This is a list of submissions to the 99th Academy Awards for the Best International Feature Film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film every year since the award was created in 1956. The award is presented annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue. The International Feature Film Award Committee oversees the process and reviews all the submitted films. The category was previously called the Best Foreign Language Film, but this was changed in April 2019 to Best International Feature Film, after the Academy deemed the word "Foreign" to be outdated.

Beginning with the 99th ceremony, rules were changed to the submission process allowing non-English-language films to be submitted if it wins a qualifying award at an international film festival. These festivals and its specific awards qualifiers will be: Berlinale (Golden Bear), Busan (Best Film Award), Cannes (Palme d'Or), Sundance (World Cinema Grand Jury Prize Dramatic and Documentary), Toronto (Platform Prize) and Venice (Golden Lion).

For the 99th Academy Awards, the submitted motion pictures must have been first released theatrically in their respective countries between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is 30 September 2026. Cyprus and El Salvador submitted a film for the first time, while Sri Lanka submitted a film for the first time since 2009.

Submissions Submitting countryFilm title used in nominationOriginal titleLanguage(s)Director(s)Result A State Film Film di Stato / Film i Shtetit Albanian Roland Sejko Roqia رقية Arabic The Virgin of the Quarry Lake La virgen de la tosquera Spanish In the Land of Arto Le Pays d'Arto / Արտոյի Երկւրը French, Armenian, English Tamara Stepanyan First Light Filipino James J. Robinson Rose German Markus Schleinzer Roid রইদ Bengali Mejbaur Rahman Sumon Coward French, Dutch Lukas Dhont The Condor Daughter La hija cóndor Quechua, Spanish Álvaro Olmos Torrico The Widower Udovac Bosnian Hari Šečić Gugu's World Feito Pipa Portuguese The Dreamed Adventure Das Geträumte Abenteuer / Мечтаното Приключение Bulgarian, German Valeska Grisebach Becoming Human ជាតិជាមនុស្សា Khmer Polen Ly Mabanda Cameroonian Pidgin English Nina Roza Bulgarian, French Geneviève Dulude-de Celles Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars Soumsoum, la nuit des astres French, Arabic Mahamat-Saleh Haroun The Meltdown El deshielo Spanish Manuela Martelli Once Upon a Time in the Middle East 欢迎来龙餐馆 / مرحبًا بكم في مطعمِ التنينِ Mandarin, Arabic, English Wen Muye Rains Over Babel Llueve sobre Babel Spanish Gala del Sol If We Don't Burn, How Do We Light Up the Night Si no ardemos, cómo iluminar la noche Spanish Kim Torres God Will Not Help Bog neće pomoći Croatian, Spanish Hana Jušić Malecón Spanish Carlos Larrazabal Hold onto Me Κράτα Με Greek Myrsini Aristidou If Pigeons Turned to Gold Kdyby se holubi proměnili ve zlato Czech, English Woman Unknown Kvinde ukendt Danish May el-Toukhy Melodrama Spanish, French, Haitian Creole Andrés Farías The Ivy Hiedra Spanish Ana Cristina Barragán The Stories القِصَص Arabic, English, German Abu Bakr Shawky Vertices Vértices Spanish Arturo López Rodas Our Erika Meie Erika Estonian The Squirrel Orava Finnish Markus Lehmusruusu Minotaur Минотавр Russian Andrey Zvyagintsev Guria გურია Georgian Levan Koguashvili Everytime German, Spanish Sandra Wollner Broken Vein Σπασμένη φλέβα Greek Yannis Economides Sons of the Neon Night 風林火山 Cantonese Juno Mak Silent Friend Stille Freundin / Csendes barát German, English, Cantonese Ildikó Enyedi The Ground Beneath Our Feet Jörðin undir fótum okkar Icelandic Yrsa Roca Fannberg Gondhal गोंधळ Marathi Santosh Davakhar Four Seasons in Java Empat Musim Pertiwi Indonesian, Javanese Kamila Andini Land of Angels سرزمین فرشته ها Arabic Babak Khajehpasha No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman بەهەشت نابینیت ئەگەر ژن بتکوژێت Kurdish, Arabic, Norwegian, English Aontas Irish Damian McCann Tell Me Everything עצמאות Hebrew Moshe Rosenthal The Spiral L'estranea Italian Paolo Strippoli All of a Sudden Soudain / 急に具合が悪くなる French, Japanese Ryusuke Hamaguchi Sink غرق Arabic Zain Duraie Abel Әбіл Kazakh Elzat Eskendir One Woman One Bra Maasai, Swahili, English Vincho Nchogu Dua Albanian, Serbian Blerta Basholli Kassandra Кассандра Kyrgyz Bekzat Pirmatov Ulya Uļa Latvian Viesturs Kairišs Furies غضب Arabic Rami Kodeih How to Divorce During the War Skyrybos karo metu Lithuanian, English, Russian, Ukrainian Andrius Blaževičius Child French, English, Luxembourgish The Fox King Semusim Lara Malay, Japanese, Indonesian, English Woo Ming Jin Żejtune Maltese On the Road En el camino Spanish David Pablos Independence: Keeper of the Prophecy Тусгаар тогтнол: Бошиг сахигч Mongolian Tamir Bat-Ulzii To Hold a Mountain Planina Montenegrin Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić Strawberries La más dulce / الفراولة Arabic, Spanish Laïla Marrakchi Elephants in the Fog तिनीहरू Nepali, Bhojpuri Abinash Bikram Shah پیکار Dari, Dutch, English Dawood Hilmandi Dear Ajayi Nigerian Pidgin, Igbo, Yoruba Damilola Orimogunje 17 Macedonian Kosara Mitić Growth of the Soil Markens grøde Norwegian Hans Petter Moland Hanging by a Wire ہینگنگ بائی اے وائر English, Urdu, Pashto Mohammed Ali Naqvi Citizen Osama المواطن أسامة Arabic Ahmed Hassouna Chichero Spanish Aarón Bromley and Arturo Montenegro Narciso Spanish, Guarani Marcelo Martinessi Night Has Come Vino la noche Spanish Paolo Tizón Filipiñana Filipino, English, IlocanoRafael Manuel Fatherland German, English, French, Russian Paweł Pawlikowski The Scent of Things Remembered A Memória do Cheiro das Coisas Portuguese António Ferreira Fjord Norwegian, English, Romanian, Swedish Cristian Mungiu A Matter of Life and Death مسألة حياة أو موت Arabic Anas Ba-Tahaf The Attachment Liti Liti Wolof, French Izlet Serbian Nenad Pavlović We Are All Strangers 我们不是陌生人 Mandarin, Hokkien, English Anthony Chen Flood Potopa Rusyn, Slovak Martin Gonda Fantasy Slovenian, Albanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian Variasies op 'n Tema Afrikaans Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs Possible Love 가능한 사랑 Korean Lee Chang-dong La bola negra Spanish Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi Riverstone රිවස්ටන් Sinhala Lalith Rathnayake Adult Supervision Arkipelag Swedish Alex Schulman Who Is Still Alive Qui vit encore Arabic The Other Side of the Sun الجانب الآخر من الشمس Arabic Tawfik Sabouni A Foggy Tale 大濛 Taiwanese Hokkien, Mandarin Chen Yu-hsun 9 Temples to Heaven 9 วัดสู่สวรรค์ Thai Sompot Chidgasornpongse Kesilmiş Bir Ağaç Gibi Turkish Tunç Davut Traces Сліди Ukrainian Alisa Kovalenko A Loose End Un cabo suelto Spanish Daniel Hendler Death Has No Master La muerte no tiene dueño Spanish, Italian Jorge Thielen Armand Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor Hộ Linh Tráng Sĩ: Bí Ẩn Mộ Vua Đinh Vietnamese

