The target audience of this list is teachers that want to teach intercultural lessons in their class. The emphasis is on films that are intercultural i.e. show interaction between persons of two different cultures rather than films about a “foreign” culture in isolation. All of the films listed can illustrate a particular cultural subtopic and that topic is listed in the table below. Teachers do need to worry about the running time of a movie since class time is limited so that information is listed below. Lastly, the IMDB rating can act as a rough guide as to how interesting the movie will be to the students in your class.
Movie: El Norte
Cultural Topic: Illegal Immigration
Cultures: Guatemalan culture/US culture
Running Time: 139 minutes
IMDB Rating: 7.9
Movie: Gran Torino
Cultural Topic: Prejudice
Cultures: Anglo American culture/Cambodian culture
Running Time: 116 minutes
IMDB Rating: 8
Movie: Lost in Translation
Cultural Topic: Culture Shock
Cultures: American culture/Japanese culture
Running Time: 102 minutes
IMDB Rating: 7.9
Movie: My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Cultural Topic: Assimilation
Cultures: Anglo American culture/Greek American culture
Running Time: 95 minutes
IMDB Rating: 6.6
Cultural Topic: Outline of Culture
Cultures: Australian Aboriginal culture/European culture
Running Time: 109
IMDB Rating: 7.1
Movie: The Joy Luck Club
Cultural Topic Assimilation
Cultures: Chinese culture/Chinese American culture
Running Time: 139 minutes
IMDB Rating: 7.3
Movie: The Mission
Cultural Topic: Colonialism
Cultures: Spanish colonial culture/ Indigenous culture
Running Time: 126 minutes
IMDB Rating: 7.4
Movie: The Wedding Banquet (Xi Yan)
Cultural Topic: Cultural Identity
Cultures: Chinese culture/Chinese American culture
Link to a Worksheet I have developed for this film:
http://foxhugh.com/worksheets/the-wedding-banquet-xi-yan-cultural-identity-worksheet/
Running Time: 106
IMDB Rating: 7.6
Movie: Three Seasons
Cultural Topic: Westernization
Cultures: Vietnamese culture & Western culture
Running Time: 113 minutes
IMDB Rating: 7.1
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