Oscars 2027: the five films preselected to represent France

The French commission has revealed the five films still in the running to represent France at the Oscar for best international film. The final choice will be announced on September 16.

Five films, and soon just one. The commission responsible for selecting the French candidate for the 2027 Oscar for best international film met yesterday at the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC) and unveiled its preselection.

In alphabetical order, the five films selected are:

• The Battle of Gaulle – The Iron Agethe great biopic of Antonin Baudry, produced by Pathé Films. Note that the film will be presented alone: ​​its sequel, I write your namecannot be considered as a diptych for this selection.
• The Corsetby Louis Clichy, produced by Eddy Cinéma, an animated film.
• La Gradiva by Marine Atlan, produced by Les Films du Poisson.
• The Unknown by Arthur Harari, produced by Bathysphère Productions and To Be Continued. The director and screenwriter is notably the co-author of the screenplay forAnatomy of a fall.
• Minotaur by Andreï Zvyagintsev, produced by CG Cinéma and MK Productions is perhaps the favorite of this preselection. A special case since the film is Russian, but co-produced by France and therefore eligible to represent the country, as A simple accident last year. Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival last May, Minotaur is a charge against corruption and Putin’s Russia and Zvyagintsev has asylum in France.

This selection excludes other films that could have been selected, including Rays and Shadows by Xavier Giannoli, but also Our Salvation by Emmanuel Marre, who won the Screenplay Prize at Cannes, as well as In Waves by Phuong Mai Nguyen.

The battle is not over, however. On September 16, 2026, the commission will meet a second and final time to hear the producers, international sellers and, where applicable, the American distributors of each of the five preselected films. At the end of these auditions, it will designate the film which will officially represent France in the race for the Oscar for best international film.

The commission is made up of eleven members, including a president. Since its reform in 2026, its members are qualified figures in cinema and, according to the regulations of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at least half of them must be cinema artists or technicians. The CNC is not represented there.

The name of the chosen film will therefore be known at the end of this second round, on September 16.

It should be remembered that France has not won the Oscar for best international film since 1993 and Indochina by Régis Wargnier.