2024 Oscars: Official Submissions for International Feature Film

The race for the next International Feature Film Oscar has begun and Switzerland is first out of the gate. Carmen Jaquier’s film Thunder will represent the European country with its 51st submission. Five Swiss films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language/International Feature Film, and two of these have won the Oscar, most recently for the Turkish refugee drama Journey of Hope at the 1991 Academy Awards.

Thunder tells the story of a young girl who returns home from the convent after learning of her sister’s mysterious death. Reunited with her three childhood friends she discovers that faith and desire can sometimes be intertwined. The film has its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and is next set for the 2023 Locarno Film Festival in its home country on August 8.

Last season, 93 eligible submissions made the final cut, with Uganda submitting for the first time. Scroll down for the updated list with country notes and stats and more. Bookmark this page as more are announced throughout the season. The 15-film shortlist will be revealed on December 21, 2023 with Oscar nominations announced on January 23, 2024. The 96th Academy Awards will be held on March 10, 2024.

After three possible disqualifications (Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) it looks like there will be 89 official entries for International Feature Film Oscar this year, four less than the all time record of 93.

Oscar voters in the Best International Feature Film category have received their group assignments for this year’s initial round of voting, which begins on December 18 (the 15-film shortlist will be revealed on December 21). Films are broken down into seven groups for voters, who must watch all 12 or 13 assigned them, an uptick of 4/5 from last year. Voters are not restricted to their own group of films and may watch as many as they want.

As of October 31, 59 of the 89 films are in the Academy Screening Room for the Best International Feature Film category, with additional titles added on a weekly basis. Several high-profile contenders that are not in the screening room include the UK’s The Zone of Interest, Spain’s Society of the Snow, Germany’s The Teachers’ Lounge and Denmark’s The Promised Land. The official and final list of qualified films will be released in early December.

Foreign-language/International Feature films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar

Between 1947 and 1955, the Academy presented Special Awards to the best foreign language films released in the U.S. Because these awards were not handed out on a regular basis and didn’t have any nominees, they were not competitive. For the 29th Academy Awards in 1956, a competitive Academy Award of Merit, known as the Best Foreign Language Film Award, was created for non-English speaking films. It has since then been awarded annually category. Nearly 20 years earlier, Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion (France) was nominated for Best Picture in 1938, its only nomination. 2006’s Letters From Iwo Jima was a Japanese-spoken US production not an official submission for foreign language film.

In 1957, Denmark became the first country to send a film with a female director to the Foreign Oscar competition (Annelise Hovmand’s Be Dear to Me). Two years later, Astrid Henning-Jensen’s Paw became to the first film directed by a woman to receive a nomination in the category.

Since the inception of the foreign language/international feature Oscar in 1956, only 11 films have also been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and nearly half of those are all within the last five years: 2018’s Roma from Mexico, 2019’s Parasite from South Korea (the first ever to win BP), Japan’s Drive My Car (2021) and Germany’s All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), all winners of the International Feature Film Oscar.

The biggest losers: While Israel is the biggest loser 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 37). 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.

Rules for International Feature Film at the 96th Oscars

I. DEFINITION
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.

II. ELIGIBILITY

A. The country-selected film must be first released in the country of origin no earlier than December 1,
2022, and no later than October 31, 2023, and be first publicly exhibited for at least seven
consecutive days in a commercial motion picture theater for the profit of the producer and exhibitor.
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.

Submissions must be in 35mm or 70mm film, or in a 24- or 48-frame progressive scan Digital Cinema
format with a minimum projector resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels, source image format conforming
to ST 428-1:2006 D-Cinema Distribution Master – Image Characteristics; image compression (if
used) conforming to ISO/IEC 15444-1 (JPEG 2000); and image and sound files packaged as Digital
Cinema Packages (DCPs) in the “SMPTE DCP” format. SMPTE DCP refers to SMPTE ST 429-
2:2020 D-Cinema Packaging – DCP Operational Constraints and related specifications. (Blu-ray
format does not meet Digital Cinema requirements.)

The audio in a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) is typically 5.1 or 7.1 channels of discrete audio. The
minimum for a non-mono configuration of the audio shall be three channels as Left, Center, Right (a
Left/Right configuration is not acceptable in a theatrical environment). In addition to channel-based
audio, object-based audio may also be present as an immersive audio bitstream.
The discrete audio data shall be formatted in conformance with SMPTE ST 429-3:2007 D-Cinema
Packaging – Sound and Picture Track File, SMPTE ST 428-2:2006 D-Cinema Distribution Master –
Audio Characteristics and SMPTE ST 428-12:2013 D-Cinema Distribution Master Common Audio
Channels and Soundfield Groups. Immersive audio, if present, shall be formatted in conformance
with SMPTE ST 2098-2:2019 Immersive Audio Bitstream Specification and SMPTE 429-18:2019 DCinema Packaging – Immersive Audio Track File and packaged in conformance with SMPTE 429-
19:2019 D-Cinema Packaging – DCP Operational Constraints for Immersive Audio.

