Oscars 2025: Kneecap shortlisted for best international feature film and best original song

Two Irish films, TJ O’Grady-Peyton’s Room Taken and Portia A Buckley’s Clodagh, land spots in the shortlist for best live-action short

Kneecap: the rappers have become central to the revival of the Irish language. Photograph: Peadar Ó Goill
Kneecap: the rappers have become central to the revival of the Irish language. Photograph: Peadar Ó Goill

Kneecap, the partly fictionalised biopic about the rise of the Irish rap group of the same name, has been shortlisted for the Academy Award for best international feature film. The shortlist of 15 films will become five when the final Oscar nominations are announced, on January 17th. The group also made the list for best original song, with Sick in the Head.

Two Irish films, TJ O’Grady-Peyton’s Room Taken, a tale of the homeless crisis, and Portia A Buckley’s Clodagh, following a young dancer and her aged mentor, landed spots in the list for best live-action short.

Room Taken follows a man, newly arrived in Ireland, as he moves in with an elderly blind woman and forms an emotional bond. Colin Farrell joined the project as an executive producer last month. “Room Taken is such a gentle cry to the power of human connection,” the actor said. “It treats loneliness and grief and the struggle of the immigrant with such a gentle hand, bringing its character and narrative threads together beautifully.”

Buckley’s film has been gathering acclaim on the festival circuit for months. “I’m half-Irish and I grew up in a rural community,” she told Muse recently. “We like to give the limelight to characters in that rural community that you wouldn’t necessarily see on screen.” Clodagh stars Bríd Ní Neachtain and Katelyn Rose Downey.

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Kneecap, largely in the Irish language, has, since its premiere at Sundance Film Festival, in January, been picking up rave reviews and much awards buzz. Their achievement caps a breakout year for the group – Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh (Mo Chara), Naoise Ó Cariealláin (Móglaí Bap) and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (DJ Próvaí) – who emerged from a DIY traditional-music, rave and Irish-speaking scene in west Belfast and have gone on to become central to the Irish-language revival.

The film, written and directed by Rich Peppiatt, and starring Kneecap as themselves alongside Michael Fassbender, Simone Kirby, Josie Walker, Fionnuala Flaherty and Jessica Reynolds, recently swept the British Independent Film Awards, winning in seven categories, including best British independent film.

In 2023 the Irish-language hit An Cailín Ciúin, coproduced by TG4, made history when it became the first Irish film to be nominated in that category.

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Speaking to The Irish Times on Tuesday, Ó Dochartaigh and Ó Hannaidh were laid back about being in Oscar contention, reminiscing about how much they enjoyed making the film. Regarding their impact on the Irish language, Ó Hannaidh said: “I don’t think we’re creating a movement. We’re building on what was already there around the Irish language revival in Belfast. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Kneecap: Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara on stage at Vicar Street in Dublin. Photograph: Tom Honan
Kneecap: Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara on stage at Vicar Street in Dublin. Photograph: Tom Honan

Ó Dochartaigh, who left his job as a schoolteacher following a disciplinary investigation into his membership of the group, said he is hugely moved by messages from Mexican fans who are now learning their own indigenous languages, having seen the film.

Last week, on assessing the film’s chances at going all the way to the Oscars, Variety’s London bureau chief, Alex Ritman, said the tide appeared to be turning on whether the group’s high-profile stance on Palestine would impede their popularity among Academy members. “Earlier in the year, insiders suggested that this could be a problem when it came to voters, especially those in the US,” he wrote, “but there’s now a belief among some that it could work the other way.”

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Of their activism on Palestine, Ó Hannaidh said: “If we’re even in the conversation for creating a space where people don’t have to sell out their values for awards, then that’s probably a good place to be. If the only way to win an award would be to scrap your beliefs, then I don’t want one.”

Kneecap has grossed about €4 million worldwide, won an audience award at Sundance, where it was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics and won three awards at Galway Film Fleadh, as well as recently being nominated for best foreign-language film at the Critics’ Choice Awards.

As for a message for the Academy, Ó Dochartaigh said: “If you want to repent for your sins, vote for Kneecap.”

Ireland has been punching above its weight in the international feature-film category (formally known as best foreign-language film) over the past decade. Paddy Breathnach’s Viva, a Spanish-language production, was shortlisted for the 2016 awards but failed to convert that nod into anything more. Two years ago Colm Bairéad’s An Cailín Ciúin made it all the way to the ceremony before losing to the blockbusting All Quiet on the Western Front.

The award honours films made outside the US predominantly in a language other than English. Each country is entitled to submit just one title. That film need not be in a native language of the nation. The Zone of Interest, the current holder, in German and Polish, was, for instance, submitted as the UK entry.

Kneecap has a better-than-decent chance of a final nomination in a year with few big hitters in the race. The runaway favourite looks to be Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, the French entry. That ambitious musical, about a Mexican drug kingpin who undergoes gender-affirming surgery, has been on the awards train since winning the jury prize and (for four of its performers) best actress at Cannes film festival last May.

