The Oscar race in the Best International Feature Film category officially opened on Friday with 29 contending films on an Academy members-only screening platform, but there’s lots more where those came from. For the first time ever, more than 100 films have either been submitted by their home countries or have qualified by winning awards at a handful of Oscar-approved film festivals.
As of Friday, Oct. 9, an even 100 films have been announced as submissions from individual countries, while another three won the top awards at the Sundance, Berlin and Toronto film festivals, which for the first time have been granted Oscar-qualifying status by the Academy. (Another three films won qualifying festival awards from Sundance, Cannes and Venice, but they were also submitted by Montenegro, Romania and Denmark, respectively.)
The 103 films have not all been vetted by the Academy, which examines all submissions to make sure they are at least 50% in a language other than English, have received a theatrical release during the eligibility period and were made with sufficient creative control from the submitting country. Over the last five years, an average of a little more than three films a year have been either withdrawn after submission or deemed ineligible, with the high coming last year when six announced films were not on the official eligibility list.
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But even if another large number of submissions are found to be ineligible, this year’s final total is likely to easily top the old record for eligible films, 93, which was set in 2020 and matched in 2022. Since then, the number of qualifying films has been in the 80s, with 88 in 2023, 85 in 2024 and 86 in 2025.
This year’s total is swollen by the new rule that allows seven additional films to qualify by winning film-festival awards (with Sundance qualifying both its world narrative and world documentary winners and Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Toronto and Busan sending one each). In addition, a few countries that have never before entered the race have done so this year, with Cyprus, El Salvador and Rwanda submitting for the first time.
The most high-profile films in the race include Austria’s “Rose,” Belgium’s “Coward,” Denmark’s “Woman Unknown,” France’s “Minotaur,” Germany’s “Everytime,” Japan’s “All of a Sudden,” Palestine’s “Citizen Osama,” Poland’s “Fatherland,” Romania’s “Fjord,” South Korea’s “Possible Love” and Spain’s “La Bola Negra.”
Academy members received an email on Friday inviting them to opt in and participate in first-round voting in the category. At the same time, a section of the private Academy Screening Room platform devoted to the international category opened with 29 submissions available for viewing. They were arranged in alphabetical order by the film title rather than the name of the submitting country, which reflects the fact that beginning this year, the official recipient of the international Oscar will be the film itself rather than the country of origin.
Currently available films include Algeria’s “Roqia,” Canada’s “Nina Roza,” the Czech Republic’s “If Pigeons Turned to Gold,” Greece’s “Broken Vein,” Hungary’s “Silent Friend,” Ireland’s “Aontas,” Israel’s “Tell Me Everything,” Sweden’s “Adult Supervision,” Ukraine’s “Traces” and the United Kingdom’s “Rehearsals for a Revolution,” which had not been publicly identified as the U.K. submission.
Members who opt in to cast ballots will be separated into groups and will receive an assignment list of movies that are required viewing in late October. Last year, the seven groups were each assigned a different 12 or 13 films as mandatory viewing, although this year’s record number of submissions will likely require more groups or more films in each group.
First-round voting will take place from Dec. 7 through Dec. 11, with a 15-film shortlist announced on Dec. 15. Michèle Ohayon and James Wilson will serve as co-chairs of the International Feature Film Executive Committee.
The category has grown at a time when the Academy has become increasingly national, with about 25% of its members based outside the U.S. For the last three years in a row, two of the 10 Best Picture nominees have been non-English-language films, with five of those six nominees also competing in the Best International Feature Film category.
Here is the list of reported submissions and festival-qualifying films: (TheWrap has an expanded version of the list with descriptions of all the films and links to trailers, here)
Country submissions:
ALBANIA: “A State Film,” Roland Sejko
ALGERIA: “Roqia,” Yanis Koussim
ARGENTINA: “The Virgin of the Quarry Lake,” Laura Casabe
ARMENIA: “In the Land of Arto,” Tamara Stepanyan
AUSTRALIA: “First Light,” James J. Robinson
AUSTRIA: “Rose,” Markus Schleinzer
BANGLADESH: “Roid,” Mejbaur Rahman Sumon
BELGIUM: “Coward,” Lukas Dhont
