This is a list of submissions to the 40th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was created in 1956 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honour non-English-speaking films produced outside the United States.^[1] The award is handed out annually, and is accepted by the winning film's director, although it is considered an award for the submitting country as a whole.^[2] Countries are invited by the Academy to submit their best films for competition according to strict rules, with only one film being accepted from each country.^[2]

For the 40th Academy Awards, sixteen films were submitted in the category Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Belgium and Peru submitted films to the competition for the first time. The titles highlighted were the five nominated films, which came from France, Japan, Spain, Yugoslavia and the eventual winner, Czechoslovakia. The winner, Jiří Menzel's Closely Watched Trains, was a wry comedy about a young man working at a village railway station in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.^[3]