I had already decided that “Güeros,” a gorgeous slice of deadbeat Mexico City slacker poetry, was a work of genius even before the characters step out of the story (for the second time) to debate the movie with the director. These pretentious Mexican directors, one character complains (while sitting on a fancy terrace of a party he just crashed, drinking someone else’s booze), are painting an unfair picture of the country. Why do they want to make these arty movies in black-and-white featuring beggars and criminals? Then they go overseas to film festivals and convince French critics that Mexico is full of gangsters and hustlers and degenerates and phonies and corrupt politicians. But that’s all true, his friend observes. OK, the first guy admits, it is. But should they really get to make their movies on the taxpayers’ dime?

Tragic, romantic and hilarious, this late ‘90s Mexican rebel odyssey is 2015’s foreign-language breakthrough