50 Fun Facts About World Cinema

Which 2019 film was the first since Marty, over 60 years earlier, to win both the Palme d'Or and Best Picture?

Parasite was the first South Korean film to receive any Academy Award recognition. Its Palme d'Or also came on a unanimous jury vote, the first since Blue Is the Warmest Colour in 2013.

Which 2001 Jean-Pierre Jeunet film has a shy young Parisian secretly engineer small joys for the people around her?

Amélie's workplace, the Café des 2 Moulins at 15 Rue Lepic, is a real café. Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant wrote Audrey Tautou's heroine as a whimsical portrait of Parisian life.

Which Guillermo del Toro fantasy has a girl named Ofelia meet a faun in Francoist Spain in summer 1944?

Pan's Labyrinth's faun is not Pan, del Toro has insisted; the Spanish title El laberinto del fauno names the fauns of Roman myth. The film won three Oscars and three BAFTAs.

Which 2002 Brazilian film, cast largely with real favela residents, charts gang wars in a Rio housing project?

City of God earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Fernando Meirelles. Most of its actors were residents of favelas such as Vidigal and Cidade de Deus itself.

Which brothers gave their first paid public film screening at Paris's Grand Café in December 1895?

The Lumière brothers were beaten to a paying audience by Berlin's Skladanowsky brothers, whose Bioscop shows ran through November 1895. The Paris debut drew around 40 paying visitors.

Which country has won the Oscar for non-English-language films fourteen times, more than any other as of 2026?

Italy's fourteen wins include three special awards from before the competitive category existed. As of 2026, France trails with twelve wins but leads on nominations with 41.

Who became the first performer to win an acting Oscar for a non-English-language role, in De Sica's Two Women?

Sophia Loren holds the record of seven David di Donatello Best Actress prizes. Two Women cast her as a mother shielding her twelve-year-old daughter in war-torn Italy.

Which Park Chan-wook thriller frees a man after fifteen years' captivity and has him eat a live octopus?

Oldboy's octopus was real, and four were eaten during filming; Park later said he felt sorrier for the octopuses than for star Choi Min-sik. It won the 2004 Cannes Grand Prix under jury president Quentin Tarantino.

Which monochrome Alfonso Cuarón film, named for a Mexico City neighbourhood, follows a live-in maid called Cleo?

Roma made Cuarón the first person to win Best Director and Best Cinematography for the same film on one night. It was also the first Mexican entry to win Best Foreign Language Film.

Which 1988 Sicilian-set film ends with a reel of all the kisses a village priest had cut from its screenings?

Cinema Paradiso began the partnership between director Giuseppe Tornatore and composer Ennio Morricone that lasted until Morricone's death in 2020. It won both the foreign-language Oscar and the Cannes Grand Prix.

Which Vittorio De Sica film follows Antonio Ricci and his son Bruno through a desperate post-war search?

Bicycle Thieves received an honorary Oscar as the most outstanding foreign-language film, years before a competitive category existed. Lamberto Maggiorani played the desperate father and Enzo Staiola his son.

Which Italian film, whose bookshop-owner hero turns a concentration camp into a game for his son, won three Oscars?

Life Is Beautiful's three Oscars were Best Actor for Roberto Benigni, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Dramatic Score. It also won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1998.

What name, traced to a 2002 New York Times article, is given to Nigeria's prolific home-video film industry?

Nollywood's boom is usually dated from Living in Bondage, a 1992 Igbo-language film released direct to video. Most Igbo filmmakers nonetheless prefer to shoot in English.

Which Telugu epic by S. S. Rajamouli won India's first feature-film Oscar, for the song 'Naatu Naatu'?

RRR's 'Naatu Naatu' was the first song from an Asian film to win Best Original Song. The film was also the first Indian release in the Dolby Cinema format.

Which film festival, founded in August 1932 as part of an art biennale, is the world's oldest?

Venice was founded by Giuseppe Volpi, a member of the National Fascist Party, within the Venice Biennale. It forms the 'Big Three' of European festivals with Cannes and Berlin.

What term did a Spanish journalist coin in 1966 for Italian-made cowboy films often shot in the Tabernas Desert?

Spaghetti Western was coined by journalist Alfonso Sánchez Martínez, and the films' Spanish locations doubled for the American Southwest and northern Mexico.

Which French magician turned filmmaker landed a capsule in the Moon's eye in 1902's A Trip to the Moon?

