10 Ridiculously Overrated Foreign Films

1. Amelie

And yet, nothing is as wildly, absurdly overrated as Jean-Pierre Jeunet's silly farce Amelie, which begins well, but soon crumbles under the weight of its own self-conscious quirkiness. Though there is a lot of invention in the film, and Audrey Tatou is quite delightful, she does verge on the irritating from time to time, because her character is just too precious and keen to be different. Also, the film has some bizarre tonal issues, chiefly that Amelie frequently behaves like a child, yet the film is quite adult in terms of content; it creates a jarring clash that is bizarre, and not in a particularly good way. Though there are a lot of good individual scenes, the whole thing falls apart when Amelie goes looking for love, and the cuteness is ratcheted up to near-unbearable levels. I like to call it "Juno Syndrome", even though this film in fact preceded it by a good few years. What foreign films do you find to be ridiculously overrated? Let us know in the comments below.