Foreign Language Film

Our weekly Foreign Language Oscar race analysis pieces continue after a short hiatus. This week, we take a look at a region that rarely gets represented in the FLF race: the Middle East and Africa. Even though this region is usually a no-show in this category, things have been slightly improving in the past few years. Just last year we …

Former Oscars host Kevin Hart It’s been a week, hasn’t it? On November 29th I sent a call out to Film Twitter as to who they wanted to see host the Oscars since it was getting pretty late in the season to be without one. I got a lot of responses. Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph. John Mulaney and Nick …

First Reformed, A Star Is Born, Eighth Grade and Green Book have started out awards season ahead of the pack This week has given us the Gotham Award winners, the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle.  With wins for ROMA to Green Book to A Star Is Born, and performances from Ethan Hawke to Regina King to …

Top: Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney)Bottom: Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Focus Features), Burning (Well Go USA) Incredibles 2 holds onto the top spot in Animated Feature but the phenomenal reviews for Ralph Breaks the Internet help bump up that film to #2.  The Academy hasn’t been too kind to sequels in this category, especially to Disney/Pixar but it seems like one of these two could …

This week saw the second half of AFI FEST bring us two long-awaited world premieres that could impact many Oscar categories: Mimi Leder’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic On the Basis of Sex (review here) starring Academy Award nominee Felicity Jones and Josie Rourke’s feature film directorial debut Mary Queen of Scots (review forthcoming) about the Queen Anne/Queen Elizabeth I rivalry …

It’s only been a week but we’ve already seen a tidal wave midterm election, the beginning of AFI Fest (where I’ll be for the first time), a significant date change from Annapurna and an actor who may have just sunk his chances at an Oscar nomination.  Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk, which was set to debut in New …

Green Book won another film festival audience award this week, its fourth, cementing the film as one of fall’s biggest crowd pleasers and pushing it up another spot in my Frontrunner Friday Best Picture predictions.  Also earlier this week was the announcement from Universal that it would be giving Green Book a 20-theater limited release ahead of its November 21st …

Our weekly Foreign Language Oscar race analysis pieces continue this week with a special look at the Asian films in this year’s race. Asian films have long been ignored in this category. Despite the strong film industry in each of China, Japan and South Korea, very few Asian films have made it to the final five (or even shortlist) in …

It’s been yet another week of category changes but this time two about faces; just a week after Paramount announced Emily Blunt would be positioned in Best Actress for A Quiet Place and Sony Classics was touting Jonathan Pryce in Best Actor for The Wife, both studios flipped and official FYCs from each studio have them both in supporting. For …

Our weekly Foreign Language Film Oscar race analysis pieces are back! For the next eight weeks, we will be taking a close look at this exceptionally competitive race and the multiple contenders trying to take a spot on the FLF shortlist which will be announced on December 17th. For the first 4 weeks, we will be analyzing the top contenders …