The answer to the above question should be obvious. After all #OscarsSoWhite. There has only ever been one Black Best Actress Oscar winner in the 97-year history of the Academy Awards (Halle Berry in Monster's Ball is the lone victor). There are immense struggles to get English-language performances from actors of color on the radars of Academy voters. It's unsurprising that international performances from actors of color also struggle to get Best Actor, Best Actress, etc. Oscar nominations.
Still, this erasure of international non-white performances at the Oscars fascinates me, especially as the Oscars have begun annually nominating multiple foreign language titles for Best Picture. Thanks to external factors like the increasingly globalized Oscars voting base and the decline of the mid-budget American movie, international cinema has begun excitingly and regularly winning categories like Best Original Song, Best Sound, and Best Animated Feature. However, Oscar nominated non-white international performances are still a rarity at this ceremony.
What's going on here? And more importantly, what great performances has the Academy snubbed through this practice?
At the 34th Academy Awards, Sophia Loren's Two Women performance became the first foreign language turn not hailing from either an American film or feature primarily in English to get an acting Oscar nomination. To boot, it won the Best Actress trophy that year. From there, a smattering of French, Italian, Swedish, and Slovakian performances garnered acting Oscar nominations in the 60s and 70s. A common overlapping element, though, was that these performances all originated from European countries. Hiroshi Teshigahara's The Woman in the Dunes (which hailed from Japan) could score a Best Director nod, but its integral performances were MIA in the Oscar acting categories.
When non-white actors delivering non-English performances do win Oscars, it's for films that are produced in America. Benicio del Toro's turn in Traffic as Javier Rodriguez, largely done in Spanish, inhabited an American feature from director Steven Soderbergh. Steven Yeun and Youn Yuh-jung's unforgettable Minari turns (largely realized in Korean) existed in an A24 film shot in America. The rare, welcome exceptions in this department are Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira's Roma performances. Otherwise, international cinema acting nominations are exclusively the domain of white European performers like Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard, Roberto Benigni, and Isabelle Huppert.
Even Parasite, a film that the Academy heaped endless Oscars onto, didn't escape this trajectory. Song Kang-ho and Cho Yeo-jeong's performances (among many other excellent turns) were snubbed that year in a crop of acting Oscar nominations that were almost exclusively white (Cynthia Erivo in Harriet was the lone exception), Parasite remains one of only three 21st-century Best Picture Oscar winners to score no acting Oscar nominations. One of those other three is the English-language feature Slumdog Millionaire which, like Parasite, entirely utilized actors of Asian descent.*
So what's going on here? Why didn't Takashi Shimura score heaps of Oscar nominations on his lifetime? How did the two iconic central Drive My Car performances not get any Oscar love? Why is Wagner Moura (a white guy, as his movie, The Secret Agent, itself notes) the only foreign language performer getting any Oscar buzz this year?
Part of this stems from a general hostility to international cinema from American audiences. While Life is Beautiful and Pelle the Conqueror got into the Oscars acting categories, titles with subtitles have often been as "boring" or "extra challenging" to watch by American voters. Given how the Oscars voting base largely focused exclusively on a small class of American figures for so long, it's not surprising Kareena Kapoor as "Poo" in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was ignored while Eddie Redmayne and Jared Leto have Oscar nods (Redmayne has TWO!).
Plus, the Oscars have historically had a dismal track record of representing non-white faces at this ceremony. Don't forget, Michelle Yeoh's Everything Everywhere All At Once Best Actress Oscar nomination made her only the second Asian performer (following Merle Oberon in The Dark Angel) to be recognized in that category. The same erasure that kept Nickel Boys out of the acting categories last year (how did Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor not get a Best Supporting Actress nod there?!?) also ensures international actors of color are unspeakably scarce at the Oscars. This horrific history means the Oscars have missed out on acknowledging truly incredible turns like Leila Hatami in A Separation or Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung in In the Mood for Love.
I also have a totally speculative reason why these performances don't gain more Oscar traction: unfamiliarity with the actors. So much Oscar momentum is based not necessarily on artistry, but on stories. "Leonardo DiCaprio is overdue for an Oscar!" "This is the movie we need right now!" "Finally, you're getting your time to shine!" These are the phrases peppering major entertainment publications as Oscar season gets into full swing. Such sagas that'll resonate with Oscar voters are easier to concoct when they involve performers whom voters are familiar with.
Character actor J.K. Simmons, for instance, has been in the industry for ages. That omnipresence gave Sony Pictures Classics an edge when crafting his Best Supporting Actor campaign for Whiplash. They could promote this performance as not just sublime, but a way to give an industry veteran his flowers. That's not to detract from the outstandingly tense and bravura work Simmons delivered in that 2014 masterpiece. Rather, it's a sign of how even great performances can get an extra Oscar boost from Western voters being familiar with their work.
In contrast, many turns from international actors of color are from performers Western Academy members may be unfamiliar with. A typical Oscar voter is going to know the entire career of Leonardo DiCaprio. They may be less familiar with Lee Byung-hun or Shu Qi and how their 2025 performances reflect or fascinatingly respond to their earlier work. To boot, international titles of all stripes are typically handled by tinier or even entirely homegrown outfits in America. Without Netflix, Comcast, Disney, or even A24 money at their side, these distributors don't have the resources to get international performances on the radar of Oscar voters.
All of these reasons shouldn't be seen as excuses or rationalizations of this long-standing Oscar erasure. Rather, they reflect the frustrating problems plaguing this awards show that still has so much sway over the larger culture and a film's theatrical run.
However, let's end this piece on a more upbeat note and give roses to the various international performances that the Oscars won't (barring a miracle) be recognizing at the 98th Academy Awards. For starters, Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice is crammed full of outstanding turns. Leading man Lee Byung-hun is a master of physical, ineptitude-driven comedy in his absorbing performance. Son Ye-jin as his character's wife is also a riveting treat. The Voice of Hind Rajab similarly has an excellent cast, with the standout here being Saja Kilani as Rana. She's confined to a chair and being framed only from the waist-up for much of Hind Rajab, yet Kilani still delivers a soul-shattering turn. Her raw portrayal of feeling devastated at the world's injustices will leave any viewer distraught.
Jackson Yee inhabits so many different characters and archetypes of cinema's history throughout the absorbing Resurrection. It's a towering work embodying versatility. Ma Shih-Yuan in Left-Handed Girl is remarkable, while Alice Carvalho absolutely owns the screen with her one big scene as Fátima in The Secret Agent. Then there's the entire cast of It Was Just An Accident, which features nary a dud performance. The film's MVP, though, is Mariam Afshari as Shiva. Her climactic monologue when she finally unleashes all the torment she's been forced to bottle up will haunt my dreams forever and ever. She's delivering the kind of mesmerizing work that should automatically inhabit any discussions of 2025's best performances. However, Mariam Afshari's artistry doesn't need award nominations to justify its greatness. This kind of exquisite work will live on and on, even after the Oscars inevitably snub it and any other 2025 international performances from non-white actors for a nomination.
* = amusingly, the third film in this equation is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which has the whitest cast imaginable.
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