Qualified in film festival FestivalFilm title used in nominationOriginal titleLanguage(s)Director(s)Result Berlinale Yellow Letters Gelbe Briefe Turkish İlker Çatak Cannes Fjord Norwegian, English, Romanian, Swedish Cristian Mungiu Sundance Shame and Money Hatixhja dhe Shabani Albanian To Hold a MountainPlaninaMontenegrinBiljana Tutorov and Petar GlomazićTorontoAnghKonyak, EnglishTheja RioVeniceWoman UnknownKvinde ukendtDanishMay el-Toukhy

Countries' pre-submissions Bhutan's InfoComm and Media Authority invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration. The Democratic Republic of the Congo's Film Commission invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration. They are scheduled to announce their selection on 30 September 2026. This would be their first time competing for the award since 1997. Guatemala's Academia Guatemalteca de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas announced a shortlist of two films: The Imaginaries by Javier Borrayo and by Jayro Bustamante. Madagascar's selection committee invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration. Papua New Guinea's National Cultural Commission invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration by 15 August 2026. Papua New Guinea first formed a committee in 2025. This would be their first time competing for the award. Rwanda's Ministry of Youth and Arts invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration by 25 August 2026. Rwanda first formed a committee in 2025. This would be their first time competing for the award. Tunisia's Centre National du Cinéma et de l'Image invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration by 14 August 2026. The United Kingdom's British Academy of Film and Television Arts invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration by 31 July 2026. Uzbekistan's Oscar Committee invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration. Zambia's selection committee invited filmmakers to submit their films for consideration by 4 September 2026. Zambia first formed a committee in 2022. This would be their first time competing for the award.

Notes The Netherlands' selection process was the subject of controversy. After the documentary Paikar by Dawood Hilmandi was announced as the Dutch selection, director Mike van Diem criticized the choice of a documentary over fiction films, including van Diem's own film Our Girls. Van Diem's 1997 film Character won the Netherlands' most recent Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 70th Academy Awards. With the support of film journalist René Mioch, van Diem unsuccessfully attempted to have the committee revote. He also questioned why the names of the selection committee's participants were not made public, leading to future reforms instituted by the committee's organizer SEE NL. Romania's submission Fjord initially qualified after winning the 2026 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or. Following its Cannes win, Deadline reported the film would not qualify for Best International Feature Film since its main language was ostensibly English. In July 2026, the American distributor Neon confirmed that the film meets the Academy's requirements for non-English language submissions.

Footnotes

References

External links Official website of the Academy Awards