The Oscar international deadline closes today and nobody can agree how many countries entered
Submissions for the international feature Oscar close today. Depending on which tracker you open, either 68 or about 87 countries have entered, and four of the biggest film-producing nations in the world are not among them.
The Academy's deadline for the 99th international feature category falls today, 30 September. Eligible films had to open between 1 October 2025 and today.
How many countries entered depends entirely on where you look. One widely used tracker has the figure at about 87. The encyclopedia entry that most people reach first still reads 68.
Neither is wrong, exactly. Submissions are announced by national selection committees on their own schedules, confirmed by the Academy later, and counted differently depending on whether a tracker waits for confirmation. The Academy's own list is the only one that settles it, and it publishes after the deadline.
Which means every "record number of submissions" headline written today is written before the number exists.
France is submitting a Russian director. Romania is submitting the Palme d'Or.
The category is keyed to the producing country, not to the director's nationality, and this year makes that unusually visible:
- France — Minotaur, directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, which took the Cannes Grand Prize.
- Romania — Fjord, Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or winner.
- Poland — Fatherland, Pawel Pawlikowski, Cannes Best Director.
- Japan — All of a Sudden, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Cannes Best Actress.
- South Korea — Possible Love, Lee Chang-dong.
- Spain — La Bola Negra, which won the audience award at San Sebastian on Saturday.
- Australia — First Light, a Filipino-language film by James J. Robinson.
China, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia did not submit
That is four major producing nations sitting out a category built on national representation. Iran and Lebanon have both been regular entrants and both have been nominated. China's absence removes the largest film market on earth from a category meant to survey world cinema.
No submission is not the same as no eligible films. It means a national committee either did not convene, did not agree, or chose not to put a name forward. The Academy does not require anyone to enter, and the list that results is therefore a map of who participates rather than of who made films.
Two countries are entering for the first time
- Cyprus — Hold Onto Me, Myrsini Aristidou.
- El Salvador — Vertices, Arturo Lopez Rodas.
Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Zambia are also listed as competing for the first time or for the first time in many years, though the distinction between those two phrases is doing more work than it should and none of the trackers separate them.
A rule change this year quietly widens the door
Beginning with the 99th ceremony, non-English-language films that qualify at major festivals — Cannes, Venice, Berlin and others — gain automatic eligibility, without needing a national committee to select them.
That is a structural change to a category that has run on national selection since 1956. It means a film rejected by its own country's committee can still reach the Academy through a festival, and it removes some of the leverage those committees have held for seventy years.
The dates that follow
- Submission deadline: 30 September 2026.
- Shortlist: 15 December 2026.
- Nominations: 21 January 2027.
What is still unknown
The real count, which only the Academy can publish. Whether any late submissions land today. And how many films enter through the new festival route rather than through a committee — the first year of a rule like that is the year nobody knows how it will be used.
A category designed to have one film per country is being entered by roughly eighty-seven of them, is missing four of the largest, and has just opened a second door that bypasses the countries entirely. The tally everyone prints today will be wrong by tomorrow.