For our third Rundown article, we look at once-labeled foreign language films. After the jump, you’ll find our winner and runner-up predictions for Best International Film as well as general commentary about the race. Next week, we’ll start off on Monday with a category the documentary categories.

Best International Film

Winner Predictions

• Corpus Christi
• Honeyland
• Les Misérables
• Pain and Glory
• Parasite (WL O) (PP O) (TB O) (TL O)

Runner-Up Predictions

• Pain and Glory (WL O) (PP O) (TB O) (TL O)

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Wesley Lovell: It’s an incredibly rarity for a film to be nominated for both Best International Film (formerly Foreign Language Film) and Best Picture at the Oscars and it’s even more rare for a non-English language film to be nominated for Best Picture and not Best Foreign Language Film. In Oscar history, before this year, only 10 non-English language films have ever been nominated for Best Picture (Grand Illusion in 1938, Z in 1969, The Emigrants in 1972, Cries and Whispers in 1973, The Postman (Il Postino) in 1995, Life Is Beautiful in 1998, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000, Letters from Iwo Jima in 2006, Amour in 2012, and Roma last year. Parasite makes 11. Of those eleven features, six of them were also nominated for Foreign Language Film. Grand Illusion was nominated before the category existed, Cries and Whispers and The Postman weren’t nominated, and Letters from Iwo Jima wasn’t eligible. Only the first film nominated for both categories, The Emigrants didn’t win the Oscar for Foreign Language Film. All of this is to say that Parasite is a slam dunk winner if there ever was one. If I had to pick a runner-up, and I do, Pain and Glory is the only one I could imagine overtaking Bong Joon-ho’s acclaimed film.
Peter J. Patrick: Parasite, with its total of six Oscar nominations, will sail to an easy victory here. Pain and Glory will get strong support but nowhere near enough to overtake it.
Tripp Burton: There is no way Parasite loses this award, unless people vote for it in so many other places that they give Almodovar another win in this category. But that won’t happen.
Thomas La Tourrette: This year there is only one film in the conversation – Parasite. It has dominated the field, winning over 90% of the awards given. Nothing else will stand a chance beyond the juggernaut of it. It is an interesting film about the different classes in South Korea, but it was also a polarizing film. People either loved it or just did not care for it. I have known few people in the middle ground. Since it is also nominated for best picture, it is by far the odds-on favorite to win. Pain and Glory was an interesting meditation on life as an older man by Spanish great Pedro Almodovar. It is good, but perhaps not among his best. In another year, it might well have been the winner. Honeyland is a North Macedonian film about a beekeeper in a remote part of the country. It is sometimes sad, but shows the indomitable spirit of the main character. I have not had a chance to see the other two yet. Corpus Christi sounds intriguing. Les Misérables has a good reputation, though France might have done better naming Portrait of a Lady on Fire as their nominee. It would have probably gotten more votes, but I doubt that anything can stand in the way of Parasite winning.

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