B. The film must be advertised and exploited during its qualifying theatrical release in a manner
considered normal and customary to theatrical feature distribution practices. The film need not have
been released in the United States.

C. Films that, in any version, receive a nontheatrical public exhibition or distribution before their
qualifying theatrical release will not be eligible for Academy Awards consideration.
Nontheatrical public exhibition or distribution includes but is not limited to:

• Broadcast and cable television
• PPV/VOD
• DVD distribution
• Inflight airline distribution
• Internet transmission

D. The recording of the original dialogue track as well as the completed picture must be predominantly
(more than 50%) in a language or languages other than English. Accurate, legible Englishlanguage subtitles are required.
E. The submitting country must confirm that creative control of the film was largely in the hands of
citizens or residents of the submitting country.
F. Should a selection committee not disclose up-to-date and/or accurate information related to a
submitted film’s citizenship, business-related affiliation or credit on a selected film, designated credits,
production details and release information, a film will be deemed ineligible.
G. The International Feature Film Executive Committee shall resolve all questions of eligibility and rules

III. SUBMISSION

A. Each country shall be invited to submit its best film to the Academy. Selection of that film shall be
made by one approved organization, jury or committee, of which at least 50% must include artists
and/or craftspeople from the field of motion pictures. A list of the selection committee members must
be submitted to the Academy no later than Tuesday, August 15, 2023, or by the submission
deadline published by the Academy. Countries submitting for the first time, or which have not
submitted for the previous five years, must present a list of selection committee members and
application materials for Academy approval by December 31, 2023, for eligibility in the following
(97th) Awards year. A country need not submit a film every year for Awards consideration.
B. Only one film will be accepted from each country as the official selection. Films should be
submitted to the Academy as soon as they are selected.
C. The Academy will provide online access to each country’s approved selection committee so that the
producer of the selected film can supply full production information.
D. The following submission materials must be submitted to the Academy by 5 p.m. PT on Monday,
October 2, 2023:

• Completed online submission forms
• Digital upload of the film for streaming purposes
• [For Internal Use Only] A secure and password-protected link to the film. This is required to test
  non-English dialogue.
• Full cast and credits list
• Director’s biography and photograph
• A designated key frame for streaming display artwork
• A poster from the film’s theatrical release, for archival purposes
• Proof of the film’s qualifying theatrical release, including but not limited to advertising

E. Entrants whose films advance to the shortlist must submit either one 35mm or 70mm film print or one
DCP of the film after the shortlist is announced. By submitting a film, the filmmakers agree that the
Academy has the right to make copies and distribute them for voting purposes only. The Academy
will retain for its archives one print of every motion picture receiving a nomination for the International
Feature Film award.

IV. VOTING

A. International Feature Film nominations will be determined in two rounds of voting:

1. All active and life Academy members will be invited to view the eligible submissions in the
   category. Those who opt in will be required to see a minimum number of submitted eligible films
   as defined by the current procedures. Members will vote by secret ballot in the order of their
   preference for not more than fifteen motion pictures. The fifteen motion pictures receiving the
   highest number of votes shall advance to next round of voting.
2. All active and life Academy members will be invited to view the fifteen shortlisted films in the
   category. A member must see all shortlisted films for the ballot to be counted. Members shall
   vote in the order of their preference for not more than five motion pictures. The five motion
   pictures receiving the highest number of votes shall become the nominations for final voting for
   the International Feature Film award.

B. Final voting for the International Feature Film award shall be restricted to active and life Academy
members who have viewed all five nominated films.

C. The Academy statuette (Oscar) will be awarded to the film and accepted by the director on behalf of
the film’s creative talents. For Academy Awards purposes, the country will be credited as the
nominee. The director’s name will be listed on the statuette plaque after the country and film title.

V. ADVERTISING AND PUBLICITY RESTRICTIONS

In addition to complying with the Awards Rules for the 96th Academy Awards, all participants in the
Awards competition are also bound by the Awards Campaign Promotional Regulations concerning
the promotion of eligible films and are subject to the penalties provided therein, including the potential
declaration of ineligibility by the Board of Governors for violation of those guidelines.

VI. ELIGIBILITY IN OTHER CATEGORIES

A. International Feature Film submissions may be submitted for consideration for the 96th Academy
Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they comply with the rules governing
those categories.

B. Films submitted for consideration in the International Feature Film category for the 96th Academy
Awards are NOT eligible for consideration in other awards categories in the subsequent year, nor
could the films have been submitted in other awards categories in a previous year.

Stats, Notes and Superlatives

Submissions with women/women-identifying directors or co-directors: Austria, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Panama, Switzerland, Tunisia

Submissions with LGBTQ+ subjects or themes: North Macedonia, Taiwan

Animated submissions: Hungary, Philippines, Poland

Documentary submissions: Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Morocco, Norway, Palestine, Panama, Tunisia, Ukraine

Countries with potential eligibility issues:

Countries submitting for the first time: Namibia

2024 Oscars: International Feature Film Oscar Submissions

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

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), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) 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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