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The 11 international movies that have been nominated for best picture in the Oscars' 92-year history

Feb 11, 2020, 00:58 IST

The South Korean dark comedy and thriller "Parasite" made Oscars history on Sunday, becoming the first non-English-language movie to win best picture.

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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

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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

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