From Kim Hye-ja to Sakura Andō, 12 of the Best Non-English Language Performances From the Last 15 Years Overlooked by the Oscars

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In a previous listicle I wrote up, the Oscars have gotten better at embracing non-English language films in Best Picture. However, they’re still quite behind regarding embracing acting performances from those films. While we occasionally get a surprise nomination like Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night, and Penélope Cruz in Parallel Mothers, both actresses still benefited from being household names. 

Typically, unless your film is a heavy Best Picture player, like Roma or Anatomy of a Fall, which just netted five Oscar nominations, including Lead Actress for Sandra Hüller, or you’re a massive international star like Penélope Cruz or Marion Cotillard, it’s hard for performers in foreign language films to break into the acting categories. For this post, I’ve honored twelve performances from non-English-language films released in the past 15 years that deserved such recognition. 

Kim Hye-ja as Mother in Mother (2009)

Kim Hye-ja’s performance in Mother is part of an ongoing pattern of bravura performances directed by Bong Joon-ho overlooked by Oscar voters, including Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer and the SAG-winning cast of Best Picture winner Parasite. Kim walks a thin tightrope between conveying fierce maternal devotion and unhinged obsession as the unnamed maternal protagonist on a pursuit to clear her mentally disabled son’s name when accused of murder. While she conveys the never-ending power of a mother’s love, Kim never fails to tap into how crazed Mother will go when provoked. Her performance as Mother has enough actressing to have viewers shouting, “That is MOTHER!” as they watch this masterpiece. 

Sareh Bayat and Shahab Hosseini as Razieh and Hodjat in A Separation (2011)

One of the best movies of the 21st century, the tense, Oscar-winning domestic drama A Separation by Asghar Farhadi is a masterclass in directing, writing, and, most of all, acting. Although the film is such an ensemble piece to the degree where all the actors and actresses each shared the Silver Bear for both Best Actor and Actress at Berlinale, two of the actors stand tall above the rest. Sareh Bayat is shattering as Razieh, a caregiver who’s the film’s open-hearted moral compass. She’s like a steadily-swimming fish navigating through a circle of sharks. Meanwhile, Farhadi regular Shahab Hosseini offers a raw portrait of fragile masculinity and depression as Razieh’s short-tempered husband, Hodjat. As the couple roped into a heated class battle, both performers helped give the film its searing potency. 

Nina Hoss as Nelly in Phoenix (2014)

For all the Tár-heads who loved Nina Hoss’ performance as Sharon, she is on another level in Christian Petzold’s masterpiece Phoenix. Hoss plays Nelly, a Holocaust survivor who heads back to Berlin to reunite with her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfield). Given how she had facial reconstructive surgery, Johnny doesn’t recognize her when they cross paths. However, Johnny still has Nelly pose as his wife to claim Nelly’s inheritance. As the plan commences, Hoss leaves the viewer wondering whether Nelly is blissfully in love again or double-crossing Johnny the way he’s concocting his scheme with her expressive eyes or a sly head move. Even after the film’s final scene, where she serenades Johnny with a tune – one of the best end sequences on film in recent memory – I’m still not sure I have Nelly fully figured out. 

Daniela Vega as Marina Vidal in A Fantastic Woman (2017)

Oscar nominations are more than just recognizing cinematic excellence. They also act as a reflection of industry shifts. In the case of Daniela Vega, the star of Best International Feature winner, A Fantastic Woman, a nomination would’ve been a signal to make the practice of casting cisgender actors in trans roles feel more obsolete on top of recognition for what is an exquisite star-is-born performance. As Marina, a singer mourning the loss of her older lover, Orlando, Vega magnetizes the screen even with a glance and is vulnerable without overplaying the melodrama. Both earthy and entrancing, Vega seamlessly carries the entire film on her shoulders as she captures the life of a woman who may be forced to navigate a society aiming to force her into the margins but maintains self-assurance in the face of such adversity. Fantastic, she indeed is. 

Franz Rogowski as Georg in Transit (2018)

If Passages is any indication, German wonder Franz Rogowski is one of cinema’s most charismatic actors working today. More proof of such is Transit, one of his two collaborations with director Christian Petzold. In this tense romantic drama in the vein of Casablanca, Rogowski plays Georg, a political refugee who impersonates a dead writer to try to flee Nazi-occupied France. While Georg may have to scheme and lie to those around him, including Maria (Paula Beer), a woman he falls in love with, there’s no trace of the egotistical Tomas from Ira Sachs’ masterpiece. Rogowski brings profundity and old-school star charm to his alluring portrayal of Georg. Also, thanks to his scenes with Paula Beer, Transit pulls off something modern romances haven’t always dared to attempt: Showing genuine, intoxicating chemistry between the leads. 

