In this year’s race for Best International Feature Film, there are 92 official submissions, which is one less than last year. However, only 89 films were included on the official viewing list sent to Academy members in late October. As of publishing, the status of the submissions from Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan remain unclear until the official list of eligible films from the Academy drops in December and their shortlist is announced on December 21.
Several major critics groups will announce their nominations and winners in December, which may provide some clarity to how the wind is blowing. But our first true indication came with the nominations for the European Film Awards that gave a nice boost to Finland’s Fallen Leaves, Italy’s Il Capitano, and the UK’s The Zone of Interest. Of course, the EFA nominations and recent NYFCC and Gotham Awards wins for Anatomy of a Fall mean nothing for the Oscar race, given it wasn’t chosen as France’s submission.
Currently sitting in the frontrunner position is The Zone of Interest, which will receive a huge campaign push across the board from A24. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes and would be the UK’s first-ever win in this category. If it can nab a Best Picture nomination like All Quiet on the Western Front, Drive My Car, Parasite, and Roma, this race is essentially over.
For now, it feels like those first three nomination slots are all but locked up for The Zone of Interest, The Teacher’s Lounge, and The Taste of Things, but nothing is ever really certain in this category. Look at Decision to Leave last year. Australia has a strong chance to earn only its second nomination here for the beautifully crafted Shayda, which has the might of Sony Pictures Classics behind it. And I’m giving The Settlers the fifth spot purely because it was one of the best films I saw at TIFF. The Academy’s shortlist will obviously make this race a lot clearer.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE PREDICTIONS:
1. The Zone of Interest (UK)
2. The Teacher’s Lounge (Germany)
3. The Taste of Things (France)
4. Shayda (Australia)
5. The Settlers (Chile)
IN CONTENTION
About Dry Grasses (Turkey)
Do Not Expect Much From the End of the World (Romania)
Fallen Leaves (Finland)
Four Daughters (Tunisia)
Godland (Iceland)
Housekeeping for Beginners (North Macedonia)
Io Capitano (Italy)
The Monk and the Gun (Bhutan)
The Mother of All Lies (Morocco)
The Peasants (Poland)
Perfect Days (Japan)
The Promised Land (Denmark)
Rojek (Canada)
Seven Blessings (Israel)
Society of the Snow (Spain)
Tótem (Mexico)
20 Days in Mariupol (Ukraine)