Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
| Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Excellence in Foreign Language Film |
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) |
| First awarded | 1956 |
| Currently held by | A Fantastic Woman (2017) |
| Website | oscars |
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States of America with a predominantly non-English dialogue track.
When the first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, to honor films released in 1927/28, there was no separate category for foreign language films. Between 1947 and 1955, the Academy presented Special/Honorary Awards to the best foreign language films released in the United States. These Awards, however, were not handed out on a regular basis (no Award was given in 1953), and were not competitive since there were no nominees but simply one winning film per year. For the 1956 (29th) Academy Awards, a competitive Academy Award of Merit, known as the Best Foreign Language Film Award, was created for non-English speaking films, and has been given annually since then.
Unlike other Academy Awards, the Best Foreign Language Film Award is not presented to a specific individual. It is accepted by the winning film's director, but is considered an award for the submitting country as a whole. Over the years, the Best Foreign Language Film Award and its predecessors have been given almost exclusively to European films: out of the sixty-eight Awards handed out by the Academy since 1947 to foreign language films, fifty-six have gone to European films, five to Asian films, four to films from the Americas and three to African films. Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini directed four Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award–winning motion pictures during his lifetime, a record that remains unmatched as of 2015 (if Special Awards are taken into account, then Fellini's record is tied by his countryman Vittorio De Sica). The most awarded foreign country is Italy, with 14 awards won (including 3 Special Awards) and 28 nominations, while France is the foreign country with the largest number of nominations (37 for 12 wins, including 3 Special Awards). Israel is the foreign country with the largest number of nominations (10) without winning an award, while Portugal has the largest number of submissions (34) without a nomination.
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