Films That Could Make Cut

The shortlist of 15 films to vie for a Best International Feature Film Oscar nomination at the 97th Academy Awards is set to be announced on December 17. In all, movies from 85 countries are eligible for the prize. There is decidedly a pack of frontrunners this season, and the rest feels a bit up for grabs, but there are gems from all corners . Below, we take a closer look at the potential candidates for the early cut. They include prize winners from Sundance to Berlin, Cannes, Venice and myriad other festivals and awards bodies.

RELATED: Deadline Launches Its Contenders International Streaming Site

Deadline, through its various Contenders events as well as separate interviews, has spoken with filmmakers behind many of the entries while nearly all of the titles on the main list below have been reviewed by Deadline’s critics as we continue to grow our focus on international films. 

Here is our preview in alphabetical order by film title:

RELATED: 2024-25 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Spirits, Grammys, Tonys, Guilds & More

ARMAND (Norway), dir: Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel; U.S. Distributor: IFC Films

What it’s about: The psychological drama unfolds within a heated elementary school mediation session between two mothers — played by Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World) and Ellen Dorrit Petersen – after one of their young sons is accused of bullying the other.

Deadline’s take: “Tøndel has created a sprawling film to absorb rather than follow studiously, and the opening section is especially evocative in that respect: the school is alive, its halls echoing with footsteps, and the smell of chalk dust hanging heavy in the air. Likewise, Reinsve shines as a striking anti-heroine, playing a brittle, broken woman with a marshmallow interior. But, by the end, Armand has spread out in so many directions that the ending leaves us hanging, not because it withholds the satisfaction of a tidy ending but because it raises enough questions… to fill a whole other movie.”

Director’s comment: “I thought it was both interesting and funny to use the idea of something ‘adult’ that had happened between two kids as a base for the story… Nearly all the scenes in the movie concern situations with diffuse boundaries and difficult grey areas: Truth or lie? Victim or abuser? Guilty or innocent? Play or violence? Because, have we ever had such unclear boundaries between what’s right and wrong – when such conflicting notions have been so close to each other?”

Key awards/festivals: Premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard going on to become the first Norwegian film to win the Camera d’Or.

DAHOMEY (Senegal), dir: Mati Diop; U.S. Distributor: Mubi

What it’s about: This documentary borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants, the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié). The film opens in November 2021 as 26 royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. But what do these ancient treasures mean in a country that has had to forge a new existence in their absence?

Deadline’s take: “Open-ended, fecund with imagination and ideas, never hectoring or lecturing, not so much posing questions as asking what questions might be posed: Mati Diop’s film is a marvelous provocation.”

RELATED: The 2025 Oscars: Everything We Know So Far About The Nominations, Ceremony, Date & Host

Director’s comment: “We’re well aware this issue needs to be addressed on different levels. There’s a political agenda certainly, but also there are other ways to respond, with artists, filmmakers, students… We shouldn’t play down how powerful these tools we have, particularly cinematic tools, can be. They offer a way to do something important.”

Key awards/festivals: Won Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear

EMILIA PEREZ (France); dir: Jacques Audiard; U.S. Distributor Netflix

What it’s about: Implements song, dance and visuals to chronicle the journeys of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. Among them is Rita, an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, who agrees to help the fearsome cartel leader Emilia fake her death so that she can finally live authentically as her true self.

Deadline’s take: “A musical marvel. Of course it’s crazy, but Audiard has set up his impossible conjuring trick and made it work.”

Key awards/festivals: Won Cannes Jury Prize, and Best Actress prize for lead quartet; five European Film Awards including Best Film; has 10 Golden Globe nominations; honors from AFI, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and more.

EVERYBODY LOVES TOUDA (Morocco), dir: Nabil Ayouch

What it’s about: A young woman with aspirations of reviving the once hallowed status of Sheikhat, a type of sung poetry performed by women which has its roots in 19th century rural communities, finds herself instead performing in provincial bars under the gaze of lustful men. 

