Room (2015)

Not only did Brie Larson win her Oscar for her role as Ma, but Jacob Tremblay, who plays her son, Jack, won a Saturn Award and was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for his portrayal of the five-year-old boy who has lived his life in captivity and never known anything different.

Based on the bestselling novel by Emma Donughue, this deeply moving film tells the story of Ma, who has been held in a single room by her abductor for years. She and Jack pass their time by exercising, singing and playing, with a skylight their only access to the outside world. Ma is everything to Jack, and he has no idea that there is a world outside Room.

But Ma is resourceful, and plans their escape – and once they’ve broken out, Jack realises that the world does not consist of just him, Ma and the man who used to visit at night. The world is big, and frightening, and Ma can’t be with him all the time anymore.

Reel Talk Online writes, “I remain struck by both the simplicity and tenderness of the narrative that is haunted by a deep tragedy”, and Complex says, “Room takes a nightmarish premise in an impossibly contained set and turns it into one of this year’s most emotionally poignant films.”