- “Parasite” became the first non-English-language movie to win the Oscar for best picture on Sunday.
- Only 10 others have ever been nominated for Oscars’ top prize in its 92-year history.
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The South Korean dark comedy and thriller “Parasite” made Oscars history on Sunday, becoming the first non-English-language movie to win best picture.
It took 92 years.
In the Oscars’ more than nine-decade history, only 11 primarily non-English-language movies – including “Parasite” – have been nominated for best picture. They include last year’s Netflix contender “Roma,” which couldn’t beat “Green Book” for the top prize despite the streaming giant spending up to $30 million on its campaign, The New York Times reported.
Most of those movies, including “Parasite,” have won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, which was renamed for the first time this year to best international feature. The award was introduced in 1947, though it was a non-competitive special award until 1956.
That means that the first non-English-language movie to be nominated for best picture, France's 1937 war movie "Grand Illusion," did not win or was not nominated for a foreign-language Oscar. In fact, best picture was the only award it was nominated for.
Below are the 11 international movies to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars:
"Parasite" — 2019, South Korea
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Number of nominations: 6 (4 wins)
Nominations included: Picture (won), director (won), original screenplay (won), international feature (won), film editing, production design
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 99%
What critics said: "It's what's lurking below the surface that will stay with you long after the movie is over." - Washington Post
"Roma" — 2018, Mexico
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Number of nominations: 10 (3 wins)
Nominations included: Picture, director (won), cinematography (won), foreign-language film (won), lead actress, supporting actress, original screenplay, production design, sound editing, sound mixing
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 96%
What critics said: "Having seemingly mastered the Hollywood blockbuster, Cuarón appears to be setting his sights on a more intimate kind of filmmaking along the lines of the cinema's great humanists, like Yasujiro Ozu or Lucretia Martel." - The Wrap
"Amour" — 2012, Austria
Director: Michael Haneke
Number of nominations: 5 (1 win)
Nominations included: Picture, director, lead actress, original screenplay, foreign-language film (won)
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93%
What critics said: "The resulting interplay of ruthless restraint and unavoidable passion, plus the film's refusal to shrink from depicting the inevitable horrors of physical deterioration, is devastating." - Los Angeles Times
"Letters from Iwo Jima" — 2006, Japan/United States (It's a Japanese-language film produced by US studios)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Number of nominations: 4 (1 win)
Nominations included: Picture, director, original screenplay, sound editing (won)
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 91%
What critics said: "Eastwood empathizes with the 'expendable' soldier on the ground, the 'poor bastard' who is only a pawn in a war conceived by generals and politicians, some of whom have never come anywhere near a battlefield or a combat zone." - RogerEbert.com
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" — 2000, Taiwan
Director: Ang Lee
Number of nominations: 10 (4 wins)
Nominations included: Picture, director, adapted screenplay, foreign-language film (won), original score (won), cinematography (won), art direction (won), film editing, costume design, original song
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97%
What critics said: "Ang Lee tries a little martial arts on for size with jaw-droppingly exhilarating results." - Hollywood Reporter
"Life is Beautiful" — 1997, Italy
Director: Roberto Benigni
Number of nominations: 7 (3 wins)
Nominations included: Picture, director, lead actor (won), original screenplay, foreign-language film (won), film editing, original score (won)
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 80%
What critics said: "You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll smile through the evils of genocide!" - Entertainment Weekly
"The Postman" — 1994, Italy
Director: Michael Radford
Number of nominations: 5 (1 win)
Nominations included: Picture, director, lead actor, adapted screenplay, original score (won)
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93%
What critics said: "The film, in Italian and some Spanish with English subtitles, is deceptively simple, and yet almost breathes lyrical tenderness in its depiction of a man who longs so much for love that he is all the more heartbroken on finding it." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Cries and Whispers" — 1972, Sweden
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Number of nominations: 5 (1 win)
Nominations included: Picture, director, adapted screenplay, cinematography (won), costume design
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 89%
What critics said: "Ingmar Bergman's dark vision of the human condition has focused on individuals incapable of real inter-personal communications except on the most primitive level." - Variety
"The Emigrants" — 1971, Sweden
Director: Jan Troell
Number of nominations: 5 (0 wins)
Nominations included: Picture, director, lead actress, adapted screenplay, foreign-language film
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 92%
What critics said: "It's very slow, subtly acted, and if you can last the course, quite moving." - Time Out
"Z" — 1969, Algeria
Director: Costa-Gavras
Number of nominations: 5 (2 wins)
Nominations included: Picture, director, adapted screenplay, foreign-language film (won), film editing (won)
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 93%
What critics said: "It is a great film for many reasons, not the least of which is that it can be enjoyed as a political thriller as well as a political statement." - Chicago Tribune
"Grand Illusion" — 1938, France
Director: Jean Renoir
Number of nominations: 1
Nominations included: Picture
Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 97%
What critics said: "This elegy for the death of the old European aristocracy is one of the true masterpieces of the screen." - New Yorker
