LETTERBOXD AND CANNES AND THE STATUS OF THE TOP 15

OCTOBER 1, 2023

While we wait for The Academy to officially announce the films eligible for International Feature, let's take a look at the top 15 highest rated films for Letterboxd.  And then let's take a look at the films that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.  From there we can begin to get an indication on which films might be shortlisted in December.  

Below are the top 15 films right now on Letterboxd:

The Zone of Interest - United Kingdom
Perfect Days - Japan
20 Days in Mariupol - Ukraine
Pictures of Ghosts - Brazil
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood - Estonia
About Dry Grasses - Turkey
Godland - Iceland
Fallen Leaves - Finland
Four Daughters - Tunisia
The Teachers' Lounge - Germany
The Missing - Philippines
Totem - Mexico
Slow - Lithuania
Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World - Romania
Voy! Voy! Voy! - Egypt

In the past couple of years, around 8-10 films in the top 15 have been shortlisted by The Academy.  If we had to pick 10 films from this list to get shortlisted, we would go with the following:

​​​The Zone of Interest - United Kingdom
Perfect Days - Japan
20 Days in Mariupol - Ukraine - Sundance
​Godland - Iceland
​About Dry Grasses - Turkey
Fallen Leaves - Finland
Four Daughters - Tunisia
​The Teachers' Lounge - Germany
​Totem - Mexico
Pictures of Ghosts - Brazil

​From there, let's take a look at the films that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival:

​Omen - Belgium
Pictures of Ghosts - Brazil
The Settlers - Chile 
Fallen Leaves -  Finland
The Taste of Things - France
​Godland - Iceland
Perfect Days - Japan
Inshallah a Boy - Jordan
The Mother of All Lies - Morocco
The Breaking Ice - Singapore
Goodbye Julia - Sudan
Four Daughters - Tunisia
About Dry Grasses - Turkey
The Zone of Interest - United Kingdom

The following are the films that made the top 15 in Letterboxd and debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, making them real contenders for not only being shortlisted but getting nominated as well:

​The Zone of Interest - United Kingdom 
Perfect Days - Japan
Pictures of Ghosts - Brazil
​About Dry Grasses - Turkey
​Godland - Iceland
Fallen Leaves - Finland
Four Daughters - Tunisia

Last year 9 films that debuted at Cannes ended up being shortlisted in December so if we had to pick 3 more films it would be the following:

​The Taste of Things - France
The Settlers - Chile
​Inshallah a Boy - Jordan

Now, these films did not make the Letterboxd top 15 and didn't debut at Cannes, but they come from countries that are always contenders:

The Promised Land - Denmark
​The Captain - Italy
The Peasants - Poland
Society of the Snow - Spain
Opponent - Sweden

​So, which films do we think will get shortlisted right now?  We would go with the following:

The Zone of Interest - United Kingdom
Perfect Days - Japan
Fallen Leaves - Finland
About Dry Grasses - Turkey
20 Days in Mariupol - Ukraine​
The Taste of Things - France
The Teachers' Lounge - Germany
Four Daughters - Tunisia
The Captain - Italy
Godland - Iceland
The Settlers - Chile
Society of the Snow - Spain
The Monk and the Gun - Bhutan
Totem - Mexico
Pictures of Ghosts - Brazil

​And we think these 10 films are right behind:

The Peasants - Poland
Shayda - Australia
The Promised Land - Denmark
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood - Estonia
Blaga's Lessons - Bulgaria
Inshallah a Boy - Jordan
Slow - Lithuania
Housekeeping for Beginners - North Macedonia
Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World - Romania
Goodbye Julia - Sudan

And we're hoping that these 5 films will become contenders as we just loved them, and they're some of the best films of the year:

Excursion - Bosnia
Opponent - Sweden
Seven Blessings - Israel
Behind the Haystacks - Greece
This Is What I Remember - Kyrgyzstan

The deadline to submit a film is October 2nd.  And The Academy will announce the official list end of October.  This is going to be a great season.