Welcome to the third annual TFV Contenders Week promoted by The Film Verdict. True to our mission to highlight and explore in depth the best of international filmmaking, these seven days of insightful reviews are designed to jog the memory of some of the best films of 2025. As experience teaches, this is a key period for Academy Award voters to make up their minds, and a crucial time for a film to have visibility on the world stage.
The Academy currently defines an international feature film as longer than 40 minutes and produced outside the U.S., with a predominantly non-English dialogue track. This year, among the 86 eligible international feature film submissions from countries around the world, there are many filmmakers who need no introduction. Familiar art house and festival names like Agnieszka Holland, Joachim Trier, Annemarie Jacir, the Dardenne brothers, Kaouther Ben Hania, Park Chan Wook, Jafar Panahi and Lav Diaz are all represented.
But even more films on the list are surprises from less-known directors, exciting films the TFV critics have noticed at festivals and chosen to signal. During Contenders’ Week, we will publish a selection of 30 reviews representing various regions from around the globe.
From another perspective, this has been a hugely challenging year with the intensifying of tragic wars and a radical shake-up in the established world order. Along with a notable increase in festival interest in films featuring Palestine, Gaza, Ukraine and Iran, there has been a parallel rise in this type of topical stories submitted to the Academy, which help illuminate the dark attitudes and events that are shaping people’s lives.
Other notable trends pop out of the list, like the ongoing tendency of countries to propose foreign directors, languages and cultures. This goes beyond English-speaking nations looking for non-English dialogue, like Australia’s submission of the Mongolian-language The Wolves Always Come Out at Night and Ireland’s choice of the Irish-made, Ukrainian language Sanatorium. Redefining the scope of international are countries like France (with Jafar Panahi’s Iran-set It Was Just an Accident) and Sweden (which submitted Tarik Saleh’s Egypt-set political thriller Eagles of the Republic in Arabic.) Both films are reviewed here.
A final nod goes to the flurry of high-flying Arab women directors this year, whose current films are exceptionally good and should have a shot at the shortlist. Among them are Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani with Calle Malaga, Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36, Saudi Arabian standout Shahad Ameen with Hijra and Kaouther Ben Hania’s incredibly moving recreation of a real tragedy in Gaza that has left festival audiences stunned wherever it is shown, The Voice of Hind Rajab.
All 86 international feature film submissions are listed here:
- Albania, “Luna Park”
- Argentina, “Belén”
- Armenia, “My Armenian Phantoms”
- Australia, “The Wolves Always Come at Night”
- Austria, “Peacock”
- Azerbaijan, “Taghiyev: Oil”
- Bangladesh, “A House Named Shahana”
- Belgium, “Young Mothers”
- Bhutan, “I, the Song”
- Bolivia, “The Southern House”
- Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Blum: Masters of Their Own Destiny”
- Brazil, “The Secret Agent”
- Bulgaria, “Tarika”
- Canada, “The Things You Kill”
- Chile, “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo”
- China, “Dead to Rights”
- Colombia, “A Poet”
- Costa Rica, “The Altar Boy, the Priest and the Gardener”
- Croatia, “Fiume o Morte!”
- Czech Republic, “I’m Not Everything I Want to Be”
- Denmark, “Mr. Nobody against Putin”
- Dominican Republic, “Pepe”
- Ecuador, “Chuzalongo”
- Egypt, “Happy Birthday”
- Estonia, “Rolling Papers”
- Finland, “100 Liters of Gold”
- France, “It Was Just an Accident”
- Georgia, “Panopticon”
- Germany, “Sound of Falling”
- Greece, “Arcadia”
- Greenland, “Walls– Akinni Inuk”
- Haiti, “Kidnapping Inc.”
- Hong Kong, “The Last Dance”
- Hungary, “Orphan”
- Iceland, “The Love That Remains”
- India, “Homebound”
- Indonesia, “Sore: A Wife from the Future”
- Iran, “Cause of Death: Unknown”
- Iraq, “The President’s Cake”
- Ireland, “Sanatorium”
- Israel, “The Sea”
- Italy, “Familia”
- Japan, “Kokuho”
- Jordan, “All That’s Left of You”
- Kyrgyzstan, “Black Red Yellow”
- Latvia, “Dog of God”
- Lebanon, “A Sad and Beautiful World”
- Lithuania, “The Southern Chronicles”
- Luxembourg, “Breathing Underwater”
- Madagascar, “Disco Afrika: A Malagasy Story”
- Malaysia, “Pavane for an Infant”
- Mexico, “We Shall Not Be Moved”
- Mongolia, “Silent City Driver”
- Montenegro, “The Tower of Strength”
- Morocco, “Calle Malaga”
- Nepal, “Anjila”
- Netherlands, “Reedland”
- North Macedonia, “The Tale of Silyan”
- Norway, “Sentimental Value”
- Palestine, “Palestine 36”
- Panama, “Beloved Tropic”
- Paraguay, “Under the Flags, the Sun”
- Peru, “Kinra”
- Philippines, “Magellan”
- Poland, “Franz”
- Portugal, “Banzo”
- Romania, “Traffic”
- Saudi Arabia, “Hijra”
- Serbia, “Sun Never Again”
- Singapore, “Stranger Eyes”
- Slovakia, “Father”
- Slovenia, “Little Trouble Girls”
- South Africa, “The Heart Is a Muscle”
- South Korea, “No Other Choice”
- Spain, “Sirât”
- Sweden, “Eagles of the Republic”
- Switzerland, “Late Shift”
- Taiwan, “Left-Handed Girl”
- Tunisia, “The Voice of Hind Rajab”
- Turkey, “One of Those Days When Hemme Dies”
- Uganda, “Kimote”
- Ukraine, “2000 Meters to Andriivka”
- United Kingdom, “My Father’s Shadow”
- Uruguay, “Don’t You Let Me Go”
- Venezuela, “Alí Primera”
- Vietnam, “Red Rain”