Director’s comment: Touda is the successor of the heroines in rebellion against all established powers, the Sheikhats. Their voice was their weapon and their style of singing, the Aita, their ammunition. That’s who Touda is. She wants to transcend borders and prohibitions; she fights all forms of contemporary dominations. The film is driven by this spirit of rebellion.

Key awards/festivals: Debuted in the Cannes Premier section; heading to Palm Springs in January.

FLOW (Latvia); dir: Gints Zilbalodis; U.S. Distributor: Sideshow/Janus Films

What it’s about: The drama follows the adventures of a cat whose home is devastated by floods, forcing him to team up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird and a dog to navigate a boat in search of dry land.

Deadline’s take: “A magical mystery tour into a sinking world, a wondrous, haunting, mystical and beautiful motion picture, something so unique it almost feels like a dream.”

Director’s comment: “I think people will see themselves in the animals. But from the get-go, our plan was also to make the animals behave mostly as real animals do. Of course, there are also some artistic liberties.. but we tried to make the animals’ movements as plausible as possible. We wanted to avoid showing animals behaving like humans or have them think the way humans do. The characters’ goals are primal and very simple, which is necessary since we do not use dialogues. But although the characters have simple goals, it does not mean they are less deep, less significant. In other words, it’s simple, not simplistic.”

Key awards/festivals: Premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard, later winning four prizes in Annecy. Since then it has been named Best Animated Film by the European Film Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Association as well as scooping the Indie Spirit prize for Best International Film. It also nominated for a Golden Globe in the non-English language category.

THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE (Denmark), dir: Magnus von Horn; U.S. Distributor: Mubi

What it’s about: Karoline, a young factory worker, is struggling to survive in post-WWI Copenhagen. When she finds herself unemployed, abandoned and pregnant, she meets Dagmar, a charismatic woman running an underground adoption agency, helping mothers to find foster homes for their unwanted children. With nowhere else to turn, Karoline takes on the role of a wet-nurse and a strong connection is formed between the two women, but Karoline’s world shatters when she stumbles upon the shocking truth behind her work.

Deadline’s take: “Von Horn and his co-writer Line Langebek manage the impressive feat of balancing this story’s truth with its inspired fiction, and Michał Dymek’s sumptuous black-and-white photography somehow feels both dreamlike and documentary. This kind of delicate tiptoeing between extremes pervades all departments.”

Director’s comment: “There was a real crime that happened [during the First World War] in Denmark, in Copenhagen, and it was the inspiration for this story. It was a story that really scared me and provoked me. I have kids of my own. They were very young at the time, and the fear of something happening to them is my worst fear. But when I get that fear, it’s also something that has an inspirational effect on me. It’s a kind of fuel that makes me want to do something with it, want to write something about it, want to develop it.”

Key awards/festivals: Premiered in the Cannes competition and swept Polish Film Festival prizes as well as winning two European Film Awards and being named a Top 5 International Film by the National Board of Review. Nominated for a Golden Globe in the non-English Language category.

GRAND TOUR (Portugal), dir: Miguel Gomes; U.S. Distributor: Mubi

What it’s about: Opening in Rangoon, Burma in 1918, the drama follows British civil servant Edward Abbot as he flees his impending marriage, with fiancée Molly Singleton in hot pursuit. 

Deadline’s Take: “Fans of Gomes’ deadpan style — with which he broke out in 2012 when his film Tabu became an arthouse favorite on the festival circuit — no doubt will respond to its eccentricity, its wry irony and its undeniably striking monochrome cinematography.”

Director’s comment: “This film began to take shape on the eve of my wedding. I was reading a book about travel entitled The Gentleman in the Parlour by Somerset Maugham. In two pages of this book Maugham describes an encounter with an English resident in Burma. This man had run away from his fiancée to distant parts of Asia before being caught and then embarking on a happy marriage. Basically it was a story playing on universal stereotypes. The stubbornness of women triumphed over the cowardice of men.”

Key awards/festivals: Won Best Director in Cannes, going on to play the Chicago International Film Festival where it likewise took Best Director as well as Best Editing; also played at the Karlovy Vary, Sydney, Toronto, Busan, New York and London festivals, among others.

