The 2025 Golden Globes feature an impressive selection of nominees for Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language, highlighting global storytelling. Here’s an overview of the nominees
1. All We Imagine as Light (India)
This is an experiment in the exploration of the dramatic essence of the narrative through the use of visual poetics in the contemporary Indian societies where the issues of memory, identity, and societal expectations have risen as problems. It is very clear that the characters have dreams and aspirations, and they wouldn’t like to give up on them. On the other hand, we are confronted with the social situation and human conditions that the characters are going through in their respective worlds.
2. Emilia Pérez (Mexico/France)
This one tells a journey of discovering one’s own soul with a good deal of humor, a slight touch of surrealism, and good music. The multiple manifestations of gender identity and the shifts in personal identity across varied cultural spaces are expressed through the audio and the visual abolition of the gender binary in the movie, mastered by the protagonist’s perfect embodiment of a drag queen. The dynamic performances and the impeccable setting only supplemented the story, which highlighted the importance of gender equality and personal transformation. Moreover, most of the characters are grounded in the Mexican cultural tradition.
3. The Girl with the Needle (Demnark)
The historical drama was a film that was directed by Magnus von Horn, and its setting was the post-World War I Copenhagen. After becoming pregnant, the story features Karoline, a young factory worker, who finds it difficult to support herself. Her situation, though, changes when she is offered assistance by an older lady, Dagmar. Dagmar, who secretly operates an adoption agency, helps out struggling women. She does this at a candy shop, which is supposed to be a front for the agency. Allegedly, she is offering support to mothers who, like Karoline, can no longer look after their kids and she helps them place these kids in foster care. But, when Karoline gets to know Dagmar better, she realizes the truth that she feared.
4. I’m Still Here (Brazil)
I’m Still Here (2024) is a Brazilian political drama that was directed by Walter Salles and it is based on the memoir of Marcelo Rubens Paiva. The plot revolves around Eunice Paiva, played by Fernanda Torres, and her emotional development after 1971 when her husband Rubens Paiva went missing during the military dictatorship in Brazil. The film follows the main character’s journey through multiple time periods and, therefore, depicts the trauma faced by political repression on families.
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany)
A very touching storyline about The Sacred Fig Seed film was created by Iranian protests against the suicide of Mahsa Amini in 2022. Others close to the loss of the Mahsa Amini witness the effects of their personal lives of the family in Tehran due to the revolutionary protests and the justice system. In particular Iman as a judge, and his wife and daughters are the main characters.
6. Vermiglio (Italy)
The Italian drama “Vermiglio” (2024) directed by Maura Delpero, set in 1944 in a remote mountain village. It is a story that introduces Pietro who is on the run, comes to the schoolteacher’s house, and when he falls in love with his oldest daughter, he ends up changing the course of their lives. The cast of the movie was made up of Giuseppe De Domenico, Tommaso Ragno, and Martina Scrinzi. The film was premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival and received the Grand Jury Prize, also it was chosen as Italy’s entry for the Best International Feature Film category of the 97th Academy Awards.