BOLIVIA: “The Condor Daughter,” Alvaro Olmos Torrico
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: “The Widower,” Hari Secic
BRAZIL: “Gugu’s World,” Allan Deberton
BULGARIA: “The Dreamed Adventure,” Valeska Grisebach
CAMBODIA: “Becoming Human,” Poley Ly
CAMEROON: “Mabanda,” Kang Quintus
CANADA: “Nina Roza,” Genevieve Dulude-de Celles
CHAD: “Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars,” Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
CHILE: “The Meltdown,” Manuela Martelli
CHINA: “Once Upon a Time in the Middle East,” Wen Muye
COLOMBIA: “Rains Over Babel,” Gala del Sol
COSTA RICA: “If We Don’t Burn, How Do We Light Up the Night,” Kim Torres
CROATIA: “God Will Not Help,” Hana Jusic
CUBA: “Malecon,” Carlos Larrazabal
CYPRUS: “Hold Onto Me,” Myrsini Aristidou
CZECH REPUBLIC: “If Pigeons Turned to Gold,” Pepa Lubokacki
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO: “Rumba Royale,” Yohane Dean Lengol and Hamed Mobasser
DENMARK: “Woman Unknown,” May el-Toukhy
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: “Melodrama,” Andres Farias
ECUADOR: “The Ivy,” Ana Cristina Barragan
EGYPT: “The Stories,” Abu Bakr Shawky
EL SALVADOR: “Vertices,” Arturo Lopez Rodas
ESTONIA: “Our Erika,” German Golub
FINLAND: “The Squirrel,” Markus Lehmusruusu
FRANCE: “Minotaur,” Andrey Zvyagintsev
GEORGIA: “Guria,” Levan Koguashvili
GERMANY: “Everytime,” Sandra Wollner
GREECE: “Broken Vein,” Yannis Economides
GUATEMALA: “Mountains of Fire,” Jayro Bustamante
HONG KONG: “Sons of the Neon Night,” Juno Mak
HUNGARY: “Silent Friend,” Ildiko Enyedi
ICELAND: “The Ground Beneath Our Feet,” Yrsa Roca Fannberg
INDIA: “Gondhal,” Santosh Davakhar
INDONESIA: “Four Seasons in Java,” Kamila Andini
IRAN: “Land of Angels,” Babak Khajehpasha
IRAQ: “No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman,” Halkawt Mustafa
IRELAND: “Aontas,” Damian McCann
ISRAEL: “Tell Me Everything,” Moshe Rosenthal
ITALY: “The Spiral,” Paolo Stippoli
JAPAN: “All of a Sudden,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi
JORDAN: “Sink,” Zain Duraie
KAZAKHSTAN: “Abel,” Elzat Eskendir
KENYA: “One Woman One Bra,” Vincho Nchogu
KOSOVO: “Dua,” Blerta Basholi
KYRGYZSTAN: “Cassandra,” Bekzat Pirmatov
LATVIA: “Ulya,” Viesturs Kairiss
LEBANON: “Furies,” Rami Kodeih
LITHUANIA: “How to Divorce During the War,” Andrius Blazevicius
LUXEMBOURG: “Child,” Cyrus Neshvad
MALAYSIA: “The Fox King,” Woo Ming Jin
MALTA: “Żejtune,” Alex Camilleri
MEXICO: “On the Road,” David Pablos
MONGOLIA: “Independence: Keeper of the Prophecy,” Tamir Bat-Ulzii
MONTENEGRO: “To Hold a Mountain,” Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazic
MOROCCO: “Strawberries,” Laila Marrakchi
NEPAL: “Elephants in the Fog,” Abinash Bikram Shah
NETHERLANDS: “Paikar,” Dawood Hilmandi
NEW ZEALAND: “Mārama,” Taratoa Stappard
NIGERIA: “Dear Ajayi,” Damilola Orimogunje
NORTH MACEDONIA: “17,” Kosara Mitic
NORWAY: “Growth of the Soil,” Hans Petter Moland
PAKISTAN: “Hanging by a Wire,” Mohammed Ali Naqvi
PALESTINE: “Citizen Osama,” Ahmed Hassouna
PANAMA: “Chichero,” Aaron Bromley and Arturo Montenegro
PARAGUAY: “Narciso,” Marcelo Martinessi
PERU: “Night Has Come,” Paolo Tizon
PHILIPPINES: “Filipinana,” Paolo Tizon
POLAND: “Fatherland,” Pawel Pawlikowski
PORTUGAL: “The Scent of Things Remembered,” Antonio Ferreira
ROMANIA: “Fjord,” Crisitian Mungiu
RWANDA: “Ben’Imana,” Marie Clementine Dusabejambo
SAUDI ARABIA: “A Matter of Life and Death,” Anas Ba-Tahaf
SENEGAL: “The Attachment,” Mamadou Khouma Gueye
SERBIA: “Wanderlust,” Nenad Pavlovic
SINGAPORE: “We Are All Strangers,” Anthony Chen
SLOVAKIA: “Flood,” Martin Gonda
SLOVENIA: “Fantasy,” Kukla
SOUTH AFRICA: “Variations on a Theme,” Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs
SOUTH KOREA: “Possible Love,” Lee Chang-dong
SPAIN: “La Bola Negra,” Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi
SRI LANKA: “Riverstone,” Lalith Rathnayake
SWEDEN: “Adult Supervision,” Alex Schulman
SWITZERLAND: “Who Is Still Alive,” Nicolas Wadimoff
SYRIA: “The Other Side of the Sun,” Tawfik Sabouni
TAIWAN: “A Foggy Tale,” Chen Yu-hsun
THAILAND: “9 Temples to Heaven,” Sompot Chidgasornpongse
TURKEY: “Like a Limbless Tree,” Tunc Davut
UKRAINE: “Traces,” Alisa Kovalenko
UNITED KINGDOM: “Rehearsals for a Revolution,”
URUGUAY: “A Loose End,” Daniel Hendler
VENEZUELA: “Death Has No Master,” Jorge Thielen Armand
VIETNAM: “Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor,” Nguyen Phan Quang Binh
Film-festival qualifiers:
SUNDANCE (narrative): “Shame and Money,” Visar Morina
BERLIN: “Yellow Letters,” Ilker Çatak
TORONTO: “Angh,” Theja Rio
Film-festival qualifiers that were also submitted by their home countries:
CANNES: “Fjord” (Romania)
VENICE: “Woman Unknown” (Denmark)
SUNDANCE (documentary): “To Hold a Mountain” (Montenegro)
The final Oscar-qualifying festival, the Busan International Film Festival, will announce its winner on Oct. 15.
