Eligible festival winners have been considered for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for the first time in 2026. The award is handed out annually by the United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue. It was not created until the 1956 Academy Awards, in which a competitive Academy Award of Merit, known as the Best Foreign Language Film Award, was created for non-English speaking films, and has been given annually since.
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. 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).
Submissions Below is a list of the films that have been considered as elegible by year, and its respective Academy Awards ceremony:
Year(Ceremony) Festival Film title used in nomination Original title Language(s) Director Result 2026(99th) 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 Rio Venice Woman Unknown Kvinde ukendt Danish May el-Toukhy
See also List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best International Feature Film List of Academy Award-winning foreign language films World cinema
Notes
References
External links The Official Academy Awards Database The Motion Picture Credits Database IMDb Academy Awards Page