I’M STILL HERE (Brazil), dir: Walter Salles; U.S. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

What it’s about: Fernanda Torres stars as the real-life figure Eunice Paiva, whose husband Rubens Paiva disappeared in the early years of the Brazilian military dictatorship. The film explores the determination and resilience of a mother reinventing herself after her family’s life was shattered.

Deadline’s take: “Salles has a purpose here. He is clearly not simply recording what happened; this is a film of political advocacy, warning against forgetting what tyranny did to the country and the stains it left behind. As much as it is a celebration, it is his defense of Brazil.”

Director’s comment: “That joy at the beginning of the film was stolen from them as the country was stolen of its future. And now, by telling this story, it’s as if the public has access to a hidden piece of Brazilian history.”

Key awards/festivals: Premiered in Venice, winning Best Screenplay, before going on to the Audience Award in Vancouver, Sao Paolo, Philadelphia and Mill Valley. The National Board of Review named it a Top 5 International Film, and it has two Golden Globe noms – in the non-English language category and Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama for Torres.

IN HER PLACE (Chile), dir: Maite Alberti; U.S. Distributor: Netflix

What it’s about: Set in 1955 Chile, when the popular writer María Carolina Geel kills her lover, the case captivates Mercedes, the shy secretary of the presiding judge. After visiting the writer’s apartment, Mercedes begins to question her life, identity, and the role of women in society as she finds an oasis of freedom in that home.

Deadline’s take: “It is hard not to be delighted by the fantasy of dropping into another life whenever you want, especially when your regular woman’s own life is such a slog through others’ expectations and small humiliations, but what is really intriguing about Alberdi’s film is its odd conjunction of form and feel. Serge Armstrong’s velvety cinematography and Pamela Chamorro’s elaborate art design are very much of a piece with classic period films, with a color palette and a level of set detail that never fail to remind us that this is a portrait of very history itself.”

Director’s comment: “We always knew that we wanted to construct the film from the perspective of a witness and not the killer protagonist… I wanted to reconstruct (Mercedes) through what people were saying about her. She was a woman who had a lot of freedom in that period… Being a woman and filmmaker today in society, it’s so difficult to find even one hour of personal space to write, read or create. This film is, in part, a defense of one’s own room. The necessity of silence and the ability to have personal creative independence.” 

Key awards/festivals: World premiered in San Sebastian and played AFI.

KNEECAP (Ireland); dir: Rich Peppiatt; U.S. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

What it’s about: Set in post-Troubles Belfast, follows three hedonistic Irish-language speakers who form real-life hip-hop group Kneecap and become the unlikely figureheads of a civil rights movement to save their mother tongue. It follows Belfast schoolteacher JJ and rappers Naoise and Liam Og as they rap in their native language, overcoming police, paramilitaries and politicians who try to silences their defiant sound.

Deadline’s take: “It’s a big fat-fingered eff-you. Amazing, really, how much fun that can be.”

Director’s comment: “It was about trying to understand why the language is so important to them, because choosing to live your life through such a minority language – one that only 6,000 people speak in the north of Ireland – it’s not an easy thing to do. So, I wanted to understand why it means so much to them.”

Key awards/festivals: Won the Audience Award Next in Sundance and played SXSW before taking the TAP Revelation prize at the Lisbon Film Festival, three gongs at Galway Film Fleadh and four trophies at the British Independent Film Awards. Also nominated for the FIPRESCI prize in Palm Springs.

MURDERESS (Greece); dir: Eva Nathena

What it’s about: Based on Alexandros Papadiamantis’ popular novel The Murderess, the film is set in 1900s Greek society in which Hadoula, an older woman trapped in her own mother’s rejection, struggles to survive the dictates of a patriarchal society. She turns to murdering young girls in the town, to “release” them from their social fate.

Director’s comment: “They teach us this great novel in school, and I felt a very strange familiarity with the main character. And I was frightened. How could I ever be related to a woman that kills babies? So I took some distance from the book… I realized it wasn’t her actions that gave me this sense of familiarity with her. It was her traumas.”

Key awards/festivals: Won six prizes at Thessaloniki and five at the Hellenic Film Academy Awards.

