Just how much have the Oscars changed when it comes to honoring international films? This year, an Iranian film with no English-language dialogue or actors who are recognizable in the U.S., coming from a director whose movies had never before been recognized by the Academy, received nominations for best original screenplay and international feature. A few years ago, that would signal a breakthrough; this time, the haul was considered a disappointment.
Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, was aggressively pushed as a best picture candidate by distributor Neon and racked up major critics’ prizes all fall. Panahi’s status as a dissident filmmaker free to promote his movie for the first time in more than a decade — before he was to return to Iran to face a prison sentence and travel ban for “propaganda activities” — only bolstered the defiant resonance of the acclaimed film’s candidacy. Unfortunately, the Academy had more worthy options from all over the world to consider than ever before. It’s a relatively new problem — one caused by a much more complex set of voting and industry factors than it might first appear.
Two of these movies, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (Norway) and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent (Brazil), made it into best picture, acting and other top races. (Both were also distributed by Neon.) Others, like Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice (South Korea) and Shih-Ching Tsou’s Left-Handed Girl (Taiwan), couldn’t even muster an international film nomination despite robust campaigns, excellent reviews and well-known filmmakers. Hell, the latter drama was produced, co-written and edited by Sean Baker, who swept last year’s Oscars with Anora.
This is the third year in a row with two films predominantly not in the English language nominated for best picture; it’s the eighth consecutive year to feature at least one such nominee, going back to 2019. Meanwhile, from 2014 to 2018, not a single non-English-language film was nominated for best picture. The trend line is as consistent as it is striking.
So what’s the story? The most obvious explanation: the evolving nature of the Academy. Its membership grows more global by the year, and any given new class of nominees that is not already part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is then typically invited to join — creating a feedback loop of representation. Sure, great cinema coming from all corners of the globe is nothing new, but it helps to have more people outside Hollywood, voting with that front of mind.
Even beyond the membership growth, the Academy has had a big say in all this. Insiders agree that the 2019 Oscars — which ended the five-year drought and started the still-running eight-year streak for non-English films in best picture — marked a true turning point. Before then, the voting method for the international film category was limited to small committees. “It would be like 30 people deciding what the five nominees were,” says a strategist who’s worked on several non-U.S. film campaigns. Then the system changed. Suddenly, all Academy branches were allowed to opt in to the selection; every voter in L.A., New York and around the world had the power to vote on a category that used to be decided by a few dozen.
Which is to say, international campaigns started expanding their focus beyond one category out of necessity. “These movies were being seen by way more people because we had to target way more people,” the strategist says. And if the movies were landing? You could expect more noms. Sure enough: Alfonso Cuarón’s Spanish-language Roma tied for the most nominations (10) of any movie that year, while fellow international nominees in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War (Poland) and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Never Look Away (Germany) also competed in other general categories.
But other factors were at play, too. Cold War was distributed by Amazon in the U.S., while Roma was with Netflix. Despite the poor recent awards track record for films of their shape, they had deep-pocketed streamers new to the space, willing to commit to full-fledged Oscar pushes. “I’d call it the inception point — that is when an international film was initially positioned as a best picture contender at the start of the season,” says the strategist. Roma came close to the top win, in fact — arguably laying the groundwork for the Parasite phenomenon that came the next year, when Bong Joon Ho’s Korean satire, steered by Neon, defied the odds as the first non-English-language film to ever win best picture.
The global reach of a streamer like Netflix helped accelerate that crossing of borders, which was typically the business of small but savvy companies that know how to target a campaign. “Netflix has been instrumental the same way [Neon’s] Tom Quinn or [Sony Pictures Classics’] Michael Barker have been in bringing these stories to us audiences,” says UTA partner Jeremy Barber, who represents top international talent including Trier and Anatomy of a Fall star Sandra Hüller.
Neon acquired the bulk of this year’s global heavy hitters at Cannes and is proving increasingly dominant in this brave new world that Netflix helped usher in. The ever-nimble Sony Classics won out just last year, though, with its Brazilian drama I’m Still Here beating both companies in the international film race and eking out a surprise best picture nom.
Some of these movies are also filling a hole in the American prestige space. Take this year’s best pic players: Sentimental Value is a sharp, rich family drama inspired by the likes of Kramer vs. Kramer and Ordinary People, while The Secret Agent blazes with the swagger and idiosyncrasies of ’70s conspiracy thrillers. “I think we are in a golden age of international cinema,” Barber says.
Yet these kinds of movies, boldly conceived and of significant if still modest scale, are an endangered species in the U.S. The sector is shrinking. Indie screens are being lost. Funding mechanisms are collapsing. Just because we aren’t making Sentimental Values or Secret Agents here, though, doesn’t mean the industry doesn’t still love them. Indeed, enough votes for them might just help bring them back.
This story first appeared in a February stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.