2027 Oscar Predictions: INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM (May)
Sometimes it pays to wait just a bit longer. With the yearly Board of Governors meeting taking place in April, where any new or changed Oscar rules are presented and voted on, this year brings several, not the least of which is a massive change for the International Feature Film category, which is now open for a single country to have more than one nomination as there are now two ways to submit a film for consideration. In addition to a film being submitted as an official selection by a country or region via the Academy-approved Selection Committees, a non-English language film can now be submitted for consideration by winning a qualifying award at an international film festival as specified in the International Feature Film Award Qualifying Festival List.
Qualifying festivals for the 99th Oscars are the Berlin International Film Festival (Golden Bear for Best Film), Busan International Film Festival (Busan Award – Best Film Award), Cannes Film Festival (Palme d’Or), Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Grand Jury Prize), Toronto International Film Festival (Platform Award) and Venice International Film Festival (Golden Lion). With the Cannes and Toronto film festivals in the future for this eligibility, that would make Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic winner Shame and Money and Berlin Golden Bear winner Yellow Letters eligible regardless if they’re chosen by a specific country or not. The key beneficiaries of these festival wins will be those backed by a studio that mount a strong campaign for them, like NEON or Netflix. Neither of those films have U.S. distributors but one thing this rule might do is expedite that and give a film with a small imprint more visibility to a studio looking for a contender.
After much online debate and misinterpretation, the Academy verified with me on Saturday that one of the key elements of the new IFF rules is that only the film will be credited as the nominee rather than the country or region, and the award will be accepted by the director on behalf of the film’s creative team. The director’s name will be listed on the statuette plaque after the film title and, if applicable, the country or region. The director of an International Feature Film nominee or winner will not officially be considered a nominee or winner.
I think the intent of the new rule seems clear and thoughtful, to help films from dissident directors (like Panahi) be eligible without a country that uses a government-based committee to be able to be nominated and not having to stretch the boundaries of credulity by making it a country-based decision. The lack of foresight to include the director, at the very least, as a recipient is a strange oversight. It just feels antithetical to the nature of the rule change to then not make it more like Documentary Feature or Animated Feature where the director and main producer/s are the nominees and winners. Already a very Eurocentric category, I fear this will only codify that and films from Latin America and Africa, which already struggle to land nomination spots, will only find it more difficult and do not have an eligible festival to assist in this new era. Another possibly unforeseen factor is the assumption, of sorts, that a non-English language film will be the victor at these festivals when just last year Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother won Venice and two years ago, Anora took home the Palme on its way to the Best Picture Oscar.
Last season, NEON dominated the category with four of the five nomination slots (all from Cannes winners) and that was even before this rule was in place. With another Cannes where the Oscar and Palme-winning studio has another huge slate, they’ll be the ones to keep an eye out as the season progresses and, of course, who wins that Palme d’Or later this month. Last year’s Palme winner, It Was Just an Accident, from Iranian director Jafar Panahi, was nominated as France’s submission but would be eligible under the Academy’s new rule had it not been. The 2023 edition Palme winner, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, was not selected as France’s submission but would be eligible for the category under the new rule. It went on to Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress nominations and a win for Best Original Screenplay. Weird fun fact? Four of the last six Palme winners premiered on a Tuesday. The official schedule will be out May 7 but rumor has it that this year, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas (Sony Pictures Classics) and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur (MUBI) are set for ‘Palme Tuesday,’ May 19. Anecdotal, of course, but something to think about.
Friend of AW, Aldo Álvarez Tostado, looked at the last five years of IFF winners, nominees and shortlisted films and their festival origin. Here’s what he found.
Not surprisingly, Cannes is the main jumping off point for the overall shortlist titles and the last two years saw 4/5 Oscar nominees all debuting there. But to my point earlier, of the 75 films between 2021-2025 to make the overall shortlist, only eight came from Latin America, which resulted in two nominations and a win, and Africa saw only four, with just a single nomination.
As of now, I would put The Black Ball, Coward, Fatherland, Fjord and Minotaur at the top of my list for May but this is also a very deep bench for top tier international directors with Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lee Chang-dong, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Asghar Farhadi in the mix the above list of Pedro Almodóvar, Lukas Dhont, Cristian Mungiu, Paweł Pawlikowski and Andrey Zvyagintsev.
Last season, there were 86 eligible films. The submission deadline for International Feature Film is September 30. The shortlist of 15 will be revealed on December 15 with Oscar nominations on January 21, 2027.
With the majority of contenders yet to be seen, a large section to premiere in the coming weeks, and without knowing the levels of English-language dialogue (the rule being a film must be predominantly–more than 50%–in a language or languages other than English), here’s what our initial contender list looks like as of early May with potential country(ies) of origin for reference.
All of a Sudden (NEON) – Japan
The Beloved – Spain
The Birthday Party – France
Bitter Christmas (Sony Pictures Classics) – Spain
The Black Ball – Spain
Coward – Belgium
Fatherland (MUBI) – Poland
Filipiñana – Singapore, UK, Philippines, France, Netherlands
Fjord (NEON) – Norway, Romania
Ghost School – Pakistan, Germany, Saudi Arabia
Hope (NEON) – Korea
How to Divorce During the War – Lithuania, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Ireland
The Huntress – Mexico
It Would Be Night in Caracas – Mexico, Venezuela
Lady – Lagos, United Kingdom
A Man of His Time – Belgium
Minotaur (MUBI) – Latvia, France, Germany
Nagi Notes – Japan
Parallel Tales – Iran
Possible Love (Netflix) – Korea
Promised Sky – Tunisia, France
Rose – Austria
Shame and Money (Sundance winner) – Germany, Kosovo, Slovenia, Albania, North Macedonia, Belgium
Sheep in the Box (NEON) – Japan
Silent Friend – Germany, Hungary, France, China
Two Pianos – France
Ungrateful Beings – Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, France
The Unknown (NEON) – France
Yellow Letters (Berlin winner) – Germany, France, Turkey
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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