About this chart race
Seventy-nine of these Oscars have been awarded since 1947, to 31 different countries, and 16 of those countries have won exactly once. The top of the chart, though, has belonged to just three of them: the lead changed hands 19 times, and every one of those changes involved Italy, France or Japan.
Italy and France spent half a century trading places. Italy won the first award in 1947 and led for most of the 1950s and 1960s; France drew level repeatedly, went ahead outright in 1978, and stayed in front until 1988. In 1990 the two were dead level on eleven. Italy then won in 1991 and 1998 and has not been caught since, finishing on 14 to France's 12.
What makes that gap odd is how it was built. France has not won this award since 1992 — thirty-three years — and Italy's most recent came in 2013. The countries collecting them now are mostly new to the list: in the last three years alone the United Kingdom, Brazil and Norway have each won it for the very first time.
Two entries in the chart look like errors but are not. 1950 counts twice, for France and for Italy, because the winning film was a co-production credited to both. And 1953 is missing entirely: no award was given that year. The category was honorary from 1947 to 1955 before becoming a competitive one in 1956, and it was renamed from Best Foreign Language Film to Best International Feature Film in 2020. The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and West Germany appear as themselves rather than being folded into their successor states.
This animated ranking shows how cumulative best international feature film oscars changed across 16 series between 1947 and 2025. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2025, Italy leads with 14.
Included in this race
Italy, France, Japan, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Soviet Union, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Argentina, West Germany, Ivory Coast, Algeria.
Source
Data from Wikipedia — List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best International Feature Film. Every figure shown comes from this source — nothing is estimated or generated.
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