Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Obscure, Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning It Was Simply An Accident, Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Personal Life, Hafsia Herzi’s Cannes finest actress-winning The Little Sister, and Ugo Bienvenu’s 2D animation Arco have made the shortlist for France’s worldwide characteristic movie Oscar submission on the 98th Academy Awards in 2026.
The movies had been chosen by a not too long ago revamped 11-member choice committee appointed by France’s tradition minister Rachida Dati per a advice from nationwide movie physique CNC, which introduced the choice on Wednesday night after a day of deliberations (Sept. 10).
The committee – which this 12 months stays nameless – will reconvene on September 17 to fulfill with every movie’s producers, worldwide gross sales representatives and US distributors earlier than asserting its remaining alternative of submission because the nation as soon as once more units out to win its first award within the class since Regis Wargnier’s Indochine in 1993.
The entire decision-making committee are “certified figures within the discipline of cinema and a minimum of half artists or crew members” per the principles of the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences, based on the CNC in an announcement asserting the shortlisted titles. CNC additionally identified that it isn’t a part of the decision-making course of.
The shortlist
Nouvelle Obscure follows the manufacturing of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 movie Breathless. Netflix will launch in 25-30 markets earlier than it begins streaming. It stars Guillaume Marbeck as Godard alongside Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg, and premiered at Cannes earlier than arriving at TIFF, Telluride and, later this month, New York Movie Competition (NYFF). Nouvelle Obscure would mark the primary time in historical past that France has chosen a movie by an American director.
Jafar Panahi’s It Was Simply An Accident gained the Palme d’Or in Cannes and was snapped up by Neon for US distribution. The movie went on to play Telluride and TIFF, and screens at NYFF. It’s a couple of group of former political prisoners confronting the guard whom they are saying as soon as tortured them, and is a co-production between Iran’s Jafar Panahi Manufacturing and France’s Les Movies du Pelléas.
Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Personal Life premiered at Cannes and stars Jodie Foster in a French-language function taking part in a famend psychiatrist who units out to analyze the potential homicide of considered one of her sufferers. Sony Photos Classics has introduced an awards-qualifying run.
The Little Sister, Herzi’s third characteristic, is a coming-of-age story a couple of French-Algerian teenager exploring her sexuality whereas navigating her Muslim religion. It earned its star Nadia Melliti the perfect actress award in Cannes and took dwelling the Queer Palm and can subsequent premiere in Toronto this week. Strand Releasing is dealing with US distribution.
Ugo Bienvenu’s 2D animation Arco premiered in Cannes out of competitors earlier than heading to Annecy and is a couple of boy in a rainbow go well with who travels by time and will get caught within the flawed period. Natalie Portman has joined the movie’s English voice forged below her banner MountainA, alongside firm co-founder Sophie Mas and Paris-based Remembers’ Félix de Givry. Neon can be dealing with North American distribution.
Final 12 months, France submitted Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez to the worldwide characteristic class – an unconventional alternative that, whereas directed by a French filmmaker, featured a global forged and Spanish and English-language dialogue.