Georges Méliès's film fell into obscurity after he quit the industry and was rediscovered around 1930, when devotees began to recognise his importance. He played the lead, Professor Barbenfouillis, himself.

Which Spanish director won Oscars for All About My Mother and then for the screenplay of Talk to Her?

Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother has received more awards than any other film in Spanish cinema, including the Golden Globe and BAFTAs. Talk to Her also earned him a Best Director nomination.

Which 2016 South Korean hit strands a workaholic father and his daughter on a KTX service during a zombie outbreak?

Train to Busan was the first Korean film of 2016 to pass 10 million admissions, and it grossed $98.5 million on an $8.5 million budget. It premiered in the Midnight Screenings at Cannes.

Which 1998 Tom Tykwer film gives its heroine twenty minutes to find 100,000 marks and save her boyfriend Manni?

Run Lola Run restarts its events from the moment Lola leaves the house, replaying the chase with different outcomes. Germany submitted it for the foreign-language Oscar, but it was not nominated.

Which New Zealand director became the first woman to win the Palme d'Or, for The Piano in 1993?

Jane Campion was also the first filmmaker from New Zealand to take the prize. The Piano premiered at Cannes on 15 May 1993 as an Australian, New Zealand and French co-production.

Which 2023 Justine Triet courtroom drama won the Palme d'Or and then the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay?

Anatomy of a Fall also won Cannes's Palm Dog award for the family pet Snoop, companion of the visually impaired son Daniel. It earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

Which 2011 French comedy-drama about a quadriplegic and his carer was inspired by the life of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo?

The Intouchables's real carer, Abdel Sellou, is French-Algerian, and the directors found the pair in a documentary. Five percent of the profits went to a charity for paralysed people.

Which 2011 Indonesian action film by Welsh director Gareth Evans traps police inside a Jakarta crime lord's block?

The Raid was retitled The Raid: Redemption in the US because Sony Pictures Classics could not secure the rights to the plain title. Its fights showcase the Indonesian martial art pencak silat.

Which 1998 Hideo Nakata film about a videotape whose viewers die seven days later became Japan's top-grossing horror?

Ringu out-grossed The Matrix in Hong Kong in 1999 and became that city's highest-grossing Japanese-language film. A North American remake followed in 2002.

Which Bong Joon-ho film unleashes a creature from Seoul's Han River on a family that runs a riverside snack stand?

The Host was sparked by a real 2000 incident in which a US military base worker had formaldehyde poured down a drain into the Han River. Wētā Workshop modelled the creature.

Which 2002 Hong Kong thriller did Martin Scorsese remake as the Best Picture winner The Departed?

Infernal Affairs's remake brought Martin Scorsese his first and only Best Director Oscar. Brad Pitt's company Plan B bought the remake rights in 2003.

Which director of Raise the Red Lantern staged the opening ceremonies of both the 2008 and 2022 Beijing Olympics?

Zhang Yimou won a Peabody Award for the 2008 ceremony's 'cast of thousands'. He co-directed it with the choreographer Zhang Jigang.

Which 1993 Chen Kaige film about two Peking opera stars was the first Chinese-language winner of the Palme d'Or?

Farewell My Concubine was pulled from Chinese cinemas two weeks after its Shanghai premiere; officials relented in September, partly fearing the ban would hurt Beijing's 2000 Olympic bid.

Which 2018 Hirokazu Kore-eda drama about a makeshift family surviving on petty theft won the Palme d'Or?

Shoplifters grew from news reports on poverty and shoplifting in Japan, and Kore-eda edited the film himself. It was the first Japanese Palme d'Or winner since The Eel in 1997.

Which 2021 Ryusuke Hamaguchi film, adapted from Haruki Murakami, was the first Japanese Best Picture nominee?

Drive My Car stages a multilingual stage production in which one actress performs in Korean Sign Language. It also won three prizes at Cannes, including Best Screenplay.

Which 2008 film about a failed cellist turned encoffiner won Japan its first Best Foreign Language Film Oscar?

Departures spawned tourist attractions at its filming sites and new interest in the encoffining ceremony, plus a manga and a stage play. Critics praised its humour but some found it predictable and sentimental.

Which Ozu film about ageing parents visiting their children topped Sight and Sound's 2012 directors' poll?

Tokyo Story placed fourth in the 2022 critics' poll. The couple travel from Onomichi and are packed off to the spa town of Atami by their children.

Which 2011 Asghar Farhadi drama about a Tehran couple's divorce case was the first Iranian film to win an Oscar?

