Golden Globe Winner Predictions: Best Foreign Language Film

The competition: The Brand New Testament (Belgium/France/Luxembourg), The Club (Chile), The Fencer (Finland/Germany/Estonia), Mustang (France), Son of Saul (Hungary)

For your information: It’s hard to tabulate statistics by country since multiple countries are sometimes credited for a given film, including two nominees this year. By my calculations, France has been nominated a whopping 79 times and has been credited with twelve wins. Germany shared credit on one win out of a handful of nominations. Belgium won twice. Hungary and Chile have both been nominated once before, and Estonia was nominated last year for the first time. Finland was cited once also, over fifty years ago. Jaco Van Dormeal, who helmed “The Brand New Testament,” was nominated in 1996 for “The Eighth Day.” Four of these films made the shortlist for the Oscar race and may be nominated – “The Club” is the only one that didn’t.

Who should win? I haven’t seen “The Brand New Testament” or “The Club,” neither of which have U.S. release dates on the schedule. The other three are all good - I’m not sure I have a preference.

Who will win? This category didn’t have a clear frontrunner the past two years, but Son of Saul seems like it this year.