In collaboration with 209 film critics, the BBC announced what it considers to be the 100 greatest foreign language films ever made, and films from Taiwan appear five times in the list, coming from three different filmmakers.
Placing at #18, ‘A City of Sadness’ by Hou Hsiao-hsien is the highest ranking Taiwanese film, and also the highest placing Mandarin language movie in the list. At #25 is Edward Yang’s Yi Yi followed at #38 by his four hour epic ‘A Brighter Summer Day.’ Rounding out Taiwanese appearances in the top 100 are two films by Ang Lee: ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’ at #54 and ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ at #78
Nominations that just missed out on the top 100 include ‘A Touch of Zen,’ ‘Dragon Inn,’ and ‘The Fate of Lee Khan’ by King Hu; ‘Flowers of Shanghai’, ‘Dust in the Wind’, and ‘A Time to Live’, ‘A Time to Die’ by Hou Hsiao-hsien; and The Wayward Cloud by Tsai Ming-liang.
Check out what critics had to say about the top 25 films here