Explained.

This one is rather interesting. I wonder how these people vote? I do not think they watch any of these films or read reviews. This way they would have known that "The White Ribbon" won the main prize at Cannes and a lot of other prizes. The fact that it is German is a minus for these people, but it is antifascist, that might compensate (see The Counterfeiters). The prophet won the runner-up prize at Cannes and swept Cesars, but it is French, of course, a big minus. So these two films have a huge critical acclaim, which should probably compensate for the anti-European bias. The Argentine film has good reviews, but not anywhere near.

It looks like the voting process on the foreign film is 1) purely random - just pick a number 1 to 5; 2) bias-driven, like Latin - neutral, German - minus, French - double minus. Nothing else comes to mind.

On ignoring "Avatar" - this is pure penis envy. I am all for small movies, but The Hurt Locker is not an outstanding small movie. Awarding Avatar would look good ten years later and The Hurt Locker will go to WTF category, together with Crash (most people will likely remeber Cronenberg's fim, not Haggis'), Shakespeare In Love etc. Cameron is not a crowd pleaser, but he certainly had the cojones to bet 500 million and win, that is unprecedented.

This is how it works: the foreign language committee is either selected or already exists and they sit down and watch all of the movies submitted by countries. All of them. All sixty-three or however many countries submit. From there, a shortlist of nine is made. From there, the five. The Academy's foreign language branch is notoriously old and conservative for the most part, so expecting them to pick a cerebral film about the birth of terrorism or an equally cerebral (but much more violent) film about a man in prison is kind of foolhardy at this point. When you think about why Departures won, it makes a lot of sense that The Secret in Their Eyes took it: it's emotional, romantically potent, well shot, well acted, and beautiful. The White Ribbon probably fared better than last year's Waltz With Bashir, but that's just a guess.

But to answer your question more directly - there are no biases. It just happens to be that France and Germany make a lot of cerebral films and the foreign language branch doesn't really go for those.

This is how it works: the foreign language committee is either selected or already exists and they sit down and watch all of the movies submitted by countries. All of them. All sixty-three or however many countries submit. From there, a shortlist of nine is made. From there, the five. The Academy's foreign language branch is notoriously old and conservative for the most part, so expecting them to pick a cerebral film about the birth of terrorism or an equally cerebral (but much more violent) film about a man in prison is kind of foolhardy at this point. When you think about why Departures won, it makes a lot of sense that The Secret in Their Eyes took it: it's emotional, romantically potent, well shot, well acted, and beautiful. The White Ribbon probably fared better than last year's Waltz With Bashir, but that's just a guess.

But to answer your question more directly - there are no biases. It just happens to be that France and Germany make a lot of cerebral films and the foreign language branch doesn't really go for those.

Sounds like a very sensible explanation. It beats me though how Amelie - arguably the best looking film of the decade lost to No Man's Land 8 years ago.

Sounds like a very sensible explanation. It beats me though how Amelie - arguably the best looking film of the decade lost to No Man's Land 8 years ago.

That was one of the savvier picks of the academy in a while: No Man's Land was a much better film than Amelie

Avatar didn't win much because it's not that great of a movie.

Who?

Take this into consideration: The voters are all sent DVDs of the contenders for their viewing and consideration. Everyone keeps talking about how Avatar must be seen on the big screen in 3D for the impact to be fully felt, but it's likely the voters just saw it on a small screen in 2D. Could this be a factor in its loss?

Avatar didn't win much because it's not that great of a movie.
The Hurt Locker deserved some awards, but perhaps not as many as it won.
The movie that really got screwed was Inglourious Basterds.Its Nobody saw A Serious Man because it was stuck in limited release, so there's that. I won't bother pointing out that it was Tarantino's only real competition this year.

As someone else pointed out, 20 years down the road, Avatar will be playing on TMC3D, and The Hurt Locker will fade into oblivion.