The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has used the Best International Feature Film Oscar to honor the best in world cinema since 1957. To be eligible for the award, a film must be produced outside the United States and have most of its dialogue in a non-English language. An eligible film must also be submitted to the Academy by the country it represents. While the eligibility requirements can lead to controversy, the eventual Oscar winner always ends up being a deserving movie. Some international films even break out in other Oscar categories.
Here are the 10 finest International Feature Film Oscar winners, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
La Strada - 97%
The first winner of the International Feature Oscar was this 1956 film. It was the first of Italian director Federico Fellini’s four Best International Feature wins. Giulietta Masina, Fellini’s wife, stars as a woman sold to a strongman and street entertainer who treats her with cruelty. The film ran into numerous logistical issues and Fellini had a nervous breakdown during production. La Strada was so divisive that a brawl broke out when the film won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Nights of Cabiria - 97%
Federico Fellini repeated as Best International Feature winner with this 1957 drama about a prostitute on a search for true love that ends in vain. The film’s main character Cabiria, played by Giulietta Masina, is adapted from Fellini’s 1952 film The White Sheik. Masina’s performance in Nights won her the Best Actress award at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. The film is often considered to be among Fellini’s best, although critical reaction in the United States was mixed upon release.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - 97%
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon mesmerized audiences in 2000 with its stunning martial arts choreography, compelling story, and performances by Chinese actors who would soon become household names in the West. The film launched the Western careers of actors such as Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi.
In addition to Best International Feature, the film won Best Art Direction, Original Score and Cinematography. It was also nominated for Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Original Song, Costume Design and Film Editing. Its 10 nominations are tied with Roma for the most for a non-English language film.
8 1/2 - 98%
Often considered one of the greatest films ever made, 8 1/2 was Federico Fellini’s third Best International Feature win. 8 1/2 is the quintessential film about filmmaking, following an Italian director suffering from director’s block in the midst of production on a science fiction film. The director frequently escapes into his dreams as his inability to make a decision eats away at him and his relationships. Roger Ebert later called the film “the best film ever made about filmmaking.”
The film also won Best Costume Design (Black and White) and was nominated for Best Director, Original Screenplay and Art Direction (Black and White).
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie - 98%
Although the Oscars were unable to recognize Spanish director Luis Buñuel’s surrealist masterpieces of the 1920s and 1930s, Buñuel received three International Feature nominations in the 1970s, winning in 1973 for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. The film mixes the plot of a group of upper-middle-class people attempting to eat together with those characters’ dreams in sequences that would later be mimicked in films such as Paprika and Inception. Buñuel uses the narrative to interrogate his characters’ fears and assumptions about their world.
The film was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
All About My Mother - 98%
All About My Mother is Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s breakout hit in the United States. The film follows Manuela, a nurse who travels to Barcelona to find her son’s father after her son’s death. The father is a trans woman who is unaware of her son’s existence. The film’s plot is derived from a subplot in Almodóvar’s earlier film The Flower of My Secret. Manuela is the mother the student doctors in that film are attempting to persuade to use her son’s organs for transplant.
A Separation - 99%
Asghar Farhadi’s 2011 family drama was the first of his two Best International Feature wins. The film plays like a more incisive Marriage Story as a couple in Tehran go through divorce proceedings as one of them prepares to leave the country. The procedure is complicated by the presence of the couple’s daughter and grandfather, the latter of whom suffers from Alzheimer’s. The couple hires a pregnant caretaker to look after the grandfather, but the plot thickens when she falls down a flight of stairs.
Parasite - 99%
Bong Joon-ho’s most recent film was the first South Korean film to win an Oscar and the first foreign-language film to win the Best Picture Oscar. The film focuses on the poor Kim family, who scheme their way into employment by the wealthy Park family. The scheme falls apart when another level to this upstairs-downstairs relationship reveals itself. The film brilliantly blends several genres and social commentary in an accessible manner with a tight script and top-notch cast.
In addition to Best Picture and International Feature, Parasite won Best Director and Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Film Editing and Production Design.
Day for Night - 100%
This drama chronicling the troubles of a fictional film production was the only International Film Oscar won by François Truffaut. Truffaut himself features as the director of the troubled production. Most of the focus is on the romantic goings-on of the cast and crew, especially Jean-Pierre Aumont as Alexandre and Jacqueline Bisset as Julie Baker. The film is also concerned with cinema’s artificial nature, typified in the titular reference to a filmmaking technique that shoots night time scenes during the day.
In addition to winning the Best International Feature Oscar in 1974, it was nominated for Best Director, Original Screenplay and Supporting Actress at the 1975 ceremony.
Fanny and Alexander - 100%
Fanny and Alexander is a Swedish film about a pair of siblings who use stories to escape their abusive stepfather as their mother seeks a divorce. The film was director Ingmar Bergman’s third International Feature Oscar win after back to back wins in 1960 and 1961. In addition to winning the Best International Feature Oscar, it won Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design and was nominated for Best Director and Original Screenplay at the 56th Academy Awards. The 318-minute cut of the film is one of the longest films ever made.
