Foreign Film Race Pt 1: All the Trailers (Albania to Italy)

Everything You Wanted to Know About the Foreign Language Film Category... *But Were Afraid to Ask

It's official. 85 countries will compete for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The 85 films will be narrowed down to 9 finalist in December with the actual nominations announced in January.

Are they any changes from our previous elaborate chart tracking? Yes. There are always a few surprises. Previously announced titles that are not on the list for reasons we're not sure about yet are Afghanistan's Parting , Armenia's The Earthquake and Tunisia's As I Open My Eyes.  Titles that we didn't have advanced notice about that are on the list are Cambodia's Before the Fall and Yemen's I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced which is Yemen's very first submission. 

Here are all the trailers in one place. We're helpful that way...

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Beautiful Teasing: "Fences" and "20th Century Women"

The latest potentially rich films to tease are two of our most anticipated 2016 features. They aren't coming out until the last week of December. We worry for 20th Century Women that it will be lost in the shuffle (why oh why this release date?) but Fences at least will win attention due to the combined starpower at its center and the event prestige of the August Wilson award-winner making it to the big screen. The terrific teaser trailers are after the jump with a few notes on each.

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Yes No Maybe So: "Passengers"

Do you like the Passengers trailer? The film, opening December 21st, is a mainstream-aimed original. Those are not quite an endangered species (yet) even though it feels that way after this summer of numbing sequels, remakes, and franchise extensions.

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YNMS: "Live By Night"

by Chris Feil

Ben Affleck's Live By Night, his directorial follow-up to Argo, has been long-rumored to pop up as a late entry into the 2016 Oscar race. Could Warner Bros. be out for some Best Director retribution after Affleck famously missed the nomination for that film? Don't be surprised if its January debut is preceded by a quick qualifying run in the hopes of making up for that sting.

Now we have our first look at what Affleck has been working on between Batman gigs. His second Dennis Lehane adaptation, the film finds the director in his crime saga sweet spot before also taking over the Batman directorial duties. Will this be one to savor before he's wrapped up in that studio monster? Take a look at the first trailer:

Let's break down the Yes, No, Maybe So of this first look...

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YNMS: The Young Pope

by Laurence Barber

In the wake of House of Cards' success, it seems networks have all been clamouring to make shows about other worlds that are full of their own political intrigue. Netflix itself has the Gerard Depardieu-starring Marseille, which French critics savaged and everyone else mostly ignored, and the upcoming The Crown. In other ways, shows like Mr. Robot and UnReal seem partially derivative of this trend despite updating and resituating it. Now, in a joint production, Sky, Canal+ and HBO have teamed up to produce the latest project from Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino: The Young Pope...

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