Room

Lenny Abrahamson's Room was the Irish director's first international breakout, made the year after his Sundance hit Frank. The screenplay was adapted by Emma Donoghue from her own 2010 Booker Prize-shortlisted novel of the same name, the rare case in which a novelist has held the screenplay credit for the major adaptation of her own bestselling book and won an Oscar nomination for it.

Brie Larson won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the central role; Jacob Tremblay, then nine years old, played her son Jack and was widely regarded as the year's most surprising acting discovery despite the Academy's no-child-nominee tradition. The film earned four Oscar nominations in total, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Cinematography is by Danny Cohen, who had shot The King's Speech; the score is by Stephen Rennicks.

Production was a four-country co-production between Ireland, Canada, the UK and the United States — Abrahamson worked with Element Pictures in Dublin and Toronto-based No Trace Camping. The film also led directly to Abrahamson directing Normal People for BBC and Hulu in 2020, with Element Pictures producing again. Room remains a touchstone in the recent history of Irish-led international film-making, alongside the work of Yorgos Lanthimos with the same producers.