At a time when the leadership of the United States is projecting an “America first” attitude, the L.A.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is doing the opposite.
Indeed, the Oscar nominations that were announced on Thursday morning were as geographically inclusive as any in the 98-year history of the Academy. Feature-length films that are primarily or entirely in a language other than English collectively landed 22 noms, tying a record set in 2023 and matched in 2024, with those noms spread among Sentimental Value (nine), The Secret Agent (four), It Was Just an Accident (two), Sirāt (two), Arco (one), Cutting Through Rocks (one), Kokuho (one), Little Amelie or the Character of Rain (one) and Mr. Nobody Against Putin (one).
Moreover, for just the second time (2024 was the first), there is at least one non-English-language film represented in every Oscar category; there are two in the best picture category, The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value, tying the record set in 2025, and marking the eighth consecutive year in which the top category includes at least one; and, of the 20 slots for acting noms, an unprecedented four, or 20 percent, went to non-English-language performances: The Secret Agent’s lead actor Wagner Moura and Sentimental Value’s lead actress Rentate Reinsve, supporting actor Stellan Skarsgård and supporting actress Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. (Believe it or not, Skarsgård’s is the first non-English-language performance ever nominated in the supporting actor category.)
This year’s strong showing of non-English-language films is undoubtedly related to the significant internationalization of the Academy’s membership over the decade since the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. Seeking to diversify itself, the organization recruited not just more people of color and women to join its ranks, but also more people based outside of America. Today, a full 25 percent of the membership hails from abroad, and they are largely accustomed to — and therefore undeterred by — movies with subtitles.
Something that this new reality is forcing all of us to contemplate is whether or not any of the Oscar precursors — the award shows that precede the Oscars, and often claim to predict them — still provide any real sense of where the Academy is headed.
The guild honors — including SAG-AFTRA’s Actor Awards, the Directors Guild’s DGA Awards and the Producers Guild’s PGA Awards — are determined by the members of those respective guilds, the vast majority of whom are Americans based in the United States. This year, zero non-English-language films or performances were nominated in the film categories of the Actor Awards; zero directors of non-English-language films were nominated for the top DGA Award; and only one non-English-language film, Sentimental Value, was included among the 10 nominees for the top PGA Award.
Clearly, the preferences of the guilds no longer reflect the preferences of the Academy.
Meanwhile, the BAFTA Awards are chosen by the members of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, who are primarily based in the U.K. They would seem to offer a pretty strong sense of how the sizable European bloc of Academy members might be leaning — except for the fact that BAFTA employs all sorts of weighting to try to ensure a diverse group of nominees. That’s admirable, but not consistent with the way the Academy noms are determined.
As for the Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards? The results of the former are determined by the members of the Critics Choice Association (I’m one of them), among whom are very few, if any, people based outside the U.S. The results of the latter are determined by the members of the Golden Globes organization, which is a very international group. But both groups are comprised entirely of journalists, of which there are virtually none in the Academy.
This year, I think the Globes probably had the greatest influence of all precursors over the Oscar noms — their ceremony was held the night before Oscar nomination voting began, and they awarded top prizes to Skarsgard, Moura and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’s Rose Byrne, all of whom went on to Oscar noms that were far from assured. But nowadays, no precursor group has enough demographic overlap with the Academy to really be counted on as a predictor.
For additional analysis of this year’s Oscar nominations, click here.
Read the full article here
