Oscars 2025 nominations: Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light fails to make the cut

All We Imagine As Light premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, breaking a three-decade-long cold streak for Indian films by being selected in the official competition section. Kapadia won the festival’s second-biggest honour, the Grand Prix.

Starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam, All We Imagine As Light traces the lives of three women working at a small hospital in Mumbai. The film examines themes of loneliness and female ambition, and has emerged as one of the most-acclaimed movies of 2024. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, All We Imagine As Light is one of the rare movies to hold a perfect 100% score. In her review for the Indian Express, Shubhra Gupta praised Payal Kapadia’s “deceptively gentle observational style punctuated by sharply delivered home truths.”

Also read: All We Imagine As Light: On Mumbai’s trains, the small, warm world of women

During its wondrous awards season run, All We Imagine As Light has picked up scores of accolades across the world. It was named as one of the top five international films by the National Board of Review, and earned two nominations at the Golden Globes. It was also nominated at the British Independent Film Awards, and at the BAFTAs. Kapadia was also nominated at the Directors’ Guild of America honours, while the film has received accolades from several critics’ bodies in the United States.

All We Imagine As Light attracted controversy after it was overlooked as India’s official selection in the Best International Feature category by the Film Federation of India. Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies was selected instead, failing to make the December shortlist. Like RRR in 2022, All We Imagine As Light has prospered despite this setback. The movie is available to stream on Disney+ Hotstar.

Oscars 2025 will take place on Monday morning, March 3, India time.