Every Oscar Winner of the Year’s Best International Feature Movie in the past 2 Decades, Ranked

Parasite has got our undivided attention for months. It has also channeled a lot of our attention into other amaing international features just like parasite. And just like Parasite, these following movies have scored the same epic award: Oscar’s best international feature movie. For years, international films have been under the radar, but it’s about time to appreciate just how awesome they are.

1

Parasite

Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong
Bong Joon-ho
2019

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

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8.6 IMDB
2

The Lives of Others

Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
2006

A tragic love story set in East Berlin with the backdrop of an undercover Stasi controlled culture. Stasi captain Wieler is ordered to follow author Dreyman and plunges deeper and deeper into his life until he reaches the threshold of doubting the system.

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8.4 IMDB
3

A Separation

Leila Hatami, Peyman Maadi, Shahab Hosseini
Asghar Farhadi
2011

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.

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8.3 IMDB
4

The Secret in Their Eyes

Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Pablo Rago
Juan José Campanella
2009

A retired legal counselor writes a novel hoping to find closure for one of his past unresolved homicide cases and for his unreciprocated love with his superior - both of which still haunt him decades later.

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8.2 IMDB
5

Departures

Masahiro Motoki, Ryoko Hirosue, Tsutomu Yamazaki
Yojiro Takita
2008

Daigo, a cellist, is laid off from his orchestra and moves with his wife back to his small hometown where the living is cheaper. Thinking he’s applying for a job at a travel agency he finds he’s being interviewed for work with departures of a more permanent nature – as an undertaker’s assistant.

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8.1 IMDB
6

The Sea Inside

Javier Bardem, Belén Rueda, Lola Dueñas
Alejandro Amenábar
2004

The Sea Inside is about Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, who fought a 30-year campaign to win the right to end his life with dignity. It is the story of Ramón’s relationships with two women: Julia a lawyer who supports his cause, and Rosa, a local woman who wants to convince him that life is worth living.

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8 IMDB
7

Amour

Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert
Michael Haneke
2012

Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested.

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7.9 IMDB
8

No Man's Land

Branko Đurić, Rene Bitorajac, Filip Šovagović
Danis Tanović
2001

Two soldiers from opposite sites get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?

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7.9 IMDB
9

The Salesman

Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti, Babak Karimi
Asghar Farhadi
2016

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

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7.8 IMDB
10

The Great Beauty

Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli
Paolo Sorrentino
2013

Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

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7.8 IMDB
11

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi
Ang Lee
2000

Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.

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7.8 IMDB
12

Roma

Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey
Alfonso Cuarón
2018

In 1970s Mexico City, two domestic workers help a mother of four while her husband is away for an extended period of time.

7.7 IMDB
13

In a Better World

Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm, Ulrich Thomsen
Susanne Bier
2010

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

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7.6 IMDB
14

The Barbarian Invasions

Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau, Marie-Josée Croze
Denys Arcand
2003

In this belated sequel to 'The Decline of the American Empire', 50-something Montreal college professor, Remy, learns that he is dying of liver cancer. He decides to make amends meet to his friends and family before he dies. He first tries to made peace with his ex-wife Louise, who asks their estranged son Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the entire Canadian system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while he also tries to reunite his former friends, Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude to see their old friend before he passes on.

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7.6 IMDB
15

The Counterfeiters

Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow
Stefan Ruzowitzky
2007

The story Jewish counterfeiter, Salomon Sorowitsch, coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

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7.6 IMDB
16

Son of Saul

Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn
László Nemes
2015

In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival trying to save from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son.

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7.5 IMDB
17

Nowhere in Africa

Juliane Köhler, Merab Ninidze, Sidede Onyulo
Caroline Link
2001

A Jewish woman named Jettel Redlich flees Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances, bringing with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown. While Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor.

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7.5 IMDB
18

Ida

Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik
Paweł Pawlikowski
2013

Anna, a young novitiate in 1960s Poland, is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a family secret dating back to the years of the German occupation.

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7.4 IMDB
19

Tsotsi

Presley Chweneyagae, Jerry Mofokeng, Terry Pheto
Gavin Hood
2005

The South African multi-award winning film about a young South African boy from the ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster. Tsotsi, who left home as a child to get away from helpless parents, finds a baby in the back seat of a car that he has just stolen. He decides that it his responsibility to take care of the baby and in the process learns that maybe the gangster life isn’t the best way.

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7.2 IMDB
20

A Fantastic Woman

Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco
Sebastián Lelio
2017

Marina's life is thrown into turmoil following the death of her partner. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy.

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7.2 IMDB