If you make one resolution in 2019, it should be to watch more foreign films. This year's Oscar contenders for best foreign language film are from Lebanon, Poland, Germany, Mexico, and Japan, and the selections include two black-and-white films, three films based on real-life stories, films produced by Amazon Studios and Netflix, the first nominations for both an Arab woman and an Indigenous woman, the first Japanese film nomination in 10 years, and five truly incredibly stories.
Read on to see what makes this year's selections so exceptional (and why several of these films are making history).
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This Lebanese drama (which means "chaos") first made waves when it won the Jury Prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival (after also receiving a 15-minute standing ovation following its screening). The film was written and directed by Nadine Labaki and introduces 14-year-old Syrian-born actor Zain Al Rafeea as a streetwise Syrian refugee who runs away from his negligent parents, commits a violent crime, and then sues his parents in protest when he's brought before a judge. Labaki is making history as the first Arab woman to be nominated for best foreign language film, as well as being the only female director among the other five nominees.
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and produced by Amazon Studios, this historical period drama is set in Poland and France from the late 1940s until the 1960s, telling the love story of a musical director who discovers a promising young singer (a story that is loosely based on the relationship between Pawlikowski's late parents).
The film first premiered at Cannes, where Pawlikowski took home the award for best director, and — as well as best foreign language film — Pawlikowski is competing again in the best director category at the Oscars. The Polish director already won for his religious drama Ida back in 2015, so if he scores a second win, he'll be only the seventh director in history to have directed multiple Oscar winners (and just the second in the last 43 years).
This German drama was directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, a director best known for writing and directing the 2006 Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others and 2010's flop The Tourist, starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. This film — which debuted at the 75th Venice International Film Festival — was inspired by the life of German visual artist Gerhard Richter and his mentor, following an art student in postwar East Germany who falls in love with a fellow student (and whose disapproving father, Carl, may also be involved in the Nazi eugenics program).
Sebastian Koch — who starred in Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies and previously worked with Donnersmarck in The Lives of Others — plays Carl alongside German actors Tom Schilling and Paula Beer, and interestingly enough, artist Richter is not too happy about the whole thing.
Taking place in the early 1970s in Mexico City, this film is a semibiographical take on the life of Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón (who also produced, coedited, and shot the film), following a formative year in the life of a middle-class family and its live-in housekeeper. Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio, 25, makes her debut in the film as Cleodegaria "Cleo" Gutiérrez, one of the family's maids, a role that allowed her to be the first Indigenous woman (and only the second Mexican woman) to get an Oscar nomination for best actress.
This film also allowed Netflix to score its first-ever Oscar nomination for best picture (along with nine other nominations, including best director, best original screenplay, and best cinematography).
Directed by Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor Hirokazu Kore-eda (who has directed more than a dozen feature films), this Japanese drama is centered on a family living in poverty that is forced to make ends meet through theft. The film won the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes (the festival's highest accolade), and — along with Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai, which is up for best animated feature — this is the first time Japanese films have been nominated for Oscars in 10 years. Popular Japanese actors Lily Franky and Sakura Ando star in the film as the parents of the Shibata family.
