20 Million Votes	01-Feb-2020
Days Until 20 Million Votes		639
This is the list of rubyfruit76's polls as of 26-Apr-2018:

Sorted Alphabetically http://mypollwatch.blogspot.com/2014/05/imdb-polls-alphabetical-by-author.html#rubyfruit76

In Decreasing Order of Votes http://mypollwatch.blogspot.com/2015/03/imdb-polls-descending-order-of-votes-by.html#rubyfruit76

Alphabetical List of Polls http://mypollwatch.blogspot.com/2014/03/imdb-polls-alphabetical.html

Top IMDb Polls http://mypollwatch.blogspot.com/2015/07/top-imdb-polls.html

IMDb Polls - Descending Order of Votes http://mypollwatch.blogspot.com/2013/12/imdb-polls-descending-order-of-votes.html

Summary Statistics http://mypollwatch.blogspot.com/2016/05/summary-statistics.html

Key Threads - IMDb Poll FAQs Index https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/faq-key-threads-imdb-poll-faqs-index

How to Improve the Chance of Having your Poll on the Home Page https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/faq-how-to-improve-the-chance-of-having-your-poll-on-the-hom...

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