France announces its shortlist for Best International Feature Oscar submissions

The 97th Academy Awards are months away, yet many countries have already submitted their motion picture for consideration in the Best International Feature category. Foreign countries can only submit one motion picture for consideration in this category. Titles like RRR and Anatomy of a Fall have shown that, even if you aren't a country's International Feature submission, you can still thrive in other Oscar categories. Already, Ireland has submitted the excellent Kneecap, Palestine has submitted the anthology film From Ground Zero, and Latvia has put animated cat feature Flow into the ring, among other countries' submissions. France hasn't delivered its single submission yet, but today came the announcement of which four films are the finalists for this honor.

The four titles competing for this honor are Jacques Audiard's Cannes 2024 sensation Emilia Perez, adventure feature The Count of Monte Cristo, Misericordia, and another Cannes 2024 critical darling, All We Imagine as Light. Which title will emerge as France's Oscar darling? That's a tricky question to navigate. Perez and Light look like the most obvious candidates simply because they have the most high-profile reputations at this point in time. Plus, Audiard is French cinema royalty. Still, France's submission board sometimes makes...wacky, let's call it, decisions. Remember The Taste of Things getting submitted instead of Anatomy of a Fall last year?

Whatever gets picked, all eyes will be on the eventual choice to see if it can slow down France's cold streak in the Best International Feature category. For six of the first seven years this category existed, France either won this Oscar or scored a high-profile nomination. The country was an Oscar fixture throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s as well. However, after Audiard's A Prophet scored a Best International Feature nod at the 82nd Academy Awards, France's dominance over this category began to vanish. Over the last 14 Oscar ceremonies, French cinema has only been nominated twice in Best International Feature.

French-language Best Picture/Best Director nominee Anatomy of a Fall, not to mention Faces Places scoring a Best Documentary Feature nod at the 90th Oscars and I Lost My Body getting into Best Animated Feature Film at the 92nd Oscars, have ensured that France has been far from totally erased in modern Oscars history. However, in the Best International Feature category, other territories like Poland, Lebanon, and Norway have emerged as modern awards heavyweights.

Last year, France officially confirmed that The Taste of Things would be the country's submission for the Best International Feature on September 21. That means it's unlikely we'll have to wait long for confirmation on which of these titles will become the latest French film to get submitted in this category. Right now, I'd place my bets on Emilia Perez rising to the top and scoring the submission, but who knows? Maybe the chaos of 2024 will ensure that France sends in that Monte Cristo movie instead.

One thing's for certain, though: if either Perez or Light (or both of them!) miss out on getting the French submission for this category, their Oscar journeys are far from over. Netflix is pushing Perez as one of its big award-season titles. A Best International Feature nod is just one of many categories this streaming is angling to get nominations in. All We Imagine as Light, meanwhile, is being handled by Janus Films and Sideshow Releasing in the US. Three years ago, that indie studio got Drive My Car to an impressive quartet of Oscar nods, including Best Picture and Best Director. Janus and Sideshow are even dropping Light in a mid-November slot domestically reminiscent of Car's Thanksgiving 2021 launchpad. In other words, whether or not these two get submitted for Best International Feature on behalf of France is just one piece of their larger award-season puzzle.