Whoa somebody answered! There is life!
>>2174I find it interesting too, but so many times I've had people dismiss it as inane chauvinism in other forums. I'm fascinated by the cultural aspect of cinema and I really believe a lot of the time WHERE a movie was made is more important than WHO made it.
As for the rest, I like Czech new wave (I'm working my way through this list
http://goo.gl/Ht3mcB), but when making my picks I factored in both quality and quantity of production (see picture). Japan and Italy were respectively the 1st and 3rd producers of films in the period 1960-1974, adding to something like 20% of the world's output. France was not for behind. Smaller nations just don't have the numbers to compete, even though the very top movies are extremely good.