At this year’s Academy Awards, small movies are a huge deal. Heavy topics like PTSD, ethnic cleansing, the immigration system, and light topics like children with passion for music, kissing and performance are all competing for the Oscars of short films. Let’s take a look at candidates in the category of documentary shorts, animated shorts, and live-action shorts.
Documentary shorts
In recent years, the surge in platforms distributing short-themed documentaries has created an abundance of high-quality films packed with punch. This year’s five nominated short non-fiction documents stand out with their impressive, impactful, and exquisite storytelling.
Everyone is speculating about which film will bring home Little Goldman, but if the previous awards season means anything, Bill Morrison’s “The Incident” could be on the forefront. Speaking using police surveillance footage, Morrison provides a raw look on the Black Chicago police shooting. The New Yorker Film won the Cinema Eye honors in 2024 and the Best Short Documentary Award at the 2023 IDA Documentary Awards.
Emma Ryan Zamazaki’s “The Instrument of the Heart” won IDA’s best short trophy in 2024. The film is the New York Times about first-graders at Tokyo Public Elementary School, tasked with performing “Ode to Joy” for incoming students. The opening-docs version of Yamazaki’s long film, “The Making of a Japanes.” (In particular, Yamazaki edited “Black Box Diaries,” which was nominated for the Best Feature Doc Academy Award this year.)
In Netflix’s short story “The Only Girl in the Orchestra,” director Molly O’Brien highlights Geraum double bassist O’Rin O’Brien, the first woman hired by the New York Philharmonic. The document won the 2024 Critics Choice Documentary Award.
Smriti Mundhra’s “I Am Am Ready, Warden” and Kim A. Snyder’s “Death by Numbers” have not won the highest honors at the Major Award show. Both films debuted at the prestigious film festivals, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and Hamptons Intl. Each one continued to make a successful film festival – and the festival circuit.
In Mundhra’s Paramount+ Doc, “I Am Am Ready, Warden,” the director is a Texas man from Deathrow who spends his last days preparing a message to the victim’s son, saying goodbye to himself. Following John Henry Ramirez. Snyder’s 33-minute “Death by Death” documented the journey of Samantha Fuentes four years after being shot with an AR-15 while shooting at Parkland High School.
– Addie Morfoot
Death by numbers
Animated shorts
Oscar’s 2025 Animated Short Films category is one of the most open in years. Let’s take a closer look at this year’s race.
Perhaps the biggest winner in this category is Miyu, the French company behind the three candidates of the year. “Beautiful Men,” “Wander to Wonder,” “Yuck!”
Nicholas Köppens’ Beautiful Men, co-produced by Belgium-France Neraland, Beautiful Men, is an emotional stop-motion story about three bald brothers traveling to Istanbul for hair transplantation. I won a prize at Annessy.
Nina Gantz’s “Wonder to Wonder” plays like a dark alternative to “Toy Story.” Three sensory miniature TV characters are left in the studio, slowly crumbling after the creator dies. Six companies from four countries co-produced Stop Motion Shorts and won the Great Juju Award at SXSW last year.
“Yak!” director Loic Espuce turns on a group of kids who got gross when older peers start kissing in the park. Last year, a vibrantly coloured 2D short came as a surprise in Berlin, competing with live-action fares at short film competitions, and was nominated for two years in addition to an Oscar nod.
Last year, Yegane Moghaddam made history when her short “Our uniform” became the first Iranian candidate in the 2024 category history. It didn’t take long to repeat that feat this year, earning a nomination for Hossain Moreimi and Sirin, Sohani’s 2D short “Shadow of the Cypress,” about the captain suffering from PTSD.
Nishio Daisuke’s “magic candy” closes the field. The festival resume is small and there are no major awards yet, but the charming CG shorts cannot be overlooked. Produced by the giant Japanese TOEI animation (“SAILOR MOON”, “One Piece”), it tells the story of a boy who enjoys a fascinating bag of sweets before seeing the world in a new way.
– Jamie Lang
Anuja
Graves movie
Live action shorts
Tomorrow’s top filmmakers are often found in today’s Oscar’s live-action short category. Let’s take a closer look at the five titles that were nominated in 2025.
Adam J. Graves’ “Anuja” has some well-known support as Indian producers Guneet Monga Kapoor and Hollywood Heavywight Mindy Kaling are involved. Short won a live-action award at Holly Shorts last year for a talented 9-year-old girl working in an Indian clothing factory.
Victoria Warmerdam’s Dutch film “I’m Not A Robot” can easily be confused as one of the best episodes of “Black Mirror.” Its LO-FI SF Fi settings are so approachable and recognizable that it is almost unpleasant to see a woman reaching a shocking perception that she is a robot commissioned by her fiancé.
“The Last Ranger” is the second in a trilogy of filmmaker Cindy Lee’s shorts. The South African story follows a young girl in a magical visit to a wildlife sanctuary, horribly wrong when she and the park ranger accompanying her are ambushed by a poacher.
After winning the Palm d’Or in May, Nebojasli Jepcevic’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Keep Silence” is always destined for Oscar nominations, and certainly his favorite to win the award It will be one. It tells the true story of a man who stood up against the paramilitary forces in an ethnic cleansing operation in Belgrade.
David and Sam Cutler Kreuz quickly created their own names with their favourite shorts from a series of festivals. In late 2023, the duo debuted Oscar-nominated “A Lien.” This debuted a timely tale about a young couple navigating the mud of the US immigration system in their daughter’s rush to a very important green card hearing outdoors. They don’t fall in glory, but they have since released “Trapped,” where the world premiered on SXSW and won the best us at Palm Springs.
– Jamie Lang
