Oscars 2026: Are International Features Become More Popular With The Academy?

This year’s Best International Feature nominees were fairly easy to predict.

(Congrats to NEON for securing 4 out of 5 spots!)

BRAZIL: The Secret Agent (4 Oscar nominations)

FRANCE: It Was Just an Accident

NORWAY: Sentimental Value (9 Oscar nominations)

SPAIN: Sirāt (2 Oscar nominations)

TUNISIA: The Voice of Hind Rajab

There were no real shocks when the five were announced. Although No Other Choice emerged as an early favorite, the film lost steam leading up to the announcements. And there was a key clue to Sirāt’s popularity when the short lists were announced and it was mentioned five times. The bold work ended up with two Oscar nominations, one for Best Sound.

Earlier in the season there was speculation that four International Features might show up in the Best Picture category, setting a new record. Ultimately, only two made it, Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent. This ties last year and 2006 for the second most ever — I’m Still Here & Emilia Perez and Babel & Letters from Iwo Jima, respectively.

The record was set in 2023 when Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest and Past Lives (which is about 55% in the Korean language, but an American production so not eligible for International Feature) were all part of the Best Picture race.

To make a little trouble, last year’s Conclave is about 25% Italian-speaking, Anora is about 30% Russian and Armenian, and about 30% of Everything Everywhere All at Once is in Mandarin and Cantonese. So…it depends on how you wish to define non-English speaking films or International Features.

Roughly 25% of The Godfather Part II was in a Sicilian dialect so does that make it the first non-English speaking Best Picture winner instead of Parasite?

Okay, I get that I am pushing it, but my point is, how do we define the thing, and what parameters do we place. The Academy applies the 50% plus-one rule. so, it must be predominantly non-English—even if it’s only by one percent. But is that really fair if most aspects of the film are foreign, yet mostly English is spoken, like The Last Emperor or The Pianist?

And what about a film like Babel, which was approximately 70% non-English speaking but was an American production, so it was ineligible for the (then) Foreign Language Film Oscar? Shouldn’t the U.S. be able to submit to the International Feature category?

And let’s discuss category title for a minute, “International Feature” is totally misleading since you can be an International Feature and still be in English or mostly in English. Chariots of Fire was an international feature, made in the U.K., and, of course, in English. I miss the good old days when it was called “Foreign Language Film.” Was that far-more apt title somehow offensive? BAFTA uses, “Film Not in the English Language,” which is totally specific yet sounds awkward. Anyone have any better ideas?

Okay, enough title semantics and language-percentage arguing. Let’s take a closer look at International Feature inclusions in the Best Picture category.

When you do the math, the inclusion of non-English speaking films in the grand-daddy category is a fairly new thing.

Sure, you had Grand Illusion make the cut in 1938, but the next official non-English speaking film to make the Best Picture lineup wasn’t until 1969 with Z (Algeria). Then two in a row from Sweden starring Liv Ullmann, The Emigrants (1972) and Cries and Whispers (1973). After that, a long, dry spell until Italians (and, sadly, pushy Weinstein) forced spots for Il Postino (1995) and Life Is Beautiful (1998).

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Babel (2006) and Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) were next.

Even when the nominations moved to more than 5, the first film cited was Amour in 2012 — unless you count The Artist (2011) which was silent — then, arguably, Lion (2016), which was about 40% Hindi and Bengali—but for AMPAS not considerable.

In 2018, things began to shift with Roma receiving a nod and was perceived to be the front-runner until Green Book surprised. That was followed by Parasite’s historic double win (Picture and International Feature) in 2019 (over the far more deserving 1917). Since then, we’ve had at least one predominately non-English speaking film in the Best Picture lineup, Minari in 2020, Drive My Car in 2021, All Quiet on the Western Front in 2022 and so on.

Incidentally, the first awards for foreign language films were special awards with the Italian neorealist gem Shoeshine (1947) taking that honor. The first competitive winner was Fellini’s La Strada in 1956.

But 2025 becomes a significant, stat-breaking year for international features for another major reason, a new record for non-English speaking performances was set thanks to Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent with Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Wagner Moura receiving nods. Before that you’d have to go back to 1976 when there were three in contention, Giancarlo Giannini in Seven Beauties, Marie-Christine Barrault in Cousine Cousin and Liv Ullmann in Face to Face — all lead nominees.

