List of submissions to the 40th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
# List of submissions to the 40th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film

This is a list of submissions to the 40th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was created in 1956 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honour non-English-speaking films produced outside the United States. The award is handed out annually, and is accepted by the winning film's director, although it is considered an award for the submitting country as a whole. Countries are invited by the Academy to submit their best films for competition according to strict rules, with only one film being accepted from each country.

For the 40th Academy Awards, sixteen films were submitted in the category Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Belgium and Peru submitted films to the competition for the first time. The titles highlighted were the five nominated films, which came from France, Japan, Spain, Yugoslavia and the eventual winner, Czechoslovakia. The winner, Jiří Menzel's Closely Watched Trains, was a wry comedy about a young man working at a village railway station during Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

## Submissions

| Submitting country | Film title used in nomination | Original title | Language(s) | Director(s) | Result |
| - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Belgium | Le départ | Le départ | French | Jerzy Skolimowski | Not nominated |
| Brazil | Case of the Naves Brothers | O Caso dos Irmãos Naves | Brazilian Portuguese | Luis Sérgio Person | Not nominated |
| Czechoslovakia | Closely Watched Trains | Ostře sledované vlaky | Czech, German | Jiří Menzel | Won Academy Award |
| Denmark | Once There Was a War | Der var engang en krig | Danish | Palle Kjærulff-Schmidt | Not nominated |
| France | Live for Life | Vivre pour Vivre | French | Claude Lelouch | Nominated |
| West Germany | Tattoo | Tätowierung | German | Johannes Schaaf | Not nominated |
| Hungary | Father | Apa | Hungarian | István Szabó | Not nominated |
| India | The Last Letter | आख़िरी खत | Hindi | Chetan Anand | Not nominated |
| Italy | China Is Near | La Cina è vicina | Italian | Marco Bellocchio | Not nominated |
| Japan | Portrait of Chieko | 智恵子抄 | Japanese | Noboru Nakamura | Nominated |
| Mexico | The Adolescents | Los adolescentes | Spanish | Abel Salazar | Not nominated |
| Peru | No Stars in the Jungle | En la selva no hay estrellas | Spanish | Armando Robles Godoy | Not nominated |
| Philippines | Because of a Flower | Dahil sa isang bulaklak | Tagalog | Luis Nepomuceno | Not nominated |
| Spain | El Amor Brujo | El Amor Brujo | Spanish | Francisco Rovira Beleta | Nominated |
| Sweden | Here's Your Life | Här har du ditt liv | Swedish | Jan Troell | Not nominated |
| Yugoslavia | I Even Met Happy Gypsies | Skupljaci perja | Romani, Serbo-Croatian | Aleksandar Petrović | Nominated |
