Six films were chosen from among the 87 films which had originally been considered for the foreign language category and three additional selections were voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee.

In 2015 Paweł Pawlikowski received his first Oscar in the foreign language category for Ida (produced by Opus Film in coproduction with Canal+, Cyfrowy and Phoenix Film Investment). Cold War received five awards at the recent European Film Awards, including the award for best European Film.

Shortlisted films:

Cold War (Poland, UK, France)
Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski
Produced by Opus Film
Coproduced by Apocalypso Pictures
Supported by the Polish Film Institute, MK2 Films, Film4, the British Film Institute, Eurimages

Birds of Passage (Colombia)
Directed by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra

The Guilty (Denmark)
Directed by Gustav Möller

Never Look Away (Germany)
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Shoplifters (Japan)
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Ayka (Kazakhstan)
Directed by Sergey Dvortsevoy

Capernaum (Lebanon)
Directed by Nadine Labaki

Roma (Mexico)
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

Burning (South Korea)
Directed by Lee Chang-dong