How well do you know Japan's Oscar history?

There have been a lot of historic firsts at the Academy Awards recently. Long derided as a fusty institution presided over by a bunch of old white men, Hollywood’s glitziest annual gala has been trying to give itself an overhaul, after being caught out by the #OscarsSoWhite controversy seven years ago.

Back in 2015, that viral hashtag exposed the woeful lack of racial diversity among nominees in the major award categories, including an acting slate that was entirely white. When the same thing happened again in 2016, prompting calls for a boycott, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) was pressured to act.

Since then, the voting body behind the Oscars has been working hard to expand and diversify its membership, creating new diversity and inclusion standards for best picture nominees that are due to take effect in 2024. While there’s still a long way to go, the academy already seems to be broadening its scope, and each year a few more barriers come down.

In 2020, Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” became the first non-English language film to win best picture, beating out Sam Mendes’ “1917,” the kind of lavish historical drama that would usually have cruised to an easy victory. Last year set a record for diversity in the acting categories, with Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”) and Youn Yuh-jung (“Minari”) both taking home prizes, while Chloe Zhao became the first woman of color to win best director, for “Nomadland.”

To get a sense of how much has changed, though, you need only look at Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car,” which is in the running for best picture this year — a first for a Japanese film. Though the movie has been almost universally acclaimed, it’s hard to imagine a ruminative, three-hour drama about grief and Chekhov — with subtitles! — even getting a look-in at the Oscars only a few years ago.

The Haruki Murakami adaptation is also up for best director, best adapted screenplay and best international feature. The only other time a Japanese movie has picked up that many nominations was Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran,” in 1986.

In the end, the Shakespearean samurai epic only received one award, for Emi Wada’s costume design. Kurosawa was nominated for best director, but lost to Sydney Pollack, whose plodding, picturesque “Out of Africa” was the big winner that year.

In retrospect, it was the wrong decision, though that happens a lot at the Oscars. The history of the Academy Awards is full of snubs, compromises and bafflingly poor choices.

Movies that are now considered among the greatest of all time were often given short shrift — “Citizen Kane” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” both went home with only one prize — or never even nominated. The academy has conferred best picture on some brilliant films in recent years, such as “Parasite” and “Moonlight,” but it’s also settled for shallow, feel-good stuff like “Green Book” and “The King’s Speech.”

The omissions become even more glaring when you consider filmmakers working outside the Anglosphere. It’s comparatively rare for movies in other languages to be acknowledged in the major categories at the Oscars. To date, only 14 non-English language films have ever been nominated for best picture.

Most years, the entire panoply of global cinema is squeezed into the best international feature category — until recently known as best foreign language film — while getting occasional nods for best documentary and best animated feature. (Hats off to Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s “Flee” this year, for becoming the first movie ever to be nominated in all three categories.)

If “Drive My Car” wins best international feature, it will be only the second time a Japanese-language film has done so, following Yojiro Takita’s “Departures” in 2009. Pedants will note that Kurosawa’s “Rashomon,” Teinosuke Kinugasa’s “Gate of Hell” and Hiroshi Inagaki’s “Samurai, The Legend of Musashi” were all given honorary prizes in the years before the category’s introduction at the 1957 ceremony, but those don’t really count, do they?

Japan’s submission for best foreign — sorry, international — feature is decided by the Eiren (Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan), and tends to match the prevailing critical consensus. Over the past two decades, half of the films Eiren has submitted for the academy’s consideration also took the top spot in the annual poll by movie magazine Kinema Junpo.

Confusingly, Kurosawa won the Oscar in 1976 for his one movie that wasn’t in Japanese: the Russian-language “Dersu Uzala,” a Soviet-Japanese production made at a time when he was finding it impossible to get studio funding at home.

The director was also presented with an honorary Academy Award in 1990, “for accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world.” They might have added: “Sorry we dropped the ball on ‘Seven Samurai.’”

Japanese actors only seem to get recognized when they’re appearing in Hollywood productions. Miyoshi Umeki won an Oscar in 1958, for her performance in the romantic melodrama “Sayonara.” The same year, Sessue Hayakawa — a bona fide international star during the silent era — was nominated for “The Bridge Over the River Kwai.” He lost out to Umeki’s “Sayonara” co-star, Red Buttons, but still, better late than never.

Another notable Japanese Oscar winner is Hayao Miyazaki, whose “Spirited Away” took best animated feature in 2003. To date, it’s the only non-English language film to receive the award, and also the only one that was hand-drawn. Isao Takahata’s sublime swan song, “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya,” should really have won in 2015, but was thwarted by the Disney-produced “Big Hero 6.”

Miyazaki didn’t turn up for the ceremony back in 2003, but he was there in person to collect an honorary award in 2014. In his acceptance speech, he quipped that it was worth it just to get a chance to meet the great actress Maureen O’Hara. Hamaguchi would do well to approach this weekend’s Oscars with a similar spirit: Enjoy the spectacle, and don’t take the whole thing too seriously.

The 94th Academy Awards will take place in Los Angeles on March 27.