The history of cinema is littered with the detritus of foreign directors who "go Hollywood." Such memorable cinematic misadventures include "Fellini's Casanova" (1976) and Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point" (1970). More recently, art-house favorites Tom Tykwer ("Run, Lola, Run") and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck ("The Lives of Others") have provided fodder for many a critic's venom-laced pen with "The International" (2009) and "The Tourist" (2010), respectively.

A still from 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' STUDIOCANAL

Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish director of the Oscar-nominated and Bafta-winning "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," acknowledges that this pattern at first gave him some pause. "Many filmmakers tend to be pushed into doing stuff that they're not famous for doing," the 46-year-old says, adding that being part of a foreign project was never a priority. "It wasn't the most important thing to do something international. The most important thing was to do something good."

Along with "The Artist," "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is one of several international productions honored with Academy Award nominations. And while the espionage thriller didn't snag a nod for best film or director, its star, Gary Oldman, beat out top contenders like Leonardo DiCaprio ("J. Edgar") and Michael Fassbender ("Shame") for a best actor nomination.Alberto Iglesias's haunting score and best adapted screenplay were also nominated.

Although Sweden has a long filmmaking tradition, it is rare for homegrown directors to attract a wider audience. "[Ingmar] Bergman was unique in a way that he reached out to world-wide audiences," Mr. Alfredson says of the legendary director. "In Sweden, he was a very important person. He had a lot of power. And maybe he does cast a long shadow over everyone else," he says. The two biggest problems facing Swedish films today, he adds, are illegal downloading and the language barrier. "Maybe that is a part of globalization—that the smallest languages get the hardest blows," he says.

Mr. Alfredson was born in Stockholm, the son of a popular Swedish writer, actor and director. As a child, he often appeared in the films of his father, Hans Alfredson. Later, he worked for many years in television, mostly doing comedy, before directing his first film in 1995. International recognition eluded him until 2008's "Let the Right One In," an atmospheric horror story about a child vampire that was a surprise hit on the festival circuit, after it had been shelved for nearly a year by the film's distributor. Despite the film's commercial and critical success, Mr. Alfredson says he was fed up with the Swedish film industry and publicly announced his intention to stop making films. "It was considered a strange festival film," says Mr. Alfredson. "I had put so much love and energy and labor into the film and nobody was really caring for it."

Director Tomas Alfredson Tim Scrivener / Rex Features

Håkan Jegnell, chief executive of Sandrew Metronome, the film's Swedish distributor, says Mr. Alfredson misunderstood the shelving of the film, which had initially been set to open that April but was delayed to coincide with the November school holiday.

Mr. Alfredson says he turned down all sorts of offers before being approached by Working Title Films to direct "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." It meant access to the sort of budget and talent that Sweden's shrinking film industry couldn't offer.

According to Mr. Alfredson, the biggest challenge of making "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was working in English. Before starting production, he was confident in his command of the language, but realized how much it was lacking when he got on set. "You can use your hands and body, and trust other people to understand you, but it's really exhausting not to have the full dictionary," he says.

For a film by a foreign director, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is an incredibly British film. Indeed, the film snagged the Bafta for Best Outstanding British Film. Mr. Alfredson claims that his affinity to a British sensibility stems from the fact that his generation of Swedes was practically "breast-fed on British television." From Monty Python to Masterpiece Theatre, he says "everything that came out of the BBC with a quality stamp traveled to Sweden. People got the same references, because 80% of the population had seen the same TV shows."

But even beyond that, the director says the U.K. and Sweden have much in common. "I think there are a lot of bonds between our countries," he says. "I can't say why, but we understand it and appreciate the humor and irony and stiffness and stiff-upper-lipness and the social codes."

The original film version of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a seven-hour 1979 BBC series that starred Alec Guinness. Mr. Alfredson, who is unhappy about an American version of his "Let the Right One In," insists that his "Tinker Tailor" isn't a remake. He points to the intricacies of Mr. le Carré's novel and the creative choices a filmmaker must make: "There are so many ways to tell the same story with so many different approaches," the director says, adding that he admires the BBC series. However, when it comes to remakes, like "Let Me In," the 2010 U.S. version of "Let the Right One In," he sings a different tune. "I think that there's something dishonest about copying someone's work. I think it's much stronger if you do something personal of your own that's original," the director says.

Outside of the late author Stieg Larsson, Mr. Alfredson is probably Sweden's most successful cultural export of the moment. The director interprets the success of Larsson's Millennium trilogy as a possible byproduct of globalization. "Everything is evening out and, as a reaction, people want to see something that is exotic. But it can't be too exotic. Seeing those quiet, melancholic people doing strange stuff in the cold north is something that appeals to people," he says with a wry laugh.