NAWI (Kenya), dirs: Vallentine Chelluget, Apuu Mourine, Kevin Schmutzler, Toby Schmutzler

What it’s about: In the rural Kenyan county of Turkana, the titular character is the star pupil at her local school. She’s 13, she’s sassy, she’s a dreamer and a schemer with her whole life ahead of her, and when she aces her grades, her intelligence and charm bring a TV crew to town. It would be the ending of a Hollywood movie, but here it’s only the start of Nawi’s journey: her dreams of getting a real education are dashed when she is offered as a wife by her father, in a callous business deal, to a much older man.”

Deadline’s take: “A rites-of-passage story that is both moving and enraging, throwing a spotlight on the little-known, and therefore little-discussed, subject of child marriage.” 

Directors’ comment: “We are social impact filmmakers, meaning we look for narratives that can spark movements, that can create change in the real world.”

Key awards/festivals: Won Best Young/Promising Actor at African Movie Academy Awards

SANTOSH (UK), dir: Sandhya Suri; U.S. Distributor: Metrograph

What it’s about: A government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is found raped and murdered, she is pulled into the investigation under the wing of charismatic feminist inspector Sharma.

Director’s comment: “We have a lot of females in films. We also have quite a few leads in films sometimes. But for me, I was really interested in complex moral decisions that a woman has to make. And this character, and what she has to go through in investigating the case, was like the perfect vehicle to tell that.”

Key awards/festivals: Premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, going on the play Telluride, Toronto and London, and recently scooped Best Screenplay and Best Breakthrough Producer at the BIFAs.

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (Germany), dir: Mohammad Rasoulof; U.S. Distributor: Neon

What it’s about: The political thriller centers on Iman, a devout man who is promoted to the position of investigating judge at the Revolutionary Court in Tehran just as a huge protest movement sweeps the country following the death of a young woman. As the state cracks down with tougher measures, he sides with the regime, upsetting the balance of his family, while his daughters are swept up in the events and his wife desperately tries to keep everyone together. When Iman discovers that his service weapon has disappeared, he comes to suspect a family member is responsible.

Deadline’s take: “Tension infuses the storytelling with power and a particular, palpable energy, reflected in a suite of exceptional performances.”

Director’s comment: “I have been making underground films for a very long time, but I never felt the sense of danger that I did this time, because I knew I was approaching an eight-year sentence and I knew that if they caught me making this film they would add to the sentence, and I would have to go to prison for it. So that made me, and a few other people who were key deciders of the film, put our experiences together and come up with solutions [to avoid suspicion]. We decided to go with a very small group and with very limited and clear resources.”

Key awards/festivals: Won the Special Jury Prize in Cannes, Audience Award in San Sebastian and Best Film at the Lisbon Film Festival; National Board of Review gave it Best International Film status, and it’s now got a Golden Globe nom in the non-English language race.

SUJO (Mexico); dirs: Astrid Rondero & Fernanda Valadez; U.S Distributor: The Forge

What it’s about: Centers on the titular beloved son of a small-town cartel gunman who narrowly escapes death when his father is murdered. His aunt takes him in and raises him in the isolated countryside amidst hardship, poverty and the constant peril associated with his identity. When Sujo enters his teens a rebelliousness awakens in him and he joins the local cartel. As a young man, he attempts to make his life anew, away from the violence of his hometown. But when his father’s legacy catches up with him, he will come face-to-face with what seems to be his destiny.

Director’s comment: “We believe the strength of our films comes from us being part of a minority and that we are committed to telling the stories of our time. And what a time it is in Mexico. Thousands of kids have become orphans due to the violence of the drug cartels. Some of them are children of the victims, ‘the collateral damage’ of the drug war. But others are the sons and daughters of the people who actively participated as perpetrators. This is a story about these ‘others.’

Key awards/festivals: Won Grand Jury Prize, World Cinema Drama at Sundance ahead of myriad worldwide festival play.

THREE KILOMETERS TO THE END OF THE WORLD (Romania), dir: Emanuel Pârvu

What it’s about: Revolves around a 17-year-old who is spending the summer in his home village in the Danube Delta wetlands region. One night, he is brutally attacked on the street, and the next day his world is turned upside-down. His parents no longer look at him as they did, and the seeming tranquility of the village starts to crack. 

