The closing date for a country to submit its selected film to the Academy for consideration for Best International Film was October 3rd. An international film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the United States of America and its territories with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track. Animated and documentary feature films are permitted. The category was originally known as the Best Foreign Film and had slightly different rules.
In order for films to more easily meet theatrical exhibition requirements, the Academy will allow films to qualify outside the country of origin, provided the film is theatrically exhibited outside of the United States and its territories for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial motion picture theater for paid admission. Each country is invited to submit its best film to the Academy.
Selection of that film shall be made by one approved organization, jury or committee that should include artists and/or craftspeople from the field of motion pictures. Only one film will be accepted from each country as the official selection. There have been many controversial omissions from the category because of the country’s internal politics.
International Feature Film nominations will be determined in two rounds of voting:
a. The International Feature Film Preliminary Committee will view the eligible submissions in the category and vote by secret ballot to produce a shortlist of fifteen films.
b. The International Feature Film Nominating Committee must view the fifteen shortlisted films and vote by secret ballot to determine the category’s five nominees.
c. Final Voting for the International Feature Film award shall be restricted to active and life Academy members who have viewed all five nominated films.
This year’s shortlist of 15 qualifying films will be announced on December 21, 2022 with Oscar nominations revealed on January 24, 2023. The 95th Academy Awards will be held on March 12, 2023.
Click here to view a copy of Variety’s (11-2-22) compilation of all 87 films submitted by their country this year.
Films submitted in the Best International category are also eligible to be considered for any other category by the academy. Twenty-five foreign films have won awards in other categories including best actor/actress. Parasite is the only totally foreign film to win Best Picture so far although Roma won both awards because but was a co-production of United States and Mexico. The Artist was the first silent film in French production to win Best Picture, but it was not submitted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film due to it being ineligible. The few words in the film are in English and the award was Best Foreign “Language” Film.
“Israel is the biggest loser in the Best Foreign Film/International Film category with 10 nominations and no wins in this category, and Portugal is the currently the most unsuccessful country for getting a nomination with the most submissions (at 36). Philippines holds another record; it’s the sole country to send a submission film in the first competitive year (1956) that hasn’t gotten an Oscar nom yet. The other 7 countries that submitted that first year – France, Italy, West Germany (now Germany), Denmark, Sweden, Japan and Spain – all ended up winning the Oscar at least once.”
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