Clockwise: Latin American Oscar films eligible Belén, The Secret Agent, Under the Flags, the Sun. We Shall Not Be Moved.
Amazon MGM Studios, CinemaScópio-MK Productions, MaravillaCine-Sabaté Films, Pimienta Films
We’re more than three months away from the 98th Academy Awards ceremony, but the race for the Best International Feature film has begun. The Academy has released the list of 86 eligible films for Oscar consideration and Latin America has many strong contenders in the mix.
Brazil’s O Agente Secreto arrives with serious momentum after dominating Cannes 2025, where it picked up four major prizes, including Best Director for Kleber Mendonça Filho and Best Actor for Wagner Moura. The film could give Brazil back-to-back wins in the category following Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here, which won at the 2025 Oscars with its true story set during Brazil’s 1970s military dictatorship.
Chile’s La misteriosa mirada del flamenco and Colombia’s Un Poeta also earned top honors in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.
While many Latin American countries have received nominations over the decades, wins remain rare. In the last 15 years, only Argentina’s The Secret in Their Eyes (2010), Chile’s A Fantastic Woman (2018), and Mexico’s Roma (2019) have taken home the trophy.
The 13 Latin American eligible entries span a wide range of storytelling, from hard-hitting dramas and documentaries tackling dictatorship and social justice to dark dramedies and folk horror. Many films explore themes that will resonate beyond their borders, addressing reproductive rights, political persecution and historical memory.
The Academy will announce the shortlist of 15 films on December 16. Nominations will be announced January 22, 2026, ahead of the Oscar Awards ceremony on March 15, 2026.
Here are the Latin American entries:
ARGENTINA: Belén
Directed by and starring Dolores Fonzi, this powerful legal drama follows lawyer Soledad Deza’s determined fight to free a young, impoverished woman wrongly accused and imprisoned for an illegal abortion. Based on Ana Correa’s non-fiction book Somos Belén, the film centers on the fearless attorney (Fonzi) as she takes on the controversial case of Julieta (Camila Plaate), which ignited a nationwide movement for justice and became a flashpoint in the fight for women’s reproductive rights in Argentina. Produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Argentina’s K&S Films, the film is currently streaming on Prime Video. Read more about the film and Fonzi’s drive to expose the injustice here.
BRAZIL: O Agente Secreto (The Secret Agent)
Kleber Mendonça Filho directs Wagner Moura in this neo-noir thriller about a former professor fleeing persecution during Brazil’s brutal 1977 military dictatorship while desperately trying to reunite with his son. The film was the most awarded at Cannes 2025, taking home Best Director for Mendonça Filho, Best Actor for Moura, the FIPRESCI Prize, and the Art House Cinema Award.
CHILE: La misteriosa mirada del flamenco (The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo)
Diego Céspedes’ debut feature centers on 12-year-old Lidia (Tamara Cortés), who lives in a remote desert mining town consumed by fear of a mysterious disease that people believe is transmitted when one man falls in love with another through a single gaze. As paranoia spreads, Lidia begins to question the stories that surround her. Produced by Chile’s Quijote Films and France’s Les Valseurs, the film won the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.
COLOMBIA: Un Poeta (A Poet)
Simón Mesa Soto directs this tragicomedy starring Ubeimar Rios, Rebeca Andrade, and Guillermo Cardona about a washed-up writer in Medellín who tries to find redemption through mentoring a young student. The film earned the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes 2025.
COSTA RICA: El monaguillo, el cura y el jardinero (The Altar Boy, the Priest and the Gardener)
Juan Manuel Fernández wrote and directed this documentary that gives voice to two men seeking justice decades after being sexually abused as children by their local priest. Shot over the course of six years, it won best film at Costa Rica’s national film festival.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Pepe
Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias crafts an inventive docudrama told through the eyes of the first and last hippo killed in the Americas. The film won the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlinale 2024.
ECUADOR: Chuzalongo
Director Diego Ortuño brings the traditional Andean legend of El Chuzalongo, a child-elf who sexually assaults women, to chilling life in this folk horror that became one of Ecuador’s highest-grossing domestic films in 2024.
MEXICO: No Nos Moverán (We Shall Not Be Moved)
Pierre Saint Martin Castellanos’ black-and-white debut feature follows Socorro (Luisa Huertas), a 67-year-old retired lawyer consumed by her mission to identify the soldier who killed her brother during the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, when government forces brutally repressed student protesters in Mexico City. When a new clue surfaces nearly six decades later, Socorro embarks on a dangerous and absurd quest for vengeance that threatens her family relationships. The dark dramedy won Best Mexican Film at Guadalajara International Film Festival, earned four Ariel Awards including Best First Feature and Best Actress.
PANAMA: Beloved Tropic
Ana Endara’s narrative feature debut stars Jenny Navarrete and Paulina Garcia (Berlinale Best Actress winner for Gloria) as two lonely women — a pregnant Colombian immigrant facing status issues and a well-to-do matriarch with dementia — who form an unexpected bond in a secluded Panama City garden.
PARAGUAY: Bajo las Banderas, el Sol (Under the Flags, the Sun)
Juanjo Pereira’s revelatory debut documentary uncovers the propaganda machinery that sustained Alfredo Stroessner’s 35-year dictatorship in Paraguay, one of the longest authoritarian regimes in modern history. Using abandoned government archives and recovered footage from Paraguay and abroad, the film exposes how media was weaponized to manipulate history and maintain power through domestic indoctrination and Cold War alliances. The film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.
PERU: Kinra, el viaje de Atoqcha (Motherland)
Marco Patonic’s heartfelt drama follows a young man from the Andean mountains who heads to Cusco to study engineering but finds his heart pulled between honoring his family’s traditions and embracing the possibilities of city life. The film won the Golden Astor, the top prize at Mar del Plata International Film Festival in 2023.
URUGUAY: Agarrame fuerte (Don’t You Let Me Go)
Writer-director duo Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge deliver a tender exploration of grief and female friendship in their third collaboration. Starring Chiara Hourcade, Victoria Jorge, and Eva Dans, the film follows a young girl navigating the devastating loss of her best friend and the painful process of learning to move forward. The film had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival.
VENEZUELA: Alí Primera
Daniel Yegres brings to life the story of Venezuelan singer-songwriter Alí Primera, portrayed by Eduardo González. The biographical drama follows the artist known as “El Cantor del Pueblo” (“The People’s Singer”) from his humble childhood to his emergence as a powerful musical voice for social change.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States with a predominantly non-English dialogue track.
You can see the complete list of eligible International Feature Film for Oscar consideration here.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/veronicavillafane/2025/11/30/oscars-2026-latin-americas-13-international-feature-film-hopefuls/
