Index | Picture | Actress | Actor | Supp Actor | Supp Actress | Director
Screenplays | Visuals | Music and Sound | Animation & Docs | International Film
CEREMONY March 15th, 2026
For prediction, discussion, entertainment purposes only discuss on the blog
First Predictions as of June 13, 2025
Traditionally countries begin announcing their submissions late in the summer.
For now it's mere guesswork about what might be competitive if submitted.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Wed Oct 1, 2025
PRELIMINARY VOTING: Mon Dec 8, 2025
NOMINATION VOTING: January 12-16, 2026
FINAL VOTING: February 26, 2025
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Tier 1 - FIRST PREDICTIONS OF THE YEAR Once a country has announced their "official" submission, we will indicate it here in red (and also on the individual submission charts). Until then please note that this is all guesswork about which films might be competitive if submitted. |
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Norway SENTIMENTAL VALUE Joachim Trier follows up his greatest film (and Oscar nominee) Worst Person in the World with another hugely acclaimed drama starring Reinate Reinsve. This one is a drama about an actress at odds with her director father (Stellan Skarsgard). Norway has yet to win this prize! NEON in the US |
Brazil THE SECRET AGENT Kleber Mendoca Filho (Aquarius, Bacau) returns with a thriller set during Carnival featuing a man (Cannes Best Actor winner Wagner Moura) on the run. Neon is good with Oscar campaigns. Filho has been submitted twice before with Neighbouring Sounds and Pictures of Ghosts but not for his most popular films in the US (Aquarius and Bacurau) NEON in the US |
Japan 68 submissions KOKUHO Ryo Yoshizawa and Ken Watanabe star in this post war drama about a young man born to gangsters and a Kabuki actor who takes him in. US Distributor Unknown |
North Macedonia This drama about a teen boy escaping into music in his remote village emerged from Sundance as an audience favourite. With the right distribution and campaign we could see it happening. But who will snap it up for an Oscar campaign? US Distributor Unknown |
Iraq It was the winner of the Camera D'Or at Cannes (Best Debut) and SPC, who understands Oscar campaigns, believes in it. This film is about a young girl forced to bake a cake in honor of Sadam Hussein. Sony Pictures Classics in the US |
Tier 2 - THEY COULD ALSO BE PLAYERS |
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Chile MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO This Cannes prize winner is set in a rural world of drag queens and local miners during the AIDS crisis. US Distributor TBA |
Germany 70 submissions Being a major prize winner at Cannes will help. But then Germany will surely have more than one great option for submission. Will they choose this film about multiple women in the same house across generations. MUBI in the US |
Iceland THE LOVE THAT REMAINS The Godland director's latest (starring his own children) is about a family struggling through the parents separation. Janus Films in the US |
Philippines MAGELLAN Gael Garcia Bernal, no stranger to this category, stars as the Portuguese explorer in this epic from Lav Diaz. Janus Films in the US |
South Korea NO OTHER CHOICE Park Chan-wook's new thriller about a long unemployed man getting rid of his competition. US Distributor TBA |
Tier 3 - IT'S TOO EARLY TO RULE ANYTHING OUT |
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Argentina Guardians of a child with special gifts exploit her as an animal medium. (Could theoretically be submitted by multiple countries as Fund is Venezulean and its a Uruguayan co-production with Argentina & Spain.) US Distributor Unknown |
Italy HEADS OR TAILS
Likely to be Cinetic in the US |
Palestine
Twin brother auteurs direct this seriocomic meta thriller which won them Best Director in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. US Distributor Unknown |
Belgium WILD FOXES A teenage boxer survives a near fatal injury thanks to his friend. Samuel Kircher (Last Summer) headlines. This is Carnoy's feature debut. US Distributor Unknown |
Denmark BEGINNINGS Denmark's greatest Trine Dyrholm stars in this drama about the aftermath of a stroke on a long time married couple. Oscar cannot get enough of Danish films in the past twenty years, so never count them out. US Distributor Unknown |
The Academy invites over 100 countries each year to submit films. We generally end up with 90 submissions, give or take...
