Which International Film Should You Stream This Weekend?

Radha Vatsal curates a selection of international mystery and suspense. 

Gritty story of police corruption and murder set in Cairo

The Nile Hilton Incident (2017)

This is the first film in Tarik Saleh’s Cairo trilogy. It follows apathetic corrupt cop, Noredin (Fares Fares) as he investigates the murder of a well-known singer, Lalena, in a room at the Nile Hilton. It turns out that Lalena has been having an affair with a prominent real-estate developer and politician who wants to keep their relationship quiet. The only witness to the crime is a Tunisian housekeeper, Salwa (Mari Malek), who is likely in the country illegally and lives under precarious circumstances. If details of the plot are a bit murky, they’re more than compensated for by Malek and Fares’s performances and the dusty, complex portrayal of Cairo where corruption is so endemic that it barely needs to be covered up. 

The film was originally meant to be shot in Egypt, but at the last minute, Saleh was told that would no longer be possible, so he moved production to Casablanca. The next film in the series (they don’t need to be watched in chronological order—the commonality is that they’re about Cairo and star Fares Fares) is Cairo Conspiracy/Boy From Heaven (2022); and the most recent—which I watched first—is Eagles of the Republic (2025), about a movie-star who is forced into playing the lead role in a biopic about the current dictator of Egypt, Abdel Fatteh el-Sisi. It’s a chilling portrayal of how authoritarian regimes enforce compliance. Watch them all!

Directed by Tarik Saleh, 106 minutes.

Streaming: Tubi, Apple TV.

A Bollywood musical about reincarnation and revenge

Karz (1980)

Karz is so over the top that the scene in which Rishi Kapoor, splendid in a silver jumpsuit, descends onto a stage on the needle of a giant spinning record player to belt out a hit song will remain forever burned into my memory.

The story goes as follows: unscrupulous Kaamini (Simi Garewal) murders her fiancé, Ravi. His mother begs the gods for revenge and Ravi is reborn as Monty (Rishi Kapoor), a singer. Monty dates Tina (Tina Munim, now Tina Ambani—a member of India’s billionaire Ambani family) and begins to have flashbacks to Ravi’s life. It turns out that Tina has been raised by Kaamini—and several songs, twists and turns, and much melodrama later, wrongs are righted. 

The music is terrific too. A great introduction to 1980s Bollywood.

Directed by Subhash Ghai, 157 minutes. 

Streaming: Prime Video. 

Unsettling, classic Italian film about Fascism with gorgeous cinematography

The Conformist (1970)

What is normal? That’s one of the central questions that Bernardo Bertolucci’s film explores. Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a man without a moral compass, is assigned by his Fascist superiors to murder his former university professor. As the story of his mission unfolds, we get flashbacks to his past. His loveless marriage to trusting Giulia, his friendship with a blind man, a disturbing and violent childhood encounter. 

The film moves fluidly between past and present–sometimes, it takes a beat to realize where you are in time. The cinematography, by Vittorio Storaro, Bertolucci’s regular collaborator, is magical. For instance, the scene of Giulia dancing in a striped dress as strips of light filter through blinds. Marcello remains enigmatic throughout—his actions are the only clue to his interiority, such as it is. He’s a man who has no center. 

I’ve watched The Conformist a couple of times and am still unsure how I feel about the treatment of homosexuality in the film. In the end however, it only adds to the ways in which The Conformist unsettles you and makes you think about what you’ve seen.

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, 112 minutes.

Streaming: Apple TV, Prime Video, and more.