It seems certain of a best-picture nomination. No film nominated both there and in best international film has ever lost the latter race. Other possible contenders include I’m Still Here, for Brazil, The Girl with the Needle, from Denmark, and The Seed of the Sacred Fig, for Germany (though essentially an Iranian production).

The competition will be tougher for nominations in best original song, where Kneecap will be up against big hitters such as Elton John, Robbie Williams, Lin-Manuel Miranda and the 15-time nominated Diane Warren. Also shortlisted is Winter Coat, by Nicholas Britell, Taura Stinson and Steve McQueen, which is sung by Saoirse Ronan in McQueen’s Blitz. Last year John Carney received two shortlistings in that category for Flora and Son, but neither converted into a nomination.

Shortlists in 10 categories were announced on Tuesday evening, with Oscar favourites such as Emilia Pérez and the hit musical Wicked picking up multiple mentions in technical races. The Academy Awards will be announced on March 3rd.

2025 Oscars shortlist

Documentary feature film
  • The Bibi Files
  • Black Box Diaries
  • Dahomey
  • Daughters
  • Eno
  • Frida
  • Hollywoodgate
  • No Other Land
  • Porcelain War
  • Queendom
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
  • Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
  • Sugarcane
  • Union
  • Will & Harper
Documentary short film
  • Chasing Roo
  • Death by Numbers
  • Eternal Father
  • I Am Ready, Warden
  • Incident
  • Instruments of a Beating Heart
  • Keeper
  • Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World
  • Once upon a Time in Ukraine
  • The Only Girl in the Orchestra
  • Planetwalker
  • The Quilters
  • Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr
  • A Swim Lesson
  • Until He’s Back
International feature film
  • Brazil: I’m Still Here
  • Canada: Universal Language
  • Czech Republic: Waves
  • Denmark: The Girl with the Needle
  • France: Emilia Pérez
  • Germany: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
  • Iceland: Touch
  • Ireland: Kneecap
  • Italy: Vermiglio
  • Latvia: Flow
  • Norway: Armand
  • Palestine: From Ground Zero
  • Senegal: Dahomey
  • Thailand: How to Make Millions before Grandma Dies
  • United Kingdom: Santosh
Make-up and hairstyling
  • The Apprentice
  • Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
  • A Different Man
  • Dune: Part Two
  • Emilia Pérez
  • Maria
  • Nosferatu
  • The Substance
  • Waltzing with Brando
  • Wicked
Music (original score)
  • Alien: Romulus
  • Babygirl
  • Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
  • Blink Twice
  • Blitz
  • The Brutalist
  • Challengers
  • Conclave
  • Emilia Pérez
  • The Fire Inside
  • Gladiator II
  • Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
  • Inside Out 2
  • Nosferatu
  • The Room Next Door
  • Sing Sing
  • The Six Triple Eight
  • Wicked
  • The Wild Robot
  • Young Woman and the Sea
Music (original song)
  • Forbidden Road, from Better Man
  • Winter Coat, from Blitz
  • Compress/Repress, from Challengers
  • Never Too Late, from Elton John: Never Too Late
  • El Mal, from Emilia Pérez
  • Mi Camino, from Emilia Pérez
  • Sick in the Head, from Kneecap
  • Beyond, from Moana 2
  • Tell Me It’s You, from Mufasa: The Lion King
  • Piece by Piece, from Piece by Piece
  • Like a Bird, from Sing Sing
  • The Journey, from The Six
  • Triple Eight Out of Oklahoma, from Twisters
  • Kiss the Sky, from The Wild Robot
  • Harper and Will Go West, from Will & Harper
Animated short film
  • Au Revoir Mon Monde
  • A Bear Named Wojtek
  • Beautiful Men
  • Bottle George
  • A Crab in the Pool
  • In the Shadow of the Cypress
  • Magic Candies
  • Maybe Elephants
  • Me
  • Origami
  • Percebes
  • The 21
  • Wander to Wonder
  • The Wild-Tempered Clavier
  • Yuck!
Live action short film
  • Anuja
  • Clodagh
  • The Compatriot
  • Crust
  • Dovecote
  • Edge of Space
  • The Ice Cream Man
  • I’m Not a Robot
  • The Last Ranger
  • A Lien
  • The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent
  • The Masterpiece
  • An Orange from Jaffa
  • Paris 70
  • Room Taken
Sound
  • Alien: Romulus
  • Blitz
  • A Complete Unknown
  • Deadpool & Wolverine
  • Dune: Part Two
  • Emilia Pérez
  • Gladiator II
  • Joker: Folie à Deux
  • Wicked
  • The Wild Robot
Visual effects
  • Alien: Romulus
  • Better Man
  • Civil War
  • Deadpool & Wolverine
  • Dune: Part Two
  • Gladiator II
  • Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
  • Mufasa: The Lion King
  • Twisters
  • Wicked