Spain picks La Bola Negra as its 2027 Oscar entry
Spain has chosen La Bola Negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi as its entry for best international feature film, the Oscar category for films made outside the United States, at the 99th Academy Awards in 2027, Variety reported. The international feature contest forms part of the 99th Academy Awards, Deadline lists. The announcement was made by film-maker Alejandro Amenábar on behalf of Spain's Academia de Cine at its Madrid headquarters. Members chose it in a second-round vote after the 3 September shortlist of three.
The two other finalists were The Beloved by Rodrigo Sorogoyen and Sundays by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa. The Beloved stars Javier Bardem. Pedro Almodóvar did not make that three-film shortlist, The Hollywood Reporter reported on 3 September.
La Bola Negra had its world premiere in main competition at Cannes, the festival's top selection. It received a 16-minute standing ovation at that screening. It then won best director at Cannes, shared with Paweł Pawlikowski for Fatherland.
The film links three stories set in 1932, in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, and in 2017. Together they trace gay life in Spain across decades. The cast includes Penélope Cruz as a cabaret dancer and Glenn Close in a cameo as a modern-day hispanist, a scholar of Spanish culture and history. The lead roles are played by Miguel Bernardeau, Guitarricadelafuente, Milo Quifes and Carlos Gutiérrez.
Its release path is already set. It was the only one of the three shortlisted Spanish titles that had not yet opened in commercial cinemas, and it is due in Spanish cinemas on 25 September 2026, El País reported. Netflix has acquired the film for the United States and later Canada. It will open in US theatres on 16 October for a 47-day theatrical window, the period it plays only in cinemas before streaming, which is the longest such window for any Netflix film.
Festival dates frame that rollout. The film won the Audience Award at the Sydney Festival in Australia. It will open NewFest, New York's LGBTQ+ film festival, on 15 October.
There is history in the messenger. Amenábar's The Sea Inside won Spain's most recent Oscar in this category in 2005. What makes this stand out is the calendar. A Cannes competition premiere, a late-September home release and an extended US cinema run give voters in different countries several chances to see the same film on a big screen.
