15 Movies in the Running for Best International Feature at the 2026 Oscars

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - December 23rd 2025, 17:00 GMT+1

Belen movie cropped processed by imagy — Argentina – Belén

A courtroom drama that starts from a real-life wound tends to skip the polite small talk, and *Belén* jumps straight into the kind of case that makes institutions look scary without needing a villain monologue. The story follows attorney Soledad Deza as she takes on the defense of Julieta, a young woman from Tucumán who’s unjustly imprisoned after being accused of providing an illegal abortion, turning the legal process itself into the central pressure cooker. It’s procedural in the sense that files move and hearings happen, but it’s also personal – built around the way stigma, fear, and bureaucracy can grind a person down long before any verdict lands. That mix (human stakes + clear narrative drive) is exactly why it’s been mentioned in early “Best International Feature at the 2026 Oscars” conversations. The film doesn’t try to be cute about its topic, but it does keep you watching by treating the fight for justice like a suspense plot with real consequences. | © K&S Films

The secret agent 2025 cropped processed by imagy — Brazil – The Secret Agent

Instead of opening with a grand speech about politics, this one drops you into 1977 Recife during Carnival and lets the danger seep in through the cracks. *The Secret Agent* centers on Armando, a former teacher caught in the turmoil of Brazil’s military dictatorship, arriving under an alias and trying to navigate survival while the machinery of the state hums around him. The plot weaves together refuge, paranoia, and pursuit – corrupt police, hired killers, and the uneasy feeling that “protection” can be another kind of trap. It also plays with time, framing the past as something that can be excavated later, like history itself is a crime scene with missing files and bad faith witnesses. In the Best International Feature conversation, this kind of politically charged thriller tends to travel well: specific setting, universal dread, and stakes that don’t need translation. The result is tense without being tidy, which is usually where the most interesting contenders live. | © CinemaScópio

It was just an accident cropped processed by imagy — France – It Was Just an Accident

Revenge stories usually come with certainty; this one is built around doubt, and it weaponizes that uncertainty like it’s part of the soundtrack. *It Was Just an Accident* begins when Vahid, an auto mechanic, becomes convinced he’s recognized a man from his past – someone he believes tortured him in prison – identified not by a face, but by the squeak of a prosthetic leg and a familiar voice. He kidnaps the man and tries to decide what “justice” even means when memory is partial and trauma has blurred the details, pulling other former prisoners into the nightmare to confirm (or complicate) the identity. The plot keeps tightening because every answer creates a new moral problem: if you might be wrong, what does revenge become? If you’re right, what does mercy cost? It’s a France-submitted contender with an Iranian core, and that cross-border reality matches the film’s own obsession with blurred lines and uncomfortable truths. | © Jafar Panahi Productions

The sound of falling cropped processed by imagy — Germany – The Sound of Falling

One farm, four girls, four eras – and a feeling that the walls have been listening the whole time. *The Sound of Falling* moves across generations on the same farmstead in Germany’s Altmark region, following Alma (pre–World War I), Erika (end of World War II), Angelika (East Germany in the 1980s), and Lenka (early 21st century), with their lives subtly echoing each other. The plot isn’t about a single “twist” so much as a slow uncovering: trauma and abuse recurring in different forms, the past resurfacing in gestures, silences, and the way a place can shape people long after it’s done “raising” them. It’s the kind of drama that earns its Oscars International Feature buzz through craft and atmosphere – less plot as a straight line, more plot as a haunting pattern you start recognizing against your will. If you like films that trust you to connect the dots (and then regret what the picture becomes), this is very much that. | © Studio Zentral

Homebound 2025 cropped processed by imagy — India – Homebound

Two friends chasing a uniform might sound straightforward, until the story makes it clear the uniform is really about dignity – and dignity is not evenly distributed. *Homebound* follows Shoaib (a Muslim) and Chandan (a Dalit), childhood friends from northern India who pin their hopes on passing the national police exam, a goal that turns into a pressure test for their friendship as competition, money, and social barriers tighten around them. The plot draws energy from everyday details – study routines, family expectations, small humiliations – while building toward bigger rupture points where survival instincts start to clash with loyalty. It’s also rooted in the pandemic-era reality of a migrant crisis, so “homebound” isn’t just a mood; it’s a literal, grinding condition that reshapes their options. As a potential 2026 Oscars Best International Feature contender, it has the classic ingredient list: specific lives, systemic weight, and a relationship at the center that keeps the film from turning into a lecture. | © Dharma Productions

