I agree: the Oscars are a mainstream award and the foreign film audience are certainly not mainstream. So they're applying different criteria from people on this site... Best Picture usually rewards a certain kind of film - always popular, often critically quite well-received, and sometimes the best(American)film of the year. I can understand the complaint being that the winner is held up to be the best film of the year – but doesn’t this sit only with the people who would consider it best, anyway? Anyone who usually doesn’t agree with Oscar decisions might as well ignore them...