Foreign Film Facts

[OscarGuy]

Unfortunately, there's nothing I can find on the Academy website, so I guess I'm out of luck since I don't live in LA or even close to it.

[Damien]

Besides, I don't know if they always published their list of eligible foreign films...I only have back to the late 90s and am doubtful they'll have anything further back.

Wikipedia has lists of the submitted films going back to the early 1980's only. There were some really strange submissions.

It would be a very daunting task to try to see all the submitted foreign language films. Just trying to track down the ones the were actually nominated is hard enough.

The Academy's library has lists of submitted films going back to the first year of competition, 1956 -- which is how Mason and I discovered that, for example, The Seventh Seal was submitted by Sweden but was not nominated. (I don't know if the library has an online data base of materials.)

I know Variety was publishing the submission lists in the late 70s, but I don't recall how early it began doing so.

[Precious Doll]

Besides, I don't know if they always published their list of eligible foreign films...I only have back to the late 90s and am doubtful they'll have anything further back.

Wikipedia has lists of the submitted films going back to the early 1980's only. There were some really strange submissions.

It would be a very daunting task to try to see all the submitted foreign language films. Just trying to track down the ones the were actually nominated is hard enough.

[Damien]

Fascinating stuff, Wes, most of which I hadn't been aware of. Thanks!

[OscarGuy]

Well, Considering I came up with all the facts below, I doubt they have much more than their own records.

Besides, I don't know if they always published their list of eligible foreign films...I only have back to the late 90s and am doubtful they'll have anything further back.

[Precious Doll]

I bet they don't list all the great non-English directors who over the years have been denied directing nominations in favour of the inferior work of English speaking directors.

[OscarGuy]

So, I'm working on life and death at the Oscars and as I go through the pages of the Academy's database, I decided to catalogue the Foreign Films. I came up with a number of very interesting facts. I'll only give you a taste of them here.

Although the nomination is to the country, the director or producer often accepts the award. I was curious as to which foreign film nominees and winners were directed by the same person. This does not include films that received honorary Oscars for foreign film from 1947 through 1955.

4 nominations
Mario Monicelli
Jose Luis Garcia
Istvan Szabo
Federico Fellini
Ettore Scola

3 nominations
Akira Kurosawa
Yimou Zhang
Moshe Mizrahi
Luis Bunuel
Jan Troell
Ingmar Bergman
Francois Truffaut
Denys Arcand
Carlos Saura
Bo Widerberg
Ang Lee
Andrzej Wajda
Vittorio De Sica

2 Nominations
Zoltan Fabri
Vasilis Georgiadis
Stanislav Rostotsky
Regis Wargnier
Rachid Bouchareb
Pedro Almodovar
Noboru Nakamura
Nikita Mikhalkkov
Milos Forman
Mihalis Kakogiannis
Miguel Littin
Maximilian Schell
Louis Malle
Jiri Menzel
Jan Sverak
Jaime de Arminan
Giuseppe Tornatore
Gillo Pontecorvo
Gerard Corbiau
Francisco Rovira Beleta
Fons Rademakers
Ephraim Kishon
Dino Risi
Claude Lelouch
Caroline Link
Aleksandar Petrovic


The following is the list of directors with the most Oscar victories for their films. This does not include films that received honorary Oscars for foreign film from 1947 through 1955.

4 wins
Federico Fellini

3 wins
Ingmar Bergman

2 wins
Vittorio De Sica


Perfect records. The following is a list of directors who had their films take hom Oscars every time they were nominated.

4/4
Federico Fellini

3/3
Ingmar Bergman


In directing a film, the following directors had films submitted by different countries and nominated at the Oscars. The * indicates those that also won. Akira Kurosawa would have been counted but his second film, Rashomon, received an honorary Oscar.

Carlos Saura - 2 for Spain, 1 for Argentina
Luis Bunuel - 2 for Spain, 1 for France*
Miguel Littin - 1 for Mexico, 1 for Nicaragua
Akira Kurosawa - 2 for Japan, 1 for USSR*
Moshe Mizrahi - 2 for Israel, 1 for France*
Ettore Scola - 3 for Italy, 1 for Algeria
Yimou Zhang - 2 for China, 1 for Hong Kong

No one has managed to have a film they directed win for two different countries.

There Can Be Only One. The following countries have had more than 1 nomination but have only ever received nominations for one director's work.

Taiwan - Ang Lee - 3 Nominations

We Have No One We Can Count On. The following countries have had more than 1 nomination but have never had a director yield multiple films for nominations.

West Germany - 8 nominations, 8 directors
Mexico - 7 nominations, 7 directors
Denmark - 7 nominations, 7 directors
Argentina - 5 nominations, 5 directors
Switzerland - 5 nominations, 5 directors
Brazil - 4 nominations, 4 directors
Norway - 4 nominations, 4 directors
Czech Republic - 3 nominations, 3 directors
India - 3 nominations, 3 directors
Hong Kong - 2 nominations, 2 directors
South Africa - 2 nominations, 2 directors
United Kingdom - 2 nominations, 2 directors

If We Didn't Have You. The following is a list of directors that have produced 50% (requires at least 3 nominations) or more of a country's Oscar nominees.

Algeria - Rachid Bouchareb - 2 nominations of 4
Hungary - Istvan Szabo - 4 nominations of 8
Canada - Denys Arcand - 3 nominations of 4
Greece - Mihalis Kakogiannis - 2 nominations of 4
Greece - Vasilis Georgiadis - 2 nominations of 4
Russia - Nikita Mikhalkkov - 2 nominations of 4

That's it for now...There's plenty of interesting stuff out there.