Leonardo Sbaraglia as Federico Delgado in Pain and Glory (2019)

Given how the Best Supporting Actor category in 2019 ended up mostly being Lead Actor 2.0, what Leonardo Sbaraglia does in Pain and Glory is a reminder that a superb supporting performance is about quality more than screen time. As Federico, the former lover of director Salvador Mallo (Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas), Sbaraglia maps out an entire backstory between the two with just his eyes and line delivery. With the way he gazes at Salvador and verbally bemoans their time apart, they have a clear history together, and a part of Federico wants to recapture what they had. Also, there’s no physical intimacy in that sequence, yet the way the two men exchange glances as they build up to a goodbye kiss is painfully erotic. Like Federico, one’s left wishing that kiss would go on longer.  

Renate Reinsve as Julie in The Worst Person in the World (2021)

If a line reading could cut deep like a knife, it’d be a line like, “I feel like a spectator in my own life.” That small but sharp quote from Julie, the protagonist of The Worst Person in the World, likely holds a mirror to people everywhere reaching their 30s who feel stuck in life one way or another. As lead actress Renate Reinsve brings the prickly yet congenial Julie to life, she performs the role in a way that never feels like she’s performing. She’s just being. As a result of her effortlessly putting discomforting millennial growing pains on display, Reinsve won the prestigious Best Actress award at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Given how she also received a BAFTA nomination, and the film received a surprise Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, I’d believe she was closer to the Oscar five than we think.

Hidetoshi Nishijima as Yūsuke Kafuku in Drive My Car (2021)

While we’re still discussing foreign language films from 2021 getting above-the-line Oscar love but nothing for the actors, there’s Hidetoshi Nishijima, the star of Drive My Car. In Drive My Car, the first Japanese film to earn a Best Picture nomination, Nishijima stars as Yūsuke, a theater director leading a production of Uncle Vanya. After his wife, who’s also his source of artistic inspiration, suddenly passes away, Yūsuke goes on a journey of grief that eventually merges with his work life. As engaging as the meditative three-hour drama is, Nishijima’s performance as the sorrowful yet egotistical Yūsuke gives the film its heavy gut punch, especially during a scene in the third act where Yūsuke and his driver Misaki (Tōko Miura) embrace each other as he comes to terms with his grief. A moment that never fails to move me. 

Guslagie Malanda as Laurence Coly in Saint Omer (2022)

There’s plenty to love about Alice Diop’s narrative directorial debut, including the inversive screenplay, which plays the film out as less of a straightforward courtroom drama about the suspense of the final verdict and more of a contemplation of motherhood in addition to a trial fictionalization. Most of all, there is Guslagie Malanda’s central performance as Laurence Coly, a mother accused of murdering her child. Some of the movie’s most unforgettable images are where she’s gazing straight into the camera. Once the trial begins, the stillness in Laurence’s expression and posture reflects her feeling resigned to her fate. As an immigrant Black woman in a trial handled by a white judge and jury, she has a clear sense the odds are against her. Through that same stillness, Malanda can still unmask Laurence’s difficulty in realizing what would cause her to commit such a crime. 

There’s no Oscar-baity outburst in the courtroom. Malanda can just pull off a head shift, and that’s enough to puzzle the viewer about Laurence’s motives. Given how much the camera loves Guslagie Malanda, filmmakers should keep putting her on it and cast her more. 

Park Ji-min as Frédérique Benoit as Return to Seoul (2022)

In Return to Seoul, there’s a pivotal moment where protagonist Frédérique aka “Freddie” (Park Ji-min), is dancing along to the song “Anybody” by Jérémie Arcache and Christophe Musset that encompasses her internal conflict. As she dances frenetically, throwing her fists around as a form of release, the lyrics “I never needed anybody” feel like a stream of consciousness and how she feels capable of managing life alone despite wanting to track down her biological family to attain some emotional attachment with other people. She’s guarded and self-reliant yet vulnerable and isolated, with Park Ji-min playing her as if she’s three different people in each act. Even more astounding is that this role is Park Ji-min’s acting debut. Already, she’s a proven chameleonic screen presence, and one can only hope great things are in store for her. 

Sakura Andō as Saori Mugino in Monster (2023)

Monster is another showcase for Sakura Andō – who had a killer 2023 between this and Godzilla Minus One – to play a complicated mother figure in a Hirokazu Kore-eda masterpiece. In Monster, Andō dominates the screen as Saori, a single mother desperate to make sense of her son’s strange behavior, confronting his homeroom teacher in the process. Saori may seem too relentless when antagonizing her son’s teacher, Mr. Hori (Eita Mayagama), to the point where she has an unhinged meltdown when first confronting him and the school staff. Yet, in a film with no good or bad guy, Andō conveys the painful paternal woes of having a breakdown when one can’t figure out how to help their children. Saori is combative, but at heart, she’s still a concerned parent searching for answers, and Andō plays her to soul-stirring, theatric perfection.