List of Foreign-language Films Nominated For Academy Awards - Winners and Nominees

Winners and Nominees

Foreign films are not to be confused with foreign language films. A foreign film is a motion picture produced outside the United States, regardless of the language used in its dialogue track. A foreign language film, on the other hand, is a predominantly non-English speaking motion picture, regardless of where it was produced. Although the overwhelming majority of foreign language films are foreign, this is not always the case: in recent years, for instance, several non-English speaking American films such as The Passion of the Christ (2004) or Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) have been nominated for Academy Awards (American films have never been eligible for the Best Foreign Language Film Award, even if none of the dialogue is in English). Such films are included in this list. On the other hand, foreign films where the majority of the dialogue is in English — such as the Indo-British co-production of Gandhi (1982) — are not taken into account. The article also includes films such as the Japanese anime Spirited Away (2001) that were initially released in their native country in a foreign language but were nominated by the Academy for the English-dubbed version under which they were shown in Los Angeles. The films are grouped by award category, and are arranged chronologically within each category. The years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of film release; the ceremonies are always held the following year. The winning films are in bold and in light blue background; the presence of an Oscar statuette indicates the official recipient of the award.