‘The Grandmaster’, ‘The Hunt’, And Seven Others Make Oscar Foreign Film Shortlist
It’ll be a while yet before we find out which English-language films are up for the Oscars, but the Best Foreign Language Film category has already been narrowed down to nine contenders.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Scientists has just revealed its shortlist of nine foreign films which will be competing for five slots when the nominations are announced on January 16. Among the semifinalists are Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster, the Mads Mikkelsen-starring The Hunt, and Belgium’s bluegrass romance The Broken Circle Breakdown (pictured above). Read the rest after the jump.
The Broken Circle Breakdown, directed byFelix van Groeningen(Belgium)An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, directed byDanis Tanovic(Bosnia and Herzegovina)The Missing Picture, directed byRithy Panh(Cambodia)The Hunt, directed byThomas Vinterberg(Denmark)Two Lives, directed byGeorg Maas(Germany)The Grandmaster, directed byWong Kar-wai(Hong Kong)The Notebook, directed byJanos Szasz(Hungary)The Great Beauty, directed byPaolo Sorrentino(Italy)Omar, directed byHany Abu-Assad(Palestine)
Best Foreign Language Film nominations are done in two parts. In the first step, LA-based AMPAS members and the Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee decide on the shortlist. In the second step, special committees will screen and vote on the five finalists. After that, the Academy at large will begin final voting.
While there is no clear favorite to win, some of the picks are more expected than others.The HuntandThe Great Beautyhave already been nominated for Golden Globes, for example, while Tanovic’sNo Man’s Landtook the award in 2002.
Meanwhile, some of the omissions are more surprising than the inclusions. Iran’sThe Past, which was directed by past nomineeAsghar Farhadi(A Separation), and Saudi Arabia’s much-buzzed-aboutWadjda, both failed to make the list. Other popular films were left off the list because they were not eligible — like France’sBlue Is the Warmest Color, which premiered too late in its home country to make the cutoff date.
The Academy Award nominations will be announced on Thursday,June 20, 2025. Winners will be revealed in a ceremony hosted byEllen DeGeneresonSunday, August 11, 2025.