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CHART 1 - Afghanistan through Guatemala
CHART 2 Haiti through Norway
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| OSCAR STATS & FUN TRIVIA ABOUT THIS CATEGORY | ||||
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Most wins for a foreign film
FOUR WAY TIE Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Taiwan 2000), Fanny & Alexander's (Sweden 1983), and All Quiet... (2022) share the record with 4 wins (Foreign Film plus crafts). Parasite (South Korea, 2019) tied that number but in 'bigger' categories: Picture, Director, Screenplay, and International |
Most nominations for a foreign film Roma went on to three wins and Crouching four but Emilia Perez didn't win its category! |
Most competitive wins in the category by director |
Most competitive wins & nominations w/out winning International Feature Pan's Labyrinth (2006) won 3 awards from 6 nominations but lost its own category to The Lives of Others. |
Most nominated country France leads with 39 nominees (they were also given 3 honoraries before nominations began proper in 1956). Their most recent win was 33 years ago with Indochine (1992) starring Catherine Deneuve. Their drought continues... |
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Most winning country of all time ITALY leads with 14 wins (3 of which were honoraries). Some of the most famous films among their winners are The Bicycle Thief (1949), 8 1/2 (1963), The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), Cinema Paradiso (1989), and Life is Beautiful (1998). Italy has struggled since the 21st century began, though, with only 1 win (The Great Beauty, 2013)
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Most popular country with Oscar since 2000 That would be GERMANY. In the 21st century (i.e. the past 25 years) Germany has been nominated 11 times and won 3 times. And if that weren't enough they made the finals in another 5 times. In short they've been competitive in 64% of this century's Oscar races. More details on last row of this chart |
First foreign language film nominated for Best Picture Grand Illusion (1938). But Oscar didn't start giving statues to foreign films until 11 years later and foreign films didn't get their own competitive category until 1956 |
Most influential snub of the past two decades You have the horror of the snubbing of Romania's Palme d'or winner 4 Weeks, 3 Months and 2 Days (2007) to thank for the creation of the Academy's Executive Committee. Nominations immediately improved after this committee process began. |
First foreign language film to win an acting Oscar Italy's Two Women (1961) won Best Actress for Sophia Loren who was, not unimportantly, already a major star in the US. But Italy did not submit her vehicle for Foreign Film, choosing Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte instead (which was not nominatd) |
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First country to break through Oscar's midcentury France/Italy/Japan obsession For the first 12 years of foreign-language film honors only France, Italy, or Japan ever won. Sweden was the first country to break up that strangehold with back to back Ingmar Bergman wins for The Virgin Spring (1960) and Through a Glass Darkly (1961) |
First foreign language film to win any Oscar Switzerland's Marie-Louise (1944) won Best Screenplay, years before the Best International Feature Film category began. |
First foreign language film winner to win more than one Oscar Japan's Gate of Hell (1954) won the Honorary for Foreign Film and also took home Costume Design. |
Only directors of foreign film nominees to go on to direct a Best Picture winner Czech director Milos Forman for Loves of a Blonde (1965)/ Fireman's Ball (1967) + One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)/ Amadeus (1984) was the first to do it. Two Mexican filmmakers have followed suit: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Amores Perros (2000)/Biutiful (2010) + Birdman (2014) and Guillermo del Toro for Pan's Labyrinth (2006) + Shape of Water (2017) Only Bong Joon-ho has done both simultaneously (with Parasite, 2019) |
Only Best International Film winners to also win Best Director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite for South Korea) and Alfonso Cuarón (Roma for Mexico) are the only directors to accomplish this feat and both were very recent. It's worth noting that Ang Lee (Taiwan) has won the Best Director category twice but curiously neither of those wins was connected to either a Best Picture Winner OR a Best International Film winner. Very interesting stat for Mr. Ang Lee there, showing how often he's delivered in a major way. |
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Most Overall Nominations for a Best Foreign Language Film Nominee That Didn't Win Anything (Not Even This Category) This is a three-way tie. The most recent is the French comedy Amélie (2000) which scored 5 nominations but suffered a surprise loss to Bosnia in the foreign category. |
Biggest Comeback / Revenge for a Film that Was Snubbed In This Category This answer is subjective (how to define comeback or revenge?) but the answer is probably Brazil's City of God which failed to receive a nomination in 2022 when submitted. In 2023 after its US release it scored 4 shocking nominations including Best Director. Truly no pundits or media types saw that coming that year. Other snubees that got sweet revenge after their snub? Germany's Run Lola Run (1998/1999) became an influential art house sensation. Films like Sweden's Persona (1966) and Hong Kong's In the Mood for Love (2000/2001) now regularly make lists of the greatest films of all time. |
Directors with Most Success In This Category Though *Technically* the Country Wins special cases 4 noms / 4 wins 4 noms / no wins 3 noms / 3 wins 3 noms / no wins |
Stars Who've Appeared in Most Best International Feature Film Nominees
in 3 nominated films Way too many actors have appeared in two nominated films to list but some still working include: Javier Bardem, Antonio Banderas, Toni Servillo, Daniel Bruhl, Benno Furman, and Sebastian Koch |
Only Best International Film Nominees to Also Compete in Best Picture Z (1969) Nominated for Best Picture but NOT Submitted for International by Their Country Cries and Whispers (1972) Nominated for Best Picture Before International Feature Existed as a Category Grand Illusion (1938) |
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Most Popular Countries w/ Oscar (20TH CENTURY) 1. FRANCE 9. POLAND 10. CZECHOSLOVAKIA* 11 [tie] ISRAEL & YUGOSLAVIA* * country no longer exists, having split into multiple countries |
Most Popular Countries w/ Oscar (21ST CENTURY evolving) 1. GERMANY 8. ITALY 10. SWEDEN countries just outside this list: Austria, Iran, Israel, Russia, Belgium, Norway |
Most Popular Countries with Oscar 1. FRANCE 2. ITALY 3. GERMANY 4. SPAIN 5. SWEDEN 6. DENMARK 7. JAPAN 8. POLAND 9. HUNGARY 10. ISRAEL 11. SOVIET UNION* runners up: Mexico, Argentina, Belgium, Russia * country no longer exists, having split into multiple countries |
"NEVER GIVE UP"
03. BULGARIA (35 submissions | 1 finalist) 04. VENEZUELA (34 submissions | 1 finalist) 05. CROATIA (34 submissions) 06. PHILIPPINES (33 submissions) 07. TURKEY (31 submissions | 1 finalist) 08 THAILAND (31 submissions | 1 finalist this year!) 09 [tie] SLOVAKIA & SLOVENIA (27 submissions Slovakia / 28 submissions Slovenia) 11 INDONESIA 12 URUGUAY (24 submissions | 1 disqualified nom) runners up: |
Longest Consecutive Nomination Streaks 6 YEARS 5 YEARS 4 YEARS Germany could re-enter this very exclusive four consecutive club in a year's time... 3 YEARS Mexico |
Index | Picture | Actress | Actor | Supp Actor | Supp Actress | Director
Screenplays | Visuals | Music and Sound | Animation & Docs | International Film