The Academy’s Best International Feature Film category just became a triple-digit contest. First-round assignment lists obtained by TheWrap show 105 films entering this year’s race — the first time submissions have crossed 100. The previous record was 93 eligible films, set in 2020.
Festival route widens the field
For the past three years, the category has sat in the mid-to-high 80s. This year’s jump follows a change to the Academy’s long-standing one-film-per-country rule. For the first time, additional films can qualify by winning a top prize at one of six festivals: Sundance (narrative and documentary winners), Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Toronto and Busan (top prize winners). Seven films entered this way; three of those were also submitted by their home countries.
The geographic map is broader, too. Cyprus, El Salvador and Rwanda have each submitted a film for the first time, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is back after 29 years, and Sri Lanka returns after 17 years.
Why the triple-digit field changes campaign math
Awards teams are facing a simple arithmetic: 105 titles are competing for a 15-film shortlist, and voters must complete a mandatory viewing group before they can vote.
- Voters are split into nine groups of 11–12 films each, balanced for language, region, genre and viewing time.
- A member can only cast a ballot after watching every film in their assigned group.
- The Academy Screening Room currently carries 45 of the eligible titles, with more added each Friday.
- Voting runs December 7–11; the shortlist is announced December 15.
The old one-per-country system made eligibility a single national selection decision. The new rule creates a parallel route: a Berlin, Cannes or Sundance win can put a film into the race even if it is not the country’s official submission. For distributors, that turns festival strategy into awards eligibility strategy, not just prestige.
For marketers, discoverability now has two gates: get into the race, then get watched inside a crowded group. The Academy has also started listing films alphabetically by title rather than by country — a quiet signal that the award now goes to the film, not the submitting nation.
The group to watch
The highest-profile titles are usually spread across the groups, but Group 5 is unusually concentrated this year. Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner “Fjord,” two-time nominee Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland,” and 2021 winner Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden” all sit in the same mandatory list, making it an early shortlist signal.
India’s entry is Santosh Davakhar’s “Gondhal,” part of a field that now spans more territories, more first-time submitters and more festival-origin titles than any previous international Oscar race.
Source: TheWrap
