The Academy has never nominated three international films for Best Picture, but Gold Derby’s latest odds say the 2027 Oscars could make history.
Two is the record, set in 2024, when Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest both made the cut (alongside Past Lives, which is partly in Korean but an American production). Emilia Pérez and I’m Still Here did it again in 2025, then Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent in 2026. The Academy has nominated at least one non-English film every year since Roma in 2019, though Minari was classified as an American production in 2021. In 2020, Parasite became the first (and to date, only) non-English-language film to win Best Picture.
International films are trending with voters for a reason. The Academy now has more than 11,000 members, and roughly a quarter of them live and work outside the United States. Recent invitee classes have skewed even further that way, with about 55% of new invitations going to people overseas.
But if there was going to be a banner year for international films breaking through into Best Picture, last year felt like the one. At one point, four different titles looked like serious players: Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident, and No Other Choice. Park Chan-wook’s film was snubbed entirely, missing even International Feature, where Sirât and The Voice of Hind Rajab took the last two slots.
Only two of them made the Best Picture lineup — the two with corresponding acting nominations. Sentimental Value landed nine bids, including four for acting. The Secret Agent got four, including Wagner Moura becoming the first Brazilian ever nominated for Best Actor.
Five of the last six international films to earn a Best Picture nomination brought at least one actor along for the ride. Good news for this year: all three front-runners have top acting contenders as well.
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The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth
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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
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Spider-Man: Brand New Day
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Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother
47.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
48.
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Long Day’s Journey into Night
51.
Ha-Chan
SPC
Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
52.
Pressure
Focus
53.
Coward
Mubi
54.
In the Hand of Dante
Netflix
55.
Ebenezer
Paramount
56.
Wuthering Heights
Warner Bros.
57.
Cynthia Erivo
Kathy Hutchins / Hutchins Photo/Newscom/The Mega Agency
58.
Wicker
Black Bear
59.
Klara and the Sun
Sony
60.
The Christophers
Neon
61.
The Uprising
Focus
62.
Tuner
Black Bear
63.
A Long Winter
MUBI
64.
Mother Mary
A24
65.
Couture
Vertical
66.
Bunker
SPC; Searchlight
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Bitter Christmas
Warner Bros.
68.
Tenzing
Apple
69.
The Dog Stars
20th Century
70.
Gail Daughtry
SPC
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
71.
Forgotten Island
DreamWorks
72.
Gentle Monster
Netflix
73.
Glenrothan
Lionsgate
74.
Her Private Hell
Neon
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Hope
Neon
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I Love Boosters
Neon
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The Get Out
Vertical
78.
PARK CITY, UTAH – JANUARY 26: Stephanie Ahn attends the 29th Annual SAGindie Filmmakers Luncheon at Sundance at Cafe Terigo on January 26, 2026 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Fred Hayes/Getty Images for SAGindie)
Fred Hayes/Getty Images
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Guy Nattiv
John Salangsang/Variety
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The Wizard of the Kremlin
Vertical
The Wizard of the Kremlin
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The Weight
Vertical
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Verity
Amazon MGM
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The Unknown
Neon
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Late Fame
Magnolia
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Madden
Amazon MGM
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A Talent for Murder
Bleecker Street
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Never After Dark
Magnolia
The front-runners
Currently sitting at No. 5 in our Best Picture odds, La Bola Negra is coming off the People’s Choice Award in Toronto, the festival’s strongest Oscar bellwether. Since 2008, 16 of 18 winners have gone on to a Best Picture nomination. Over the last decade, the only one that missed was The Life of Chuck.
Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, known as “Los Javis,” built their queer epic out of an unfinished García Lorca play, following three men from the Spanish Civil War to 2017. Cannes gave it a 16-minute standing ovation and awarded Los Javis a shared Best Director prize, and Spain selected it as their International Feature submission last week. Los Javis are No. 2 in our odds for Best Director, and Penélope Cruz is No. 2 in Supporting Actress.
This feels familiar for Netflix. Emilia Pérez was also Spanish-language, queer, and acting-driven, and it pulled a record 13 nominations before its Best Picture campaign fell apart when Karla Sofía Gascón’s old social media posts resurfaced. Netflix is taking another swing, giving La Bola Negra a 47-day theatrical window before it hits the streamer, its longest ever.
Cristian Mungiu’s second Palme d’Or winner has divided critics, and that divide has impacted our odds. The film sits ninth in Best Picture, Renate Reinsve has slipped to No. 5 in Best Actress, and Mungiu is out of the predicted five for Best Director. Reinsve and Sebastian Stan star in this story about a Romanian immigrant family in Norway that comes under investigation. If it keeps sliding, Fjord is headed where It Was Just an Accident landed last year — a Palme d’Or winner from Neon that still missed Best Picture.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to Drive My Car is rising up our charts, currently sitting in 10th for Best Picture. The Neon film is set in Paris, where the head of a care facility gets close to a Japanese theater director living with stage IV cancer. Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared Best Actress at Cannes, and both are charting in our Oscar odds as well — Efira seventh in Best Actress, Okamoto fifth in Supporting Actress.
The underdogs
Lee Chang-dong’s first feature film since Burning, with Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu, about two couples pulled into a documentary that forces them to confront uncomfortable truths. It ranks 22nd and was a runner-up for Toronto’s International People’s Choice Award. It’s South Korea’s submission, from Netflix.
Paweł Pawlikowski sends novelist Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika on a 1949 road trip through postwar Germany. Sandra Hüller plays Erika and is ranked No. 4 in our Best Actress odds, well ahead of the film’s 26th-place Best Picture ranking. The Mubi film is one of four awards contenders in which Hüller appears this year, along with Digger, Project Hail Mary, and Rose.
Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Cannes Grand Prize winner, about an executive whose tightly managed life falls apart, ranks 39th. It’s France’s submission, from Mubi.
Rose
Hüller again, this time for Markus Schleinzer, as a battle-worn soldier who turns up in a remote Protestant village after the Thirty Years’ War. She won the Silver Bear at Berlin for it. Austria has submitted the film for Best International Feature, with distribution from Mubi.
