The cast of actors and artists who star in the Booker Prize 2025 shortlist films have been revealed in a trailer for the highly anticipated series of shorts, posted on the Booker Prizes’ social media channels.
The new films showcase the six books shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, the world’s most significant award for a single work of fiction. The line-up of critically acclaimed actors and artists from film, television, stage, music and poetry who perform extracts from the nominated titles are: BAFTA Cymru-winning actor Gabrielle Creevy (The Guest, In My Skin, Black Doves, Three Women); Olivier Award-winning actor Rory Kinnear (Bank of Dave, The Imitation Game, Black Mirror, James Bond films Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre); actor Shazad Latif (Atomic, Magpie, What’s Love Got To Do With It, Toast of London); BAFTA-winning actor and writer Katherine Parkinson (Rivals, Humans, Doc Martin, The IT Crowd); Mercury Prize and BRIT award-winning singer-songwriter and poet Arlo Parks; and the multi-award-winning musician, publisher, philanthropist, and actor Stormzy.
The films will be released in full from 2pm BST on Wednesday, 8 October 2025 on the Booker Prizes’ website (thebookerprizes.com) and social channels (@thebookerprizes). They are directed by Sasha Nathwani, an award-winning writer-director whose critically acclaimed debut feature Last Swim premiered at the 2024 Berlinale, where it was awarded the Crystal Bear. The shortlist films will also be shown at the Booker Prize 2025 ceremony on Monday, 10 November at Old Billingsgate, London.
The Booker Prize Foundation has created multiple series of six two-minute films featuring well-known actors and artists for its two annual prizes since 2022. The films, released in spring and autumn, have become one of the highlights of the Booker Prize and International Booker Prize seasons, with the 2024 films viewed online more than 83 million times. The films produced for the Booker Prize 2022, directed by Kevin Thomas, won the Culture category of The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA 2023.
Previous featured performers include: Dua Lipa, Will Poulter, Jason Isaacs, David Harewood, Eleanor Tomlinson, David Jonsson, Anna Friel, Jarvis Cocker, Michelle de Swarte, Caitriona Balfe, Adelayo Adedayo, Paterson Joseph, Aisling Bea, Alfred Enoch, Adjoa Andoh, Tobias Menzies, Tanya Reynolds, Ambika Mod, Omari Douglas, Lucy Boynton and Peter Serafinowicz.
The six Booker Prize 2025 shortlisted books and the actor/artists reading the extracts are as follows:
- Flashlight by Susan Choi – read by Gabrielle Creevy
- The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai – read by Shazad Latif
- Audition by Katie Kitamura – read by Katherine Parkinson
- The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits – read by Rory Kinnear
- The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller – read by Arlo Parks
- Flesh by David Szalay – read by Stormzy
Sasha Nathwani, Director, said:
‘The Booker Prize celebrates some of the most powerful and imaginative writing being published today. When I was invited to direct this year’s shortlist films, I wanted to create a space where the intimacy of the readings could breathe. Each actor/artist was invited to settle into their chair, take their time, and draw out the emotion in each extract, letting us feel, for a few moments, as if we were being told a beautifully poignant story, just for us.
‘Working with such a remarkable cast has been deeply rewarding. Each performance became its own living portrait, which we then wove together with abstract, choreographed black and white visuals echoing the themes of the books. My hope is that these films feel both intimate and cinematic, a celebration of literature, performance, and the human experience that inspires them.’
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, said:
‘It’s now three years since we started producing these shortlist films, featuring many of the UK’s leading performers. That first year, 2022, we were thrilled that the films were viewed a million times on our social channels. Two years on, they were viewed over 80 million times, a figure we’d barely dreamed of. In that time, every comment has reinforced the fact that the people who’ve watched these films have been inspired to read the books as a result.
‘We are absolutely delighted to have another stellar cast for this year’s Booker Prize shortlist films, to bring the words of the shortlisted writers closer to the widest possible audience. These performers, from a breadth of artistic disciplines, are no strangers to prizes themselves: among them they have won the Mercury Prize, BAFTAs and BIFAs, an Olivier Award and an Evening Standard Theatre Award, and have been nominated for countless others, including a Grammy.
‘In Sasha Nathwani we have an extraordinary director who brings a feature film lens to the process, and who responded both to the extracts and to the actors with sensitivity and style. I can’t wait for people to see these films and hear the writers’ words brought to life.’
This is the second time that the Booker Prizes have partnered with Schedule Nine Productions to produce the films. Led by Nikki Isbell, Schedule Nine thrives on collaboration, working with visionary creatives to deliver captivating content that resonates with wide-ranging audiences. The executive producer for this year’s Booker Prize films is Jonathan Davenport, who has overseen the previous six sets of shortlist films for the Booker Prizes.
The shortlist films are part of a tradition of Booker Prize adaptations. More than 74 books that have been longlisted or shortlisted for the Booker or International Booker Prize have been adapted for the big or small screen over the years, with several going on to win Oscars, BAFTAS and Emmys. They range from The Remains of the Day to Atonement, Normal People to The Handmaid’s Tale, Wolf Hall to Life of Pi, True History of the Kelly Gang to The Line of Beauty, The Underground Railroad to Small Things Like These, Hurricane Season to Elena Knows, and in the last year, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Harvest, and Hot Milk.
The Booker Prize has rewarded and celebrated world-class talent for over 50 years, shaping the canon of 20th and 21st century literature. This year’s selection, which was chosen from ‘the Booker Dozen’ of 13 titles, selected from 153 submissions, celebrates the best works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025. The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500, a specially bound edition of their book, and gain global readerships and an increase in profile and sales.
For the first time, the shortlist was announced by the judges at a public event, held at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London. During the evening event the judges, in conversation with Booker Prize Foundation Chief Executive Gaby Wood, revealed what it is like to judge one of the world’s most significant literary awards, and why each book earned its place on the 2025 shortlist. The event also featured actors Louise Brealey (Sherlock, Back, Such Brave Girls) and Alfred Enoch (Harry Potter films, How to Get Away with Murder, The Couple Next Door) reading unpublished judges’ correspondence from the Booker Prize archive, as well as excerpts from the shortlisted books.
The Booker Prize 2025 ceremony will take place on the evening of Monday, 10 November at Old Billingsgate in London and will be broadcast in a special edition of BBC Radio 4’s flagship arts programme Front Row at 9.30pm. The ceremony will be livestreamed on the Booker Prizes’ social channels. The winner will receive £50,000, a trophy named Iris (after 1978 winner Iris Murdoch) and can expect their career to be transformed.
