In 1973 the list of submissions to the 46th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film included twenty films.

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 46th Academy Awards, twenty films were submitted in the category Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. East Germany and Finland made their debuts in the competition. The five nominated films came from France, West Germany, Israel, Netherlands and Switzerland.

France won for the ninth time for Day for Night by François Truffaut, which was also nominated for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Valentina Cortese) in the subsequent ceremony (47th Academy Awards).

Submissions Submitting country Film title used in nomination Original title Language(s) Director(s) Result João and the Knife A Faca e o Rio Brazilian Portuguese George Sluizer Days of Betrayal Dny zrady Czech Otakar Vávra Empire M إمبراطورية ميم Arabic Hussein Kamal The Earth Is a Sinful Song Maa on syntinen laulu Finnish Rauni Mollberg Day for Night La Nuit américaine French François Truffaut Her Third Der Dritte German Egon Günther The Pedestrian Der Fußgänger Maximilian Schell Photography Fotográfia Hungarian Pál Zolnay Saudagar सौदागर Hindi Sudhendu Roy The House on Chelouche Street בית ברחוב שלוש Hebrew, Egyptian Arabic, Ladino Moshé Mizrahi Coup d'État 戒厳令 Japanese Yoshishige Yoshida Reed: Insurgent Mexico Reed, México insurgente Spanish Paul Leduc Turkish Delight Turks fruit Dutch Paul Verhoeven Copernicus Kopernik Polish Ewa Petelska and Czesław Petelski Veronica Romanian Elisabeta Bostan Liberation Освобождение Russian, German, English, Polish, Italian, French, Serbo-Croatian Yuri Ozerov Mute Samyong 비련의 벙어리 삼용 Korean Byun Jang-ho Habla, mudita Spanish Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón Scenes from a Marriage Scener ur ett äktenskap Swedish Ingmar Bergman L'Invitation French Claude Goretta The Battle of Sutjeska Sutjeska Serbo-Croatian, English, German Stipe Delić

Notes

Scenes from a Marriage sparked controversy when its ineligibility for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was questioned. The supposed reason was that it aired on television before it played in cinemas, but at the time that did not necessarily render a film ineligible. In this case, it was because the TV broadcast occurred the year before its theatrical debut in 1974. The film's ineligibility prompted 24 filmmakers, including Frank Capra and Federico Fellini, to write an open letter demanding the rules for eligibility be revised.

References

Sources Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences