Best International Feature Film: Ranking Every Oscar Nominee
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
We are getting close to the bitter end here. Two more days are left after today, and all that remains are Best Director and Best Picture. Let’s focus on the now and what that brings us: Best International Feature Film. Of every Academy Award category, this is my absolute favourite. I feel like it is the most untainted category over the years (although not always), uninhibited by awards season politics and nonsense. Usually this category feels more like an accurate capture of the best films of the year than even Best Picture does as a result. Having said that, the recent trend where the frontrunner for this category goes on to be nominated for Best Picture has somewhat affected it, since now the awards season politics now are at least partially in play here. Still, I get excited for these nominees every single year, and the 95th Academy Award nominations do not disappoint. Here are your nominees.
Biggest Snub: Decision to Leave-South Korea
The biggest snub of the entire 95th Academy Awards is this one. Here I was wondering what additional nominations Decision to Leave would get outside of Best International Feature Film. It would get none. Zero. A goose egg. One of the best films of 2022 got completely shut out of the Oscars, when it was quite possibly one of the frontrunners to flat out win Best International Feature Film earlier this awards season. This is so wrong, it’s beyond description. I’ll quickly point out how Saint Omer has been absolutely slept on this awards season as well, and I was hoping it would get this nice surprise nomination as well. Also another shoutout to Holy Spider. But Decision to Leave not being nominated at all is a joke.
5. Argentina, 1985-Argentina
While I like Argentina, 1985, I feel like it is the safest nominee here; its Spielbergian ending still hasn’t quite sat well with me the whole time since I’ve seen the film. For the most part, Argentina, 1985 is a gripping political drama that captures its real subject matters quite profoundly, and those that watch this film with the intention of getting historical and emotional context of its subject matter (the Trial of the Juntas) will get a lot out of it. I don’t think it competes with the other nominees and I do have a few films I would have gladly placed ahead of it as one of the nominees (see above), but Argentina, 1985 is still a solid film that may resonate greatly with you (while it hasn’t quite affected me as much as it has others).
4. All Quiet on the Western Front-Germany
I’ve ranked this a bit low, but I do want to confirm that I really like All Quiet on the Western Front. I am fairly firm on my stance that the 1930 version is the superior version, but that has nothing to do with how I feel about this 2022 adaptation (or the ranking here). I think All Quiet on the Western Front is undeniably the best made film of this category from a technical standpoint, and that may be what wins over Academy voters. As an anti-war film, this is stellar and it is clear that it will go down as one of the more beloved war films of the twenty first century. I personally prefer three of the other nominees, but if you haven’t gotten around to the highly-accoladed All Quiet on the Western Front yet, what are you waiting for?
3. The Quiet Girl-Ireland
This film really got to me. The Quiet Girl is the least assuming nominee here, and it performs like its protagonist does: shyly, but with a lot to say. I found how this film progressed very textured and natural, as if I could feel every ounce of the change within the life of this neglected child. It made me feel like a kid discovering a new side to life again; like my older self looking back upon a collection of memories that I have cast aside for years; like an adult realizing that we will forever be as curious — yet clueless — as when we were children. Easily one of the more overlooked films that got nominated this year, The Quiet Girl deserves your time and attention. It’s one of the more poetically rich films of 2022.
2. EO-Poland
Au Hasard Balthazar is one of the greatest tragedies of cinematic history. This contemporary homage, EO, focuses on only some of the story (all of the bits concerning the donkeys at the forefront). What we get here is a heartbreaking allegory of the lower/working class in the form of the titular character: a wandering donkey that gets mistreated or nurtured by whomever he comes across. As we travel across Poland, we get so many sides to EO’s thesis: a nation and its inner-mechanisms are defined by the people within it and how they wish to treat others. As much of a love letter to one’s motherland as it is a sad note of acceptance that one’s stomping grounds has problems within it, EO is a pulverizing fable for the modern age.
1. Close-Belgium
Sometimes I will find myself kicking myself when I get around to all of the Academy Award nominees during an award season, because I’ll discover (or finally get around to) a film that would have easily made my best-of list from the end of the previous year. This time around, that film is Close: an astonishing depiction of a youth’s self-imploding identity at the hands of a society full of scorn and bigotry. This film absolutely gutted me; despite being one of the most cinematographically tender films of last year, the subject matter was purely devastating in such a minimal sense (you hurt by what you don’t see, rather than what gets put on screen). No question: Close is one of my favourite films of 2022, and I will gladly rank it first here (even above some other motion pictures I also fell in love with).
Who I want to win: I’m happy with most of the nominees winning here, but I’ll stick with Close.
Who I think will win: Given how many other Oscar nominations it has (including Best Picture), this is obviously going to All Quiet on the Western Front. If its complete domination at the BAFTAs didn’t mean anything (it won the top prize [!] there), consider its Academy Awards recognition enough evidence that this film is going all the way. What’s certain is that All Quiet on the Western Front will win this award; what the real question becomes is what other wins it may collect this evening.
Tune in tomorrow for our next Academy Award category! We’re reviewing every single nominee on every weekday.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.