LIVE POLL: Is Oscars' Greatest Prize More Worldly?

@Pencho15​ 

Actually, it is an United States - Mexican international co-production. Alfonso Cuarón own production company, Esperanto Filmoj is based in Sherman Oaks, California, USA. Also, Participant Media is another US company that was involved in the production.

I agree Participant funded the film. That this is not listed in IMDb seems like an error. Netflix bought the film later.

But you may want to clarify your text. First you say, "This poll is dedicated to the 10 purely non-Anglo-based productions or 1.7% that bucked the odds to secure an Oscar Best Picture nomination." Then you ask, "Which of these Oscar-nominated Best Picture movies with a rare non-Anglo* primary production origin is your favorite?"

Those are two different criteria.

Another film that may have a non-Anglo primary origin is The Pianist, but it is not purely non-Anglo based.

@Peter_pbn​, 

I am fine with the way it is phrased as primary has multiple definitions. The point of using primary is that it is one of the top listed producers listed on screen in the before-the-movie credits, not one of the twenty of so secondary subcontractors that handled one aspect of production, but are listed by IMDb as a production company (due to the after-the-movie credits). It doesn't have to be the first one listed (just as there is more than one primary color, there are a handful of colors that qualify as primary).

The word purely is used to require all the the before-the-movie credited production companies are non-Anglo. As well as, that none of them are hybrids like Alfonso Cuarón's own production company, Esperanto Filmoj that is a Mexican-American production company.

I agree there are six or more films, like 'Tess' or 'Roma' that seem to be foreign productions, but get excluded because of some minor reason. I went out of my way to use "purely" and "primary" to justify those six being excluded and to be definitive about where the line was being drawn.

The Pianist itself claims to be a Focus Features and Universal production. Both are American companies.

@Peter_pbn​ 

I removed the word "primary" and instead referenced "All the main production companies..." and added a hyperlink for the Anglosphere to be clearer.

Which of these Oscar-nominated Best Picture movies with a rare non-Anglo production* origin is your favorite? * All the main production companies must be from a country not descended from the British Isles (likely non-English speaking).

Anglosphere Countries: Europe (British Isles: U.K., Ireland, Scotland, etc.), Americas (U.S.A., Canada, Bahamas, Barbados. Belize, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, etc), Australasia (Australia, New Zealand) and Africa (South Africa, etc).

Looks OK.

Companies whose logos or names are displayed at the start of a film may be distributors. For example, Focus Features didn't buy The Pianist until it had played at Cannes, and Focus is owned by Universal. But the film did apparently have a British co-producer.

Subcontractors are usually listed in the Miscellaneous Companies section.

@ElMaruecan82​,

I agree. But, 1-2% over the past century is an insult to world cinema. Plus, almost all those nominations were limited to just three blips in Oscars history; 1969-1973, 1995-2000 and 2012-2022. It is not reflective of the quality of movies being made outside the US over time. When a film does get nominated it is more likely part of the Anglosphere. I think we can both agree that in the past, a non-Anglo film had to be twice as good just to get nominated. "Some foreign movies were so "undeniably" good that they had to be included in the Best Picture category."

I think the new blood the Academy has added has had the desired effect. I think if foreign films settled in at somewhere in the middle of the 10% to 20% range of the nominations, that would be fair and more reflective of what is happening in reality. After all, the films still have to be released in the US and screened in NYC or LA to qualify.

Well, I guess I like the way it is, right now... if we get to 10 Best Picture nominees per year, it wouldn't hurt Hollywood's "ego" to include 2 or 3 foreign movies (I mean by that non-English speaking films)

@ElMaruecan82​ I think there are likely two foreign pictures that are as worthy as the last two America Oscars BP nominees. I would be against any type of allotment system, but one non-Anglosphere and one Anglosphere would seem right.  That means some years there might be 3-4 foreign BP nominees and others none, depending on each years crop of movies. Again, I am happy that Oscar voters seem to have collectively taken the blinders off and now consider a more worldly pool of movie.

@urbanemovies​ 

I totally agree.

Still, there's one reservation I want to express. I loved The Artist and even gave it a 10 but retrospectively, I don't think the film's achievement is that impressive. Yes, sure, technically, it's a French production but it's clearly designed like a love-letter to Hollywood, the main actors are French but they didn't have dialogues, Dujardin and Béjo danced like Astaire and Rogers, the film had the Hollywood look, so it's not as if "Amour" or "Z" (Algerian production but French-speaking film) had won.

My point is: if a Bulgarian, a Swedish or a Colombian director had exactly the same idea and used actors who could look glamorous like old-school Hollywood stars with the same story, the film would have met the same success. It's a French film that won but not thanks to its Frenchiness.

Interestingly, the same year, Scorsese made an American love-letter to French pioneer George Méliès with Hugo Cabret. 

@ElMaruecan82​ On The Artist point, there is a good example of these on a Spanish film called Blancanieves It is from the same year, it is also completely silent, but contrary to The Artist it is undeniably Spanish, and it is an adaptation of Snow White taken to the early 20th Century Spain, with bullfighters. I think it is as technically great as The Artist, probably with better performances, and with an original artistic proposal, but it had little interest in Hollywood.

@Jessica​ Thanks, Why is the second paragraph spaced differently than the first?

I don't know, urb.