A Separation also took Berlin's Golden Bear, plus Silver Bears for its actors and actresses, the first Iranian film to win the festival's top prize. It premiered at Tehran's Fajr festival in February 2011.

Which 1925 Sergei Eisenstein silent film contains the 'Odessa Steps', among the most recreated sequences in cinema?

Battleship Potemkin's runaway baby carriage on the steps has been restaged everywhere from The Untouchables to Naked Gun 33⅓. Mosfilm produced it as a Soviet silent epic.

Which 2006 German film follows a Stasi captain secretly listening in on an East Berlin playwright in 1984?

The Lives of Others' director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, grew up outside East Germany and was 16 when the Berlin Wall fell. It won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Which Austrian director won the Palme d'Or twice within four years, for The White Ribbon and then Amour?

Michael Haneke's Amour went on to five Oscar nominations and won Best Foreign Language Film. He had earlier taken the Cannes Grand Prix for The Piano Teacher.

Which 2013 film, shot in black and white, follows a Polish novice nun who learns her parents were Jewish?

Ida won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the first Polish film to do so. Paweł Pawlikowski shot it in the now-uncommon 4:3 aspect ratio.

Which 1929 surrealist short, co-written by Salvador Dalí, opens with a razor drawn toward a woman's eye?

Un Chien Andalou's director Luis Buñuel cuts from the razor to a cloud crossing the moon before the eye is sliced. It remains a seminal work of surrealist cinema.

Which 2006 film set in La Mancha saw its six main actresses, led by Penélope Cruz, share the Cannes Best Actress prize?

Volver earned Penélope Cruz an Oscar nomination, the first for a Spanish woman in the Best Actress category. Its director drew on his own La Mancha upbringing for the plot.

Which Bengali director's debut Pather Panchali opened the Apu Trilogy and won eleven international prizes?

Satyajit Ray received an honorary Oscar in 1992, the year he died, and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, the same year. Pather Panchali took the inaugural Best Human Document award at Cannes in 1956.

Which 2002 Aleksandr Sokurov film tours the Hermitage's Winter Palace in a single unbroken 87-minute Steadicam take?

Russian Ark was shot in one day, 23 December 2001, by cinematographer Tilman Büttner, who operated the Steadicam himself. It compresses three centuries of Russian history into the walk.

Which Senegalese novelist, called the father of African film, made sub-Saharan Africa's first feature in 1966?

Ousmane Sembène's 1966 feature La Noire de... (Black Girl) was adapted from one of his own short stories; he had made the short Borom Sarret three years earlier.

Which Apichatpong Weerasethakul film about a man with a failing kidney in rural Isan won the 2010 Palme d'Or?

Uncle Boonmee's win was the first Palme d'Or for a Thai film, yet its distribution at home was at first uncertain. Filming ran from October 2009 to February 2010 in Bangkok and the northeast.

Which 2018 Nigerian film, Netflix's first original from the country, lost Oscar eligibility for being mostly in English?

Lionheart has only about ten minutes of Igbo dialogue, so the Academy disqualified it on 4 November 2019. Netflix had bought it the day before its Toronto premiere.

Which 1975 Chantal Akerman film about a widow's household routine topped Sight and Sound's 2022 critics' poll?

Jeanne Dielman was the first film directed by a woman to top the poll, which in 2022 canvassed 1,639 critics, programmers, curators and academics. A decade earlier it had ranked 35th.

Which 2021 body-horror film made Julia Ducournau the second woman, and the first solo, to win the Palme d'Or?

Titane's win leaked early when jury president Spike Lee, asked in French to announce the 'first prize', misread it as 'first place' and read out the winner at the start of the ceremony.

Which Gabriel Axel film, adapted from Karen Blixen, was the first Danish winner of the foreign-language Oscar?

Babette's Feast moved Blixen's Norwegian village to the windswept coast of Jutland after Axel found Norway's settings too idyllic, like a tourist brochure. It premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.

Which 1986 John Woo film shed Chow Yun-fat's 'box office poison' label and launched Hong Kong's heroic-bloodshed genre?

A Better Tomorrow was financed by Cinema City despite John Woo's previous flops, and its success spawned a sequel, a prequel and official remakes in South Korea and mainland China.

Which 2000 Mexican film by Alejandro González Iñárritu links three separate stories through one Mexico City car crash?

Amores Perros was nominated for the foreign-language Oscar and won Mexico's Ariel for Best Picture. Mubi re-released a remaster in Mexican cinemas in October 2025.