New Delhi: Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound (2025) has advanced to the next round of voting in the International Feature Film category for the 98th Academy Awards. The film, starring Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor in primary roles, is now a step closer to the 2026 Oscars nominations. The Academy made the announcement on Monday, January 5, that 15 films from across the world have moved closer to the next voting round in the International Feature Film category. “Fifteen films advanced to the next round of voting in the International Feature Film category. Here’s where they land on the map…” it said in a post. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Academy (@theacademy)Belen (Argentina), The Secret Agent (Brazil), It Was Just an Accident (France), Sound of Falling (Germany), The President’s Cake (Iraq), Kokuho (Japan), All That’s Left of You (Jordan), Sentimental Value (Norway), Palestine 36 (Palestine), No Other Choice (South Korea), Sirat (Spain), Late Shift (Switzerland), Left-Handed Girl (Taiwan) and The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia), are the other films that have been shortlisted for the next round, apart from Homebound.Adapted from journalist Basharat Peer’s article, ‘Taking Amrit Home’ (2020), which appeared in the New York Times at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Homebound is a story of two young men – Chandan Kumar (Vishal Jethwa) and Mohammed Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) – two friends chasing a police job that promises dignity but are forced into migrant labour. They are abandoned by civil society and the state at the height of a virus outbreak, as they were forced to walk back to their villages for thousands of kilometres – during North India’s peak summer.In a review for The Wire, Tatsam Mukherjee wrote how, despite the heavy hand of censorship, the film managed to show the harsh ground realities of those who are marginalised. And that “…the ‘prestige’ of Ghaywan’s film lies in how it offers dignity to the two men’s life-stories, thereby making us empathise (and then crushing us) with their eventual tragic fate.”In another article, The Wire’s Deep Mukherjee drew a parallel with Ghaywan’s previous film, Masaan, and the “common string [that] tied the characters from the two films – the almost insurmountable wall of the grief of proverbial ordinary people.”The final nominations for the Academy Awards will be announced on Thursday, January 22.The Oscars 2026 will stream live on March 15 on ABC and Hulu. It will be hosted by Conan O’Brien, who hosted it last year too.