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Oscars 2010 – Foreign Language Film: Academy Gets it Wrong Once Again

Sony Pictures Classics wins! Wrong film though.

Published on March 7, 2010

The Noms:

“Ajami” Israel
“The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada)” Peru
“A Prophet (Un Prophète)” France
“The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)” Argentina
“The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band)” Germany

Who Will Win: The White Ribbon
Who Should Win: A Prophet
Who Won: The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)
Commentary: Sony Pictures Classics wins! Wrong film though.

Update after the backlashing: I’m happy to see there are so many passionate defenders for The Secret in Their Eyes!
For the record: I’m a fan of the film, fan of White Ribbon (though it doesn’t rank among my Haneke favorites) and loved Audiard’s three past films.
Kudos to Campanella, three cheers for films with subtitles, hooray for Argentinean cinema (which this site continues to support!) but my personal favorite (and this is merely the opinion of one cinephile) is that A Prophet is the better film and that the Academy’s system for selecting not only the best picture winner but the noms is a faulty one.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).