This year’s small films are very big Academy awardPTSDs, ethnic cleaning and heavy themes in the form of immigration system, and as light as music, children with a passion to kiss and perform are all short films for all short films OscarThere is a look at the nominees in the documentary shorts, animated shorts and live-action shorts categories.
Documentary shorts
In recent years, the proliferation of platforms distributed to small subjects documentaries has given rise to abundance of high quality films that pack a punch. Five nominated short nonfiction doors of this year stand out for their impressive and excellent story.
It is anticipated by anyone that the film will take Little Gold Man home, but if the previous award season means anything, Bill Morrison’s “event” could be one at the forefront. Using police surveillance footage, Morrison gave a raw look at the shooting of a black person to Chicago Police Shooting. The New Yorker film won the Best Short Documentary Award at 2024 Cinema Eye Honors and 2023 IDA Documentary Awards.
Emma Ryan Yamajaki’s “Instruments of a Beating Heart” received Ida Best Short Trophy in 2024. The film, a Tokyo Public Elementary School about the first grader, who has been tasked to showcase “Odd to Joy” for students, New York Times is Yamajaki’s long film, “The Making of a Japanese.” (In particular, Yamajaki edited “Black Box Diaries”, which was nominated for the best feature Doctor Academy Award this year.)
“The sole girl in the orchestra” at Netflix Short, director Molly O’Brien highly highlighted the groundbreaking to the first woman double basist Orin O’Brien. The doctor won the 2024 Critics Choice Documentary Award.
While Smriti Mundra’s “I Am Ready, Warden” and Kim A. Snider’s “Death By Numbers” has not earned any top honor at the Major Award show, both films started at the prestigious film festivals – Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and The Hampton Inteal. Film Festival, respectively – and the successful festival went to the circuit.
In Mundra’s Paramount+ Dock “I Am, Warden”, director John Henry Ramirez follows a Texas on Death Row, who spends a message for his victim’s son in his last days , While he is saying goodbye to himself. Four years after shooting with AR -15 during the shooting of Parkland High School, 33 minutes of snider “death toll
-AD Peacock
Death by number
Animated shorts
Oscar’s 2025 animated short film category is one of the most open in years. Here this year’s race is closely monitored.
Perhaps Miyu is the biggest winner in this category, behind the three nominees of this year French company: “Beautiful man,” “Wander to Wonder” and “Yak!”
Nicholas is a touch stop-motion story about “Beautiful Men”, a Belgian-France-Netherlands co-production, a touch stop-motion story about three bald brothers, who travel to Istanbul for hair transplant. It won a pair of awards in Annesey.
Nina plays a dark option for Gantz’s “Wander to Wonder” “Toy Story”, as three emotional short TV characters are left in the studio to decay gradually after their manufacturer’s death. Six companies in four countries co-produce a stop-motion short, which won the Grand Jury Award at SXSW last year.
“Yes!” The director is replaced by a group of children from Lo Espuche, who start kissing their older colleagues in a park. Last year, competition against live-action fare in the Vibrant-Kolard 2D short-short-short film competition in Berlin-and its Oscar node, was nominated for two animals.
Last year, Jegane Mogadam made history when her small “our uniform” became the first Iranian name in the category history in 2024. The country did not take a long time to repeat that feat this year. Sohani’s 2D short “The Shadow of the Saru Ki Chhaya” about a captain suffering from PTSD.
Daisuke Nishio’s “Magic Candies” got out of the ground. A small festival starts again and with no major awards yet, attractive CG short cannot be ignored. Built by Japanese legendary Toy Animation (“Seller Moon,” “One Peace”), it tells the story of a boy who looks at the world in new ways after enjoying a bag of fascinated sweets.
-Jami Lang
Anuja
Graws movies
Live-action shorts
Tumoro’s top filmmakers can often be found in the Oscar Live-Action Short category today. Here in 2025, there is a close watch on the five titles nominated.
Adam J. Graves’ “Anuja” has some big names, including Indian producer Gunat Monga Kapoor and Hollywood Heavyweight Mindi Kalinga. Small about a talented 9-year-old girl working in a garment factory in India, won the Live-Action Award in last year’s Holishorts.
Victoria Warmaradam’s Dutch film “I Am Not a Robot” can easily be confused as one of the best episodes of “Black Mirror”. Its low-Fi science-fi setting is so reliable and recognizable that it is almost uncomfortable to see because a woman feels shocking that she is a robot commissioned by her fiance.
“The Last Ranger” is the second in the proposed trilogy of Shorts from filmmaker Cindy Lee. The South African story follows a young girl on a magical journey of a wildlife reserve who goes badly wrong when she and the park ranger are ambushed by poachers with her.
After winning Palme D’Or, Neboja Slejpeviaq’s “The Man Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Huh will be one of the favorite for nomination. This tells the true story of a person who stood for paramilitary forces in an ethnic cleaning operation in Belgrade.
David and Sam Cutler-Kurutes are quickly making a name for themselves with a string of festival-pasandida shorts. At the end of 2023, both of them now started their Oscar-namine “a lionee”, a timely story about a young couple, which was navigating the Quality of the American Immigration System, because she was in her daughter’s in Tow Along with this, a highly important green card participates in the hearing. Not resting on his praise, he has also released “trapped