Brazil has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film^{[nb 1]} since 1960. The award is handed out annually by the United States-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a feature length motion picture produced outside the U.S. that contains primarily non-English language dialogue.^[3] It was not created until the 1956 Academy Awards, in which a competitive Academy Award of Merit was created for non-English speaking films, and has been given annually since.^[4]

As of 2023, 52 Brazilian films have been submitted for the award. Four of these submissions resulted in nominations for the Best Foreign Language Film category, but none of them won. Orfeu Negro, a Portuguese language film shot in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus, won the award at the 1959 ceremony, but it was submitted by the French government and thus France was credited as the recipient of the award.

Films directed by Carlos Diegues (also known as Cacá Diegues) have been chosen to represent Brazil at the Academy Awards seven times, more than any other director. He is followed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, which had four of his films selected. None of their films, however, managed to achieve an Oscar nomination.

Three films by Bruno Barreto were submitted, although his biggest success, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, the second highest-grossing film in the history of Brazilian cinema, was not chosen. Four Days in September (1997) got nominated in 1998.

Suzana Amaral's Hour of the Star (1987) became the first film directed by a woman to be submitted, only twenty-nine years later another film directed by a female filmmaker was selected to be submitted as the Brazilian's entry, Anna Muylaert's The Second Mother (2015), with Babenco: Tell Me When I Die (2019), by Bárbara Paz, being the last.

Brazilian last nomination in the category was Central Station (1998), at the 71st Academy Awards, with Fernanda Montenegro being nominated in the Best Actress category that night. Even though City of God was selected as the Brazilian submission for the 75th Academy Awards, the film was famously snubbed, and subsequently nominated in the following ceremony, the 76th Academy Awards, for the Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, categories.

Below is a list of the films that have been submitted by the Brazilian government for Academy Award consideration. The Brazilian nominee is selected annually by a committee assembled by the Ministry of Culture (formerly the Ministry of Education and Culture).

• List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Academy Awards nominations for Brazilian films
• Cinema of Brazil

^ a: Also known as The Given Word and The Promise in the English-speaking market.

^ b: Central do Brasil was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film's lead actress, Fernanda Montenegro, holds the title as the only Brazilian nominated to an acting category.^[27]

^ c: Cidade de Deus was submitted for the 75th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated for the Best Foreign Language award. The film, however, was eventually nominated for four awards—Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing—at the following year. It shares the title with Kiss of the Spider Woman as the Brazilian film with the highest number of nominations. All of Cidade de Deus' nominees were Brazilians, while Hector Babenco was the only Brazilian nominee for Kiss of the Spider Woman, an American co-production.^[27]