Drive My Car is the first Japanese film ever to be nominated for Best Picture.
A history-making moment from my favorite film of the year: Drive My Car, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s sharp, beautiful adaptation of the Haruki Murakami short story, is the first Japanese film ever to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Drive My Car has also been nominated for International Feature Film and Best Adapted Screenplay, and Hamaguchi has been nominated for Best Director; the film’s four nominations make it tied with Akira Kurosawa’s Ran as the most-nominated film from Japan ever.
This nomination comes after a slew of other awards for Drive My Car: so far, the film has won Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, been selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and won three awards at Cannes including Best Screenplay. It’s also the first non-English-language film of only six films to Best Picture from all three major U.S. critics groups (the others: Goodfellas, Schindler’s List, L.A. Confidential, The Social Network, The Hurt Locker). I love when everyone comes together to love something good!
