Foreign Films that Could have Won Best Picture: Rashomon

https://lebeauleblog.com/2022/03/12/foreign-films-that-could-have-won-best-picture-rashomon/

Just a couple of years ago, many cinephiles celebrated when Bong Joon Ho’s dark family dramedy Parasite had a big night at the Academy Awards and took home four statuettes, including the Oscar for Best Picture. The joyful uproar in the Dolby Theatre that night wasn’t just because the film was widely liked and admired (although it certainly was and continues to be). It was also an expression of happiness and relief over a film not presented mostly in English finally taking home the most prestigious prize they could give.

Parasite won Best Picture at the ninety-second Academy Awards. Ninety-one times before the Academy had anointed the best film of the year and not once had it been for a production not bankrolled by an American or British company. The closest they had come may have been Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor for 1987. It was the beneficiary of cooperation from the Chinese government, but had been produced by British and American companies, was delivered mostly in English, and starred mostly Chinese-American instead of Chinese actors. The biggest star in it was British actor Peter O’Toole. Also, if his name wasn’t already a tip-off, writer/director Bertolucci was decidedly Italian. You might stretch and call The Last Emperor an international film in its overall construction, but when it comes to an official designation all that matters is the nationality of the production company.

Honestly, it’s a little shameful that it took more than ninety tries to honor such a film. Are we really under the impression that only American and British films were worthy until 2019? It doesn’t take much of a film fan to know that’s a laughable proposition, and I hope to outline just that in this series. I’ll be doing a quick rundown on several different foreign productions that easily could have won Best Picture if enough Academy members had been open to the proposition. These won’t be obscure films that none of you or them have ever heard of. Most are films the Academy itself took note of on some level, but failed to award the Best Picture prize. Some came closer than others and some have a stronger case than others, and I’ll try to give a quick impression of that.