Ranking the International Feature Film Winners

by Juan Carlos Ojano

From De Sica to Hamaguchi, the past two years of hosting the podcast The One-Inch Barrier has allowed me to watch all that films that were selected by the Academy for its International Feature Film category - 74 winners and 337 nominees (all but one title). While this category has had its issues over the years, it has also put an international spotlight on non-English language cinema on Hollywood’s biggest night. While the category has  always been far from a perfect encapsulation of world cinema, it's a great jumping off point as noted in the series finale.  (Cláudio Alves did a beautiful summary of our discussion - video included!). 

Here is my personal not-that-definitive ranking of the winners of the category. Things are very fluid especially in the midsection... 

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Cannes Winners: Triangle of Sadness, Park Chan-wook, and more...

by Nathaniel R

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

The world's most famous film festival wrapped today in the South of France after 10 days of celebrity glamour, arthouse flexing, and critical divisions. As with last year a big thank you to our Italian friend and contributor Elisa Giudici for her on-the-ground coverage. She reviewed all of the films that were given prizes! The links for the new films go to Elisa's reviews. Links on older films will take you to past coverage from various writers. 

Vincent Lindon's jury didn't seem to come to clear unanimous agreements since there were two different ties. Of the 21 competition features 10 won prizes...

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The One-Inch Barrier: The Finale

by Cláudio Alves

After covering 74 years of Best International Film winners, nominees, and other contenders, Juan Carlos Ojano has brought The One-Inch Barrier podcast to an end. The project was a fantastic opportunity to explore world cinema through the prism of Oscar history, though it often went beyond that limit, too. It featured a varied slew of guests that spanned from critics to academics, film students, filmmakers, and even an Academy member. I was lucky enough to appear five times through its course, talking 2001, 1983, 1961, 1954, and, now, this special farewell episode. You can check out our wrap-up conversation in audio format here or click on the video below:

Thank you, Juan Carlos Ojano, for this formidable podcast. Thank you to all the listeners and every world cinema lover out there.

The One Inch Barrier: 'Nights of Cabiria' and 'The Seventh Seal'

by Nathaniel R

While we're sad about the current state of Oscar we still have 93 other years of Oscar history to obsess over. So I'm happy to share that I was invited back for a final appearance on "The One-Inch Barrier". Juan Carlos Ojano's podcast has looked at every Oscar race for Best International Feature Film while moving backward in time. Well almost every. There's still a few episodes to go. For this episode Juan Carlos and I talked about the nominated films of 1957 including The Gates of Paris (France), the noir The Devil Strikes at Night (Germany), the musical melodrama Mother India (India), the WW II survival drama Nine Lives (Norway), and the winning film Federico Fellini's enchanting Nights of Cabiria (Italy).

Ingmar Bergman's influential early classic The Seventh Seal was also submitted for the Oscars that year but the Academy unwisely passed. I have words about that. Hope you enjoy...

A peek at what's playing at the 72nd annual Berlinale

please welcome new contributor John Lynn-Fernandez

M Night Shyamalan, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, and Connie Nielsen are on the jury

The Berlin Film Festival kicked off last night. It's the second of the "Big Five" film festivals each year (after Sundance, before Cannes). In this preview, some films that stand out as potential highlights of the festival. But, of course, you never know which discoveries or films will emerge as the triumphs until audiences are watching them...

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