Academy Logs Record 105 Submissions for International Feature Oscar

The race for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film has reached triple digits for the first time in Oscar history. According to voter assignment records obtained by TheWrap, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has assigned 105 eligible titles to preliminary voters, easily eclipsing the previous benchmark of 93 set in 2020.

The expanded roster marks a sharp increase after three consecutive years where submissions remained in the mid-to-high 80s. A portion of the growth comes from fresh territorial entries, including inaugural submissions from Cyprus, El Salvador and Rwanda, alongside the return of Sri Lanka after 17 years and the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a 29-year absence.

## Festival Winners Reshape Entry Rules

The historic total was also driven by a procedural revision that dismantled the Academy's rigid one-film-per-country limit. Under the revised framework, movies could earn eligibility independently by winning the top prize at six key international festivals: Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Busan, or either the narrative or documentary competitions at Sundance.

A total of seven features earned consideration through festival victories this year. Three of those titles were simultaneously selected as their home nations' official selections, while the remaining four utilized the new pathway to enter the field.

Participating Academy voters received their screening mandates on Friday. The organization split volunteer ballots across nine distinct groups, requiring members to view 11 or 12 specific titles to ensure broad coverage before casting initial votes.

The regulatory shift addresses long-running friction across the global festival circuit, where acclaimed works often missed the Oscar stage because national selection committees could only pick one domestic contender. As Hollywood Tomorrow notes, establishing an automatic festival track protects celebrated global films from local industry politics and broadens the competitive landscape.

The Academy will release its finalized list of eligible contenders before preliminary shortlist voting gets underway in December.