Italy has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film[nb 1] since the conception of the award. The award is handed out annually by the United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue.[3]
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was not created until 1956; however, between 1947 and 1955, the Academy presented Honorary Awards to the best foreign language films released in the United States. These awards were not competitive, as there were no nominees but simply a winner every year that was voted on by the Board of Governors of the Academy.[4] Three Italian films received Honorary Awards during this period. For the 1956 Academy Awards, a competitive Academy Award of Merit, known as the Best Foreign Language Film Award, was created for non-English speaking films, and has been given annually since.[5]
As of 2023[update], thirty Italian films have been nominated for Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, and eleven films have won the award. Among all countries that have submitted films for the award, Italy ranks first in terms of films that have won the award, followed by France (nine awards) and Spain (four awards), and second in terms of nominees, behind France (thirty-nine nominations) and ahead of Spain (nineteen nominations).[6] The only Italian directors to win multiple awards are Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica. Fellini received four awards for La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8½, and Amarcord, the most in the history of the Academy, and had three other films submitted, although none of them were accepted as nominees.[7] De Sica received two Honorary Awards prior to the conception of the formal award for Shoeshine and The Bicycle Thief and two actual Academy Awards for Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, and had one other film, Marriage Italian-Style, accepted as a nominee.[8][9][10]
