The Yay Nay Or Meh Podcast

Here are my thoughts on the films submitted to the 2026 Oscars in the International Feature race

I have currently seen 37 of the 86 Official Submissions

Nominees

Country	Title	Yay, Nay or Meh	Review
Brazil	I’m Still Here	MEH	Sprawling and messy. Has a MAJOR plot point thrown away on a newspaper headline.
France	It Was Just An Accident	YAY	To take revenge you dig two graves, but there’s no option but to confront a harsh regime.
Norway	Sentimental Value	YAY	Perfect family drama and perfect reality-versus-filmmaking drama.
Spain	Sirât	MEH	A transcendent journey between life & death. Where’s the destination?
Tunisia	The Voice of Hind Rajab	YAY	Harrowing, urgent blending of fiction & non-fiction. Help was 8 minutes and a million miles away.

Shortlisted

Country	Title	Yay, Nay or Meh	Review
Argentina	Belén	YAY	Literal miscariage of justice exposes important social issues & police fuck-ups.
Germany	Sound of Falling
India	Homebound	MEH	Surviving in a country heavily divided along caste & religious lines. Then COVID happens.
Iraq	The President’s Cake	YAY	Dictatorship from the POV of a child who doesn’t realise or understand how dark the background is.
Japan	Kokuho
Jordan	All That’s Left of You	MEH	Straightforward generational Palestinian trauma. Includes interesting, unconnected moral quandry
Palestine	Palestine 36	MEH	A sende of fair-play doesn’t fix the Holy Land, so we get guerrillas & Britain committing war crimes.
South Korea	No Other Choice	YAY	Slightly absurdist, slightly ironic tale of male pride & ego struggling against the modern world.
Switzerland	Late Shift	YAY	Competent, caring nurse having yet another shitty day.
Taiwan	Left-Handed Girl	YAY	“Devil hand” adorably shoplifts, but it’s mostly about her very angry 20-ish sister.

Submitted

Country	Title	Yay, Nay or Meh	Review
Albania	Luna Park
Armenia	My Armenian Phantoms
Australia	The Wolves Always Come at Night	YAY	Documentary so perfectly structured it feels staged (was it?)
Austria	Peacock	MEH	Doing Rental Family too long leads to a chronic lack of a sense of self.
Azerbaijan	Taghiyev: Oil
Bangladesh	A House Named Shahana	MEH	Well executed tale of life-long struggle against misogyny.
Belgium	Young Mothers	MEH	Dardennes doing Dardennes things, story spread a little thin.
Bhutan	I, The Song
Bolivia	The Southern House
Bosnia & Herzegovina	Blum: Masters of Their Own Destiny
Bulgaria	Tarika
Canada	The Things You Kill	MEH	Lynchian tale of identity, masculinity & generational trauma.
Chile	The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo	YAY	Urban legend covers up the AIDS crisis. Acceptance comes too late for some.
China	Dead to Rights	MEH	Heavy handed portrayal of horrific war atrocities.
Colombia	A Poet	YAY	Drunk, blowhard poet takes faltering steps towards pragmatism… and completely fails.
Costa Rica	The Altar Boy, the Priest and the Gardener
Croatia	Fiume o Morte!	MEH	Modern locals recreating an absurd, disturbing period shows the forgetting & mutating of history.
Czechia	I’m Not Everything I Want To Be
Denmark	Mr. Nobody Against Putin	YAY	Russian school swamped by propaganda & extreme militarism documented with a little humour.
Dominican Republic	Pepe	NAY	VERY experimental & arthouse. David Attenborough meets Roy Andersson.
Ecuador	Chuzalongo
Egypt	Happy Birthday
Estonia	Rolling Papers
Finland	100 Litres of Gold	MEH	The Hangover with added family trauma. Everyone (including Finland?) has problems with alcohol.
Georgia	Panopticon
Greece	Arcadia
Greenland	Walls – Akinni inuk
Haiti	Kidnapping Inc.	MEH	Idiots fumble a kidnapping in an endemically poor, undemocratic & corrupt country.
Hong Kong	The Last Dance	MEH	Standard tale of family trauma & the conflict between tradition and capitalism.
Hungary	Orphan
Iceland	The Love That Remains	NAY	Naturalism & surrealism clash in tale of amicable divorce. There’s a reason films usually have conflict.
Indonesia	Sore: Wife From the Future	YAY	It takes infinite time loops to break through repressed male trauma.
Iran	Cause of Death: Unknown
Ireland	Sanatorium	MEH	Crumbling buildings, bizarre treatments & engaging guests. The Ukraine war is a constant presence.
Israel	The Sea
Italy	Familia
Kyrgysztan	Black Red Yellow
Latvia	Dog of God	YAY	Rotoscoping allows for wild representation of religious, sexual & gender oppression. Also an orgy.
Lebanon	A Sad and Beautiful World
Lithuania	The Southern Chronicles
Luxembourg	Breathing Underwater
Madagascar	Disco Afrika: A Malagasy Story	NAY	Stilted tale of obsessing over your dead, activist father.
Malaysia	Pavane for an Infant
Mexico	We Shall Not Be Moved
Mongolia	Silent City Driver
Montenegro	The Tower of Strength
Morocco	Calle Málaga
Nepal	Anjila
Netherlands	Reedland
North Macedonia	The Tale of Silyan	YAY	Storks need to migrate and so do farmers. Both are struggling… and then a stork breaks a wing.
Panama	Beloved Tropic
Paraguay	Under The Flags, the Sun
Peru	Kinra
Philippines	Magellan
Poland	Franz	MEH	Allegorical & experimental biopic of an allegorical & experimental writer
Portugal	Banzo
Romania	Traffic
Saudi Arabia	Hijra
Serbia	Sun Never Again
Singapore	Stranger Eyes
Slovakia	Father
Slovenia	Little Trouble Girls	MEH	Tale of teen sexual awakening & religious repression that peters out.
South Africa	The Heart is a Muscle
Sweden	Eagles of the Republic
Turkey	One of Those Days When Hemme Dies
Uganda	Kimote
Ukraine	2000 Metres to Andriivka	YAY	Harrowing, depressing documentary about the utter futility of war.
United Kingdom	My Father’s Shadow	MEH	Complexities of father/son relationships told experimentally. Too much standard English to qualify?
Uruguay	Don’t You Let Me Go
Venezuela	Alí Primera
Vietnam	Red Rain

Thailand announced they were submitting a film, but due to an administrative mix-up between the producers and the US distributors, it wasn’t submitted with the correct details in time.

Country	Title	Yay, Nay or Meh	Review
Thailand	A Useful Ghost	MEH	Wes Anderson directs Eternal Sunshine with a layer of Thai politics

With each country only able to submit one film, sometimes countries get it “Wrong”. In my opinion these are the better options for some of the countries:

• CHINA should have submitted Ne Zha 2 over Dead to Rights

Equally, in my opinion, there can be “Surprise” entries that are better choices than more high profile rivals:

And to conclude this list, here are my personal choices for what should have got nominated:

• ARGENTINA: Belén
• DENMARK: Mr. Nobody Against Putin
• FRANCE: It Was Just An Accident
• NORWAY: Sentimental Value
• TUNISIA: The Voice of Hind Rajab