FYI: Many outlets are erroneously citing that Skarsgård is the first actor in a mostly- non-English speaking role to ever get a Best Supporting Actor nomination. He’s the first non-American actor to hold that distinction. But the first actor was Robert DeNiro for Godfather II.

Oh, and if you add Elle Fanning to that Sentimental Value/Secret Agent group above and tweak the topic, you have a bigger, record-breaking stat, the most acting performances nominated from International Feature films (5).

This was all despite the way things appeared to be going after the Actor (formerly SAG) and DGA nominations were announced. No international feature managed to secure a nomination for 2025. Outrageous? Yes. Surprising? Yes, actually, because no one saw it coming. And it felt like a true slap in the foreign-film face.

The Golden Globe Awards, which admittedly has no crossover that we know of with SAG-AFTRA and are, by definition, voted on by the foreign press, have always been a decent bellwether for nomination predictions. They nominated Reinsve, Skarsgård, Lilleaas, Moura and even Lee Byung-hun for No Other Choice, awarding both Skarsgård and Moura.

So, were SAG-AFTRA (and maybe DGA) voters xenophobic, afraid of Trump, subtitle-averse or just lazy? We may never know. What we do know is that AMPAS voters had very different selections in mind.

It used to be ( especially before they merged with AFTRA) that SAG was the most reliable predictor of the top five categories. Almost all of the 1300 Academy actors are members of SAG, and actors makes up 13% of the total voting body (that number used to be higher). But their sway appears to be waning just as the influence of BAFTA and the European Film Academy have gotten stronger—especially the latter.

BAFTA’s five Films Not in the English Language lined up exactly with AMPAS’s choices for International Feature this year, no real surprise. And Sentimental Value made their Best Film lineup, along with garnering a total of 8 nominations. The Secret Agent received mentions in Original Screenplay and FNITEL. BAFTA and AMPAS membership overlap is approximated at 800 to 1000 voter.

And there is a growing overlap between the members of the EFA and AMPAS, probably somewhere between 1200 and 1600 members.

Sentimental Value swept the European Film Awards with 6 wins: Best European Film, Director, Screenwriter, Actor (Skarsgård ), Actress (Reinsve) and Original Score. Note: EFA do not currently have awards for supporting performances. Sirāt was second with 5 tech awards.

In terms of nominations, 4 of the 5 International Feature Oscar nominees were among the Best European Film nominations. The Secret Agent, being a non-European film, was ineligible.

And it’s important to mention the rapid growth of international voters in AMPAS. There has been a major push in the last decade towards global expansion and now around 30% of total membership is based outside the U.S. In 2024, over half of the 487 member invitees were from non-U.S. residents. 93 countries are on record as submitting ballots in 2024.

So, what does all of this mean?

My guess is that Sentimental Value, with a whopping 9 Oscar nominations, is on the road to an International Feature victory and has a great shot at grabbing a few more trophies, like Supporting Actor and, possibly Original Screenplay  (Anatomy of a Fall took the award in 2023). Lilleaas is a definite dark horse possibility—again if Madigan and Taylor split. And Moura might also surprise in a ridiculously competitive Best Actor race. Can’t decide on Chalamet or DiCaprio? Well, there’s that handsome and charming Brazilian we had a few drinks with at the last schmoozer…and he was also fucking amazing in that strange, hairy-leg movie. I’ll go with him!

Having seen 85 of the 86 International Features (I know, but those are decent bragging rights, CLICK HERE for my analysis), I was, mostly happy with the final five, but sad because way too many great films could not make the cut like Japan’s astonishing entry, Kokuho, which did snag a deserved Makeup and Hairstyle mention (and it should win) plus India’s extraordinary Homebound.

Politics played too much of a role with the selection of some of the short-listed films that had no reason to be on the list in terms of real cinematic merit. But, alas, that’s nothing new.

And there were way too many truly remarkable international features submissions that didn’t even make the short list like, Italy’s Familia, China’s Dead to Rights, Hungary’s Orphan, Georgia’s Panopticon, Canada’s The Things You Kill and Austria’s Peacock, to name but a few.

I don’t see why AMPAS can’t increase the category size to 10.

They should, at the very least, consider it.

AT. THE. VERY. LEAST.