Oscar Predictions: Best Foreign Film

This year, Oscar nominations will be announced on Thursday, January 15th. I’ll be offering detailed predictions in most of the major categories, saving some of the biggest categories for last.

Last year’s nominees: The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium), The Missing Picture (Cambodia), The Hunt (Denmark), The Great Beauty (Italy), Omar (Palestine)

This year’s contenders: Wild Tales (Argentina), Tangerines (Estonia), Corn Island (Georgia), Timbuktu (Mauritania), Accused (Netherlands), Ida (Poland), Leviathan (Russia), Force Majeure (Sweden), The Liberator (Venezuela)

The rundown: This list was winnowed down from eighty-three submissions to nine finalists, five of which will ultimately be nominated. This list already represents a handful of shocking omissions, namely Golden Globe nominee “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem” from Israel and two films I and many others had very much expected to place here: “Mommy” from Canada and “Two Days, One Night” from Belgium. I would surely have included submissions “Rocks in My Pockets” from Latvia, “Difret” from Ethiopia, and “The Way He Looks” from Brazil, but I’m not in charge of these things. I’ve seen three of these films, all of which are Golden Globe nominees: Ida (Poland), Leviathan (Russia), and Force Majeure (Sweden). The first is easily the most locked and I suspect the other two will be nominated also. Tangerines (Estonia) is the other Golden Globe nominee, though, from what I’ve heard, I think it might lose out to two highly acclaimed international films: Wild Tales (Argentina) and Timbuktu (Mauritania). It’s hard to know without having seen most of these, but that’s where I’m at, and I hope to see more closer to Oscar night.

One possible crazy scenario: It’s happened before that the most-buzzed about contender in this category has been snubbed, but that’s usually before this finalist slate. That would be Ida this year.

Forecasted winner: “Ida”