Golden Globes: 80 Films Eligible for Foreign Language Film

The last two years saw the Foreign Language Film Globe winner not nominated for the Oscar

80 films from 49 countries have qualified to be nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) for the Foreign Language Film category at the 76th Golden Globe Awards. 

The Golden Globes do things differently than the Oscars; primarily, they allow more than one film per country to be nominated. Multiple submissions from any country are allowed as long as the films follow the qualification requirements and are screened for the membership as verified by the Foreign Film Committee.  This year, Italy has three eligible films (including Dogman, its Oscar submission), Norway has four (including its Oscar submission What Will People Say) and Russia has its hand in no less than six entries (including its Oscar submission Sobibor). India also has six, including its Oscar submission Village Rockstars.

This year, as every year, brings us a handful of films that are not the official Oscar submission for individual countries like Everybody Knows from Spain, Happy as Lazzaro from Italy and Shadow from China. In fact, China has five eligible films yet, amazingly, none of them are its official Oscar submission (Hidden Man).

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Although the Golden Globes and the Oscars often see eye to eye, the last two years has seen the winner at the Globes snubbed even for a nomination at the Oscars. Most recently, Germany’s In the Fade was its official Oscar submission, made the shortlist but didn’t make the final five. The Globes nominated it and gave it the win. In 2017, Elle was France’s submission for the Oscar but even was missing from the shortlist. The Globes nominated the film (Globe nominations came out before the Oscar shortlist) and, possibly in a response to the Oscar snub, gave the film – along with actress Isabelle Huppert – a surprise win.

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To qualify a film must be a motion picture drama, musical or comedy with at least 51% of the dialogue spoken in a non-English language. Documentaries are not eligible. Animated films – including foreign language ones – are considered in the Animation category. This is wildly different than the rules of decades ago when productions from the UK qualified here a ‘ Foreign Film,’ and we had winners like A Passage to India, Gandhi and Chariots of Fire. The HFPA officially changed the category title from Foreign Film to Foreign Language Film in 1986.

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Also, a foreign language film must have been released in their country of origin during the prior 15-month period, from October 1st to December 31st before the awards. Each film must have been screened for active HFPA members.

Golden Globe nominations will be revealed on December 6, 2018 and the winners will be announced in the ceremony on January 6, 2019.

Here are the 80 films in contention for a nomination for Foreign Language Film at the 76th Golden Globe Awards. Titles in bold are official Oscar entries.

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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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