First Japanese film to be Oscar-nominated for Best Picture

Drive My Car (Japan, 2021), directed and co-written by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, was the first Japanese-produced film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, as confirmed on 8 February 2022 when the nominations for the 94th Academy Awards were announced. Two films nominated ahead of the 79th Academy Awards in 2007 – Letters from Iwo Jima (USA, 2006) and Babel (USA/Mexico/France, 2006) – both feature Japanese dialogue, but neither lists Japan as their country of production.

Drive My Car was nominated for four Oscars in 2022: Best Picture, Best International Feature Film, Best Director (Hamaguchi) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

In turn, the drama, based on a 2014 short story of the same name by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, would become the first Japanese film to win the Best Picture award if it can see off competition from the likes of Belfast, CODA, Dune and The Power of the Dog at the 94th Academy Awards on 27 March 2022.