Deadline’s take: “Parvu’s film becomes something like an emotional map of the community… The actors bring to these portraits the naturalistic ease combined with intensity that is a hallmark of Romanian New Wave cinema, each one a whole person with their own reasons.”

Director’s comment: “Why do people choose to attack always a minority?… It’s something we really must work on, we as human beings.”

Key awards/festivals: Premiered in Cannes, winning the Queer Palm and later taking Best Film at the Sarajevo festival and a European Film Award.

TOUCH (Iceland), dir: Baltasar Kormakur; U.S. Distributor: Focus Features

What it’s about: Widower Kristofer who, after receiving an early-stage dementia diagnosis at the outset of the pandemic, leaves behind his Reykjavik home hoping to solve the greatest mystery of his life. As a student in London five decades earlier, Kristofer had fallen in love with Miko, whose father owned the Japanese restaurant where they both worked. But at the height of their whirlwind affair, Miko abruptly vanished. As panic about the virus spreads around the world, Kristofer sets out to find his soulmate, resolving to follow her trail wherever it might lead— even back to Miko’s birthplace of Hiroshima — before his memories are lost forever in time.

Deadline’s take: “Kormákur’s film doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does have its little idiosyncrasies in a genre that can be very formulaic.”

Director’s comment: “I wasn’t looking for a love story… I had the idea it would be nice to do that one day, and kind of use that muscle a little bit and go into the feeling. When it came to me, it just felt, yeah, this is the kind of story I feel are missing in cinema.”

Key awards/festivals: Played Taormina and Sydney, set for Palm Springs

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, dir: Matthew Rankin; U.S. Distributor: Oscilloscope Laboratories 

What it’s about: In winter, somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg, Negin and Nazgol find a large sum of money frozen deep within the sidewalk ice and try to find a way to get it out. Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists upon an increasingly absurd walking tour of Winnipeg monuments and historic sites. Matthew leaves his job at the Québec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his estranged mother. Time, geography and identities crossfade, interweave and collide.

Director’s comment: “I encourage people to think of it as cinematic Venn diagramme between Winnipeg, Tehran and Montréal. It’s like a confluence of rivers. Or a Hawaiian pizza. It’s a crazy duck-billed platypus of a movie: one part lonesome Québécois cinéma gris, one part surreal Winnipeg puzzle film, one part Kanoon-style Iranian poetic realism, all three of which reflect and refract through the prism of each other.”

VERMIGLIO, dir: Maura Delpero; U.S. Distribution: Sideshow and Janus Films

What it’s about: A Sicilian deserter arrives in a remote village in the Italian Alps in 1944, changing the lives of the local teacher and his family forever.

Deadline’s take: “Technically, it is a marvel of period filmmaking, an immersive view of la vida rustica so bursting with authenticity that it may inspire more enthusiastic viewers to put on a folk hat and get a job in a heritage museum working the spinning jenny.”

Key awards/festivals: Winner of the Venice Silver Lion Grand Jury prize, it is also now nominated for a Golden Globe in the non-English feature race.

WAVES (Czech Republic), dir: Jiří Mádl

What it’s about: The drama follows Tomáš, a radio station employee who finds himself caught between the secret services and his revolutionary brother as the station broadcasts a confidential recording, forcing him to confront history head-on. The film embraces heroism in the face of an oppressive regime, the strength of fraternal ties and the themes of love, betrayal, morality and hope. 

Deadline’s take: “Stylistically, Mádl’s work harkens back to the handsome art cinema that used to come out of Eastern Europe before the Wall came down; at the same time, he is not afraid to roughen up proceedings with a camera that swings between faces during an argument or to break the flow with a jolting splash of slow motion. Most of all, he never lets us forget that everything we see here — absolutely everything in life – is at stake.

SPECIAL MENTIONS
Arzé (Lebanon)
Bauryna Salu (Kazakhstan)
Family Therapy (Slovenia)
The Last Journey (Sweden)
Take My Breath (Tunisia)
Under the Volcano (Poland)