REUTERS

Comedy-drama "Another Round," about four friends who test alcohol's ability to improve their lives, won the Oscar for best international film on Sunday, becoming the fourth Danish film to take home an Oscar.

The film, starring Mads Mikkelsen, portrays high school teachers in various stages of midlife crisis who try to reinvent themselves by drinking.

Mikkelsen, known for playing Hollywood villains and antiheroes, is a trained dancer and performs an extended drunken dance in the film, much of it wearing just one shoe.

The film, directed by Thomas Vinterberg, was considered a front-runner in the category. Vinterberg, a co-founder of the Danish "Dogme 95" movement of low-budget naturalistic filmmaking, was a prior Oscar nominee for 2012's "The Hunt," also with Mikkelsen.

Vinterberg said the idea for the film sprang from looking at the many accomplishments in world history of people who were drunk.

"We very quickly realized that this socially accepted liquor that elevates people, makes people merry and makes people make great decisions, also kills people and destroys families," he said.

"We wanted to make a movie that explores the whole spectrum of alcohol, but more importantly... wanted to make a life-affirming film about living instead of just existing,"

Vinterberg added Previous Danish Oscar winners were the 1987 film "Babette's Feast," 1989 winner "Pelle the Conqueror," and 2011 winner "In a Better World."

Other nominees in the best international film category this year were Hong Kong's "Better Days," Romania's "Collective," "The Man Who Sold His Skin" from Tunisia, and Bosnian war drama "Quo Vadis, Aida?"

The five nominees were picked from among 93 contenders.

(Writing by Nick Zieminski in New York; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Andrea Ricci)