His film
Begin the Beguine (1982) was the first Spanish entry to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, although Garci was not the first Spanish director to win that award.
Luis Buñuel had won the prize in the same category ten years before with
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), but the film was a French entry, as Buñuel had had to exile from Spain during the Spanish Civil War, in 1936.