I feel about "Best Picture" the way I do about US-baseball's "World Series", excluding 90% of the sporting world. There are great movies coming out of 80 or 90 countries every year. It's worth exploring these, particularly when you think of them as equivalent to "Best Picture" from each of their countries. I am rarely disappointed.​

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One odd thing this year: most of the movies' submitting countries have little to do with the movie. The Zone of Interest was submitted by the UK, though it is set in Germany (for obvious reasons) and is spoken entirely in German. Io Capitano was submitted by Italy, but is about Senegalese refugees. This is like the cruise ships that sail from the US to Europe, but "fly the flag" of East Timor. Don't worry -- you can't get norovirus from watching a movie...probably.

 

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• The Zone of Interest, UK

  • This movie is a lock, since it was also nominated for Best Picture, World Series' standard. As mentioned twice before, this sets a new standard for a Holocaust film. It should win.