Seven Arab regions have selected the films that will represent them in the Best International Feature Film category at the 2027 Academy Awards.
The entries from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine span horror, family drama, social realism and political history. Their subjects range from the legacy of Algeria’s civil conflict and Lebanon’s financial crisis to the battle against ISIS in Iraq, the treatment of Moroccan seasonal workers in Spain and daily life during the war in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia and Tunisia both opened selection processes for this year’s race, but neither has publicly announced an entry following the academy's September 30 submission deadline.
The 15-film shortlist will be announced on December 15, followed by the five final nominees on January 21. The 99th Academy Awards will take place in Los Angeles on March 14, 2027.
This year, Tunisia reached the final five with Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, after a record four Arab films made the 15-film shortlist. Alongside The Voice of Hind Rajab, the shortlisted films for 2026 were Iraq’s The President’s Cake, Palestine’s Palestine 36 and Jordan’s All That’s Left of You. Ben Hania’s film ultimately became the only one of the four to reach the final nominations.
Here are the Arab films to know for 2027.
Furies: Lebanon
Lebanon has selected Rami Kodeih’s Furies, a heist thriller inspired by the country’s banking crisis.
The film follows sisters Maro and Dalia, who plan to break into a bank to recover their own savings after they are unable to access the money, partly to pay for Dalia’s life-saving surgery.
Kodeih and his wife and co-writer, Nora Mariana, told The National that the premise grew out of their own experience after Mariana needed surgery, but was unable to access savings held in a Lebanese bank.
Furies, Kodeih’s first feature, has its premiere in the Venezia Spotlight section of this year’s Venice Film Festival, and is backed by George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s Smokehouse Pictures.
Lebanon’s selection committee chose the film unanimously.
Roqia: Algeria
Algeria has selected Yanis Koussim’s Roqia, a horror film rooted in the country’s violence during the 1990s.
The film centres on an ageing raqi – a spiritual healer – who is living with Alzheimer's disease, alongside an amnesiac man who returns to his village. Moving between the 1990s and the present, it connects supernatural horror with memories of Algeria’s civil conflict.
Koussim told The National that the story was informed by his own memories of growing up during the period and by research into roqia.
His first feature, Roqia had its premiere in the Critics’ Week section of the Venice Film Festival in 2025.
Algeria has previously received five nominations in the category, winning for Z in 1970.
No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman: Iraq
Iraq has selected No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman, an action drama by Kurdish-Norwegian filmmaker Halkawt Mustafa.
The Kurdish-language film follows Vyan, a sniper who has learnt to suppress her emotions after years of war. When she discovers that her younger sister, believed to have disappeared during a 2014 ISIS assault, may still be alive, she returns to Mosul to find her.
Mustafa has said the film was inspired by Kurdish women who fought ISIS and by his encounters with women Peshmerga fighters on the front line in 2014.
Starring Kurdish actress Avan Jamal and Norwegian actor Thorbjorn Harr, the film is scheduled to have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week, where it is screening in the Venice Open section, out of competition.
The film is a Norway-Iraq-UAE-Sweden co-production, giving this year's Iraqi submission a UAE connection.
It is Mustafa's second film to represent Iraq at the Oscars, following El Clasico in 2016.
La Mas Dulce: Morocco
Morocco will be represented by Laila Marrakchi's La Mas Dulce, also known internationally as Strawberries.
The film follows Hasna and Meriem, two young Moroccan women who travel to Andalusia to work as seasonal strawberry pickers in the hope of improving the lives of their families.
They instead encounter exploitation, harassment and poor working conditions, eventually facing the decision of whether to speak out against those employing them.
The film had its premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in May. Marrakchi has said the project developed after she learnt about Moroccan women working in Spain's strawberry industry and travelled there to understand their experiences.
Morocco's selection committee chose La Mas Dulce unanimously on September 2, citing its subject, technical and artistic qualities, as well as its distribution prospects. It was selected from four films under consideration.
The film marked Marrakchi's return to Cannes two decades after Marock, her 2005 debut about young people in Casablanca, and followed her 2013 feature Rock the Casbah.
Citizen Osama: Palestine
Palestine has chosen Ahmed Hassouna's documentary Citizen Osama, filmed in northern Gaza during the war.
The 69-minute film follows Osama Al-Ashi, a former artistic photographer who becomes a war documentarian, recording the devastation around him while trying to protect his wife and newborn child.
The film has already emerged as one of the Palestinian highlights of this year's Venice Film Festival line-up. When the programme was announced in July, Citizen Osama was one of two Palestinian features selected, alongside Muayad Alayan's Conversation With the Sea.
It had its world premiere at Venice earlier this month, screening out of competition.
Moving between Al-Ashi's work and his family life, the documentary offers an intimate account of survival in northern Gaza amid hunger, loss and displacement.
Palestinian Minister of Culture Imad Hamdan announced the Oscar selection on August 31 following a recommendation by an independent committee of film professionals.
The selection makes Citizen Osama Palestine's 19th submission in the category since 2003.
The Stories: Egypt
Egypt has selected The Stories, a 2025 semi-autobiographical anthology drama written and directed by Abu Bakr Shawky.
It follows the cross-cultural romance between an aspiring Egyptian pianist and an Austrian woman, tracing their lives against the backdrop of Egypt from the late 1960s to the 1980s.
The cast includes Nelly Karim, Ahmed Kamal, Amir El Masry, Sabry Fawaz, Amr Abed, Sherif El Desouky and Ahmed El Azaar.
The film was selected after two rounds of voting by Egypt's selection committee, which considered 36 films produced between September 2025 and September 2026.
It is the second time Egypt has selected a film by Shawky in the category, after Yomeddine in 2018.
Sink: Jordan
Jordan has chosen Zain Duraie’s Sink as its submission.
The drama stars Clara Khoury as Nadia, a mother struggling to respond as her teenage son, Basil (Mohammed Nizar), experiences a worsening mental health crisis.
Duraie has described the film as deeply personal and said she wanted to explore mental health through a Jordanian family rather than the kinds of stories Arab filmmakers are often expected to tell internationally.
Sink, Duraie’s first feature, had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025, and was later screened at the BFI London and Red Sea film festivals.
The Royal Film Commission said Jordan's selection committee made the choice independently.
