Since the conception of the Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1956, Japan has submitted seventeen films for the Academy.

However, before that, Japan won three honorary awards: for Rashomon, by the famous Akira Kurosawa (1951); Gate of Hell, by Teinosuke Kinugasa, in 1954; and Samurai: The Legend of Musashi, by Hiroshi Inagaki (1955).

Since then, Japan has won only a single Oscar - in 2009, with Departures (Okuribito in the original), by Yojiro Takita.

Besides that, the loved Hayao Miyazaki has received an Oscar for Best Animation in 2003 for Spirited Away and received an honorary award in 2014 for his contribution for the cinematographic industry. The only other Japanese director to ever receive the Governors Awards was Akira Kurosawa, back in 1990.