The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is facing intense backlash after its slate of 2026 Actor Award nominees shockingly excluded all foreign-language films and performances.
Formerly known as the SAG Awards, the Actor Awards, which honor the best performances in film and TV productions over the past year, announced Wednesday the nominees for its March ceremony. Nominees are voted on by a committee made up of 2,000 randomly selected eligible SAG-AFTRA members. All eligible members of the 22,000-strong organization then vote for the winners.
Leading in the film categories was Paul Thomas Anderson’s revolutionary dark comedy One Battle After Another, while Apple TV+’s Hollywood satire The Studio dominated in the TV categories.
Other major movie contenders included Josh Safdie’s sports drama Marty Supreme and Ryan Coogler’s genre-defying vampire thriller Sinners.
Meanwhile, all of the critically acclaimed foreign-language films, including Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, South Korean comedy thriller No Other Choice, Brazilian neo-noir political thriller The Secret Agent, French-Spanish film Sirat and Iranian crime thriller It Was Just an Accident — which were all predicted to be frontrunners this film award season — were completely shut out from Actor Award nominations.
Just last month, all five films received several nods apiece for the 2026 Golden Globes. Four of the five: Sentimental Value, starring Stellan Skarsgård, The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident and No Other Choice, were even nominated in the main Best Film categories as well as for Best Non-English Language Film.
Several social media users decried the Actor Awards for snubbing all international films, with some going as far as to accuse the American screen actors’ union of “xenophobia” — fear and prejudice against strangers or foreigners.
“So the global cinema exists memo didn’t reach the SAG voters this year, or maybe they just really love hearing english, who knows?” one quipped on X.
“SAG more like American Actors Awards,” a second added.
“That is called XENOPHOBIA,” a third blatantly wrote, “and it is a troubling sign for the entire world, as it reflects rejection of foreigners and their culture.”
“But what can you expect from an awards show that’s sexist and xenophobic, run by rich old white men, right,” a fourth argued while another agreed, “No shocking at all. They hate foreign performances. Xenophobia.”
The Independent has contacted SAG-AFTRA for comment.
The 2026 Actors Awards will be held March 1 in Los Angeles. A host has yet to be announced.
SAG Actor Award nominations - full list
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