's film
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies was the first Thai film to be selected for the 15-film shortlist. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1956. All submissions were in
Thai. The selection committee of the Federation of National Film Associations of Thailand generally has chosen movies that highlight key moments in Thai history or important social issues. • Thailand's five earliest submissions all dealt with contemporary social problems included
Nam Poo (
drug abuse),
The Elephant Keeper (environmentalism and
illegal logging),
Song of the Chaophraya (prostitution and rural migration to Bangkok),
Once Upon A Time (
child poverty) and
Daughter 2 (
AIDS). • Four Thai submissions were fact-based period dramas –
King Naresuan Part 2 was a lavish costume drama set in the sixteenth century about one of Thailand's most distinguished kings;
The Overture tells the life story of one of Thailand's greatest classical musicians from the 1880s until the 1940s;
The Tin Mine is about a spoiled rich kid who ends up working in the titular mine in Southern Thailand in the years following
World War II;
The Moonhunter followed a band of controversial, leftist rebels in the 1970s. • Three Thai submissions were fast-paced thrillers, two of which incorporated strong elements of Buddhism and
karma into their plots, namely
Who is Running? and
Ahimsa...Stop to Run. Also submitted was
6ixtynin9, about a recently laid-off woman who finds a huge cache of stolen money. • Two submissions were romantic comedy-dramas that were box office hits domestically.
Love of Siam featured a gay teen romance, and
Best of Times featured two potential couples, one in their 20s and one in their 60s. • Other submissions included a bittersweet genre-bending musical romantic comedy (
Monrak Transistor in 2002) and a surreal, artsy drama in
Japanese,
English and
Thai (
Last Life in the Universe in 2003). Four submissions were directed by
Chatrichalerm Yukol, a member of the Thai nobility, while other four were directed by
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. In 2024,
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies made into the 15-films shortlist, becoming the first Thai film to do so, but it was not nominated.. == Shortlisted Films ==