The presidents cake cropped processed by imagy — Iraq – The President’s Cake

A “school assignment” shouldn’t feel like a life-or-death mission, but in 1990s Iraq that’s exactly the point. This film follows nine-year-old Lamia after she’s selected to bake a mandatory cake for Saddam Hussein’s birthday – an order that sounds absurd until you realize what happens if she fails. With sanctions squeezing everything from flour to hope, Lamia sets off from the marshes with a short shopping list and a long list of problems, dragging her stubborn resourcefulness (and, memorably, her cockerel) into a city where every adult seems to have a new angle. The plot works like a child’s odyssey: part chase, part moral test, part dark comedy about survival under a regime that can turn sugar into contraband. It’s also the kind of premise the Oscars International Feature conversation loves – simple goal, escalating obstacles, and a political reality that never needs a lecture to feel terrifying. | © Maiden Voyage Pictures

Kokuho cropped processed by imagy — Japan – Kokuho

Instead of starting with a glamorous stage bow, the story begins in the messy aftermath of war, when Japan is rebuilding and identity feels negotiable. Kikuo Tachibana is born into a gangster family, then winds up adopted by a kabuki actor – an upheaval that turns his life into a collision between inherited violence and chosen artistry. The plot follows his growth into a gifted performer, but it doesn’t treat talent like a magic key; it’s more interested in what it costs to become “worthy” of a tradition that demands everything from your body, your voice, and your private self. That tension – bloodline versus craft, loyalty versus ambition – gives the film the kind of emotional engine that plays well in the Best International Feature race. And because it’s grounded in a very specific cultural world (kabuki) while still being about universal hunger (to belong, to excel, to be seen), it’s easy to understand why it keeps surfacing in 2026 Oscars chatter. | © Myriagon Studio

Sentimental value cropped processed by imagy — Norway – Sentimental Value

Grief has a funny way of reopening old arguments, and here it drags an entire family back into the same house – literally. After their mother dies, Gustav Borg, a celebrated (and profoundly self-involved) film director, returns and tries to reconnect with his two adult daughters, Nora and Agnes, who have every reason to treat his sudden tenderness as suspicious timing. The plot tightens when Gustav decides to make a deeply personal film about their family history and, in the way only an artist-parent can, assumes this is a loving gesture instead of emotional arson. Nora is an actress with crippling stage fright; Agnes is steadier, but not immune to old damage. The story keeps twisting between domestic drama and show-business ego, especially as Gustav’s need to create starts competing with his daughters’ need to heal. For the 2026 Oscars International Feature conversation, it has the classic ingredients: a big performance-driven family story, an auteur’s fingerprint, and enough self-awareness to know exactly how messy “reconciliation” really is. | © Mer Film

All thats left of you cropped processed by imagy — Palestine – All That’s Left of You

Some films feel like a family album until you notice the pages are made of history, and turning them hurts. This one traces three generations of a Palestinian family across decades of displacement and conflict, treating the past less like “backstory” and more like a living force that keeps reappearing in new forms. The plot moves through time with a clear emotional spine: what gets carried forward, what gets lost on purpose, and what survives as stubborn memory when everything else is stripped away. It’s not structured as a tidy saga with neat milestones; it plays more like a chain of moments that echo each other – love, rupture, resilience, and the uncomfortable realization that the present is rarely “new.” In an Oscars International Feature context, that scope matters: it’s intimate enough to feel personal, but expansive enough to feel like a national wound rendered in human faces. The result is heavy, yes, but also sharply alive – like it refuses to let the audience watch from a safe distance. | © Pallas Film

Palestine 36 cropped processed by imagy — Palestine – Palestine 36

History epics sometimes flatten people into symbols; this one goes the opposite direction and lets the politics arrive through daily decisions. Set during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt against British rule in Mandatory Palestine, the plot tracks Yusuf as he moves between Jerusalem and his rural home while unrest escalates – armed resistance, colonial crackdowns, and the kind of tension where neutrality becomes its own danger. What makes it feel like a serious International Feature contender isn’t just the scale, but the way the film treats uprising as something lived: arguments around kitchen tables, loyalties tested on roads, relationships strained by fear and urgency. It’s the sort of story that can play as both historical and immediate, because it’s ultimately about ordinary people being forced into extraordinary choices. The narrative also benefits from a huge ensemble, which gives the revolt texture instead of turning it into a single-hero legend. If awards-season voters respond to films that make the past feel present without turning it into a museum tour, this one has a very real lane. | © Philistine Films

No Other Choice cropped processed by imagy 1 — South Korea – No Other Choice

Unemployment has been the villain in plenty of movies, but here it gets a sharp suit and a very specific plan. Park Chan-wook’s satirical thriller follows Man-su, a highly decorated paper-industry veteran who’s suddenly laid off after his company is bought out, and who becomes obsessed with clawing his way back to the kind of life his family has been quietly holding together. What starts as “one more interview, one more rejection” turns into something far uglier when he decides the only way to beat better-qualified candidates is to remove them – literally. The plot leans into dark comedy without letting you forget the dread underneath: a mortgage closing in, a family adapting in real time, and a man crossing lines while still insisting he’s the responsible one. It’s exactly the kind of tight, high-concept descent that plays well in the 2026 Oscars Best International Feature conversation: specific, propulsive, and just uncomfortable enough to stick. | © CJ Entertainment

Cropped Sirat — Spain – Sirāt

A missing-person search sounds straightforward until the map turns into sand, music, and a world that refuses to be predictable. This Spanish selection drops a father, Luis, and his son into a rave in the deserts of southern Morocco, following rumors that the missing daughter might be moving from party to party deeper into the dunes. The plot is part road movie, part fever dream: a ragtag group of ravers, two vans pushing farther and farther into isolation, and the sense that the desert doesn’t care about anyone’s personal crisis. Then the story swerves into something even larger as reports of escalating armed conflict begin bleeding into the journey, turning the search into a survival narrative with stakes that keep multiplying. It’s the rare contender that can be both tactile (heat, fuel, bodies, distance) and strangely spiritual, like the film is daring you to find meaning while everything is falling apart. If you’re tracking the 2026 Academy Awards International Feature race, this one has that Cannes-to-Oscars momentum people love to whisper about. | © El Deseo

Late shift cropped processed by imagy — Switzerland – Late Shift

There’s nothing glamorous about the way this story builds tension – no car chases, no speeches, just a clock that keeps winning. The film follows Floria, a young nurse trying to hold an understaffed hospital ward together during a late shift that quickly turns into an escalating chain of urgent needs: a critically ill mother, an anxious elderly patient waiting for answers, and a demanding private patient who doesn’t understand that “overworked” isn’t a personal insult. The plot’s hook is almost cruel in its simplicity: Floria is competent, caring, and trying hard, and the system still keeps pushing her toward a breaking point. When a serious mistake enters the equation, the story shifts from stressful to nerve-racking, not because she stops trying, but because the margin for error has been eaten alive by workload. It’s easy to see why it’s in the mix for the 2026 Oscars Best International Feature conversation – this is a pressure-cooker drama that feels painfully plausible, and plausibility can hit harder than spectacle. | © Zodiac Pictures Ltd

Left handed girl cropped processed by imagy — Taiwan – Left-Handed Girl

The first thing you notice is how alive the setting feels: a bustling Taipei night market where every corner has a smell, a sound, and a small negotiation happening at once. At the center is a single mother returning to the city with her two daughters to open a noodle stand, hoping a fresh start will feel like a reset button instead of another uphill climb. The plot keeps its focus on family friction rather than big plot twists: the older daughter trying to navigate adulthood and stigma, the youngest being scolded for using her left hand by a traditional grandfather, and a household where love exists alongside pressure, judgment, and buried history. What makes it a believable Oscars International Feature contender for 2026 is how it threads social commentary through everyday routines – no lecture, just the steady accumulation of tiny moments that reveal who gets to be “acceptable.” It’s warm without being cute about hardship, and sharp without turning cruel, which is a tricky balance to pull off. | © Good Chaos

The voice of hind rajab cropped processed by imagy — Tunisia – The Voice of Hind Rajab

This one doesn’t ease you in, because the real story it’s based on doesn’t offer that kind of mercy. Framed as a docudrama, it centers on the final hours of Hind Rajab, a young girl trapped under fire in Gaza, and the desperate effort by Red Crescent call handlers and volunteers to keep her talking, locate her, and reach her in time. The plot’s tension comes from its structure: voices on the line, fragmented information, escalating danger, and the unbearable gap between “help is coming” and what reality allows. By blending dramatization with the chilling immediacy of a real emergency call, the film becomes less a conventional narrative and more an act of witnessing – painful, specific, and hard to shake off once it’s in your head. In the 2026 Oscars Best International Feature conversation, it stands out for the same reason it’s difficult to watch: it insists on staying human-scale, where geopolitics becomes a child’s voice and a ticking clock. | © Mime Films

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Awards season always comes with its own little mythology: whispered frontrunners, sudden surges, and at least one film everyone pretends they’ve “been meaning to watch.” The Best International Feature race for the 2026 Oscars is already shaping up like that, packed with buzzy festival titles, national picks with big reputations, and a few contenders that could sneak up on people who only check the Oscars once a year.

This list rounds up 15 films being discussed as possible International Feature contenders for the 2026 Academy Awards, based on early selection chatter, festival momentum, and the kinds of choices countries tend to send when they’re aiming for a nomination. It’s not a final ballot, just a snapshot of the conversation before it hardens into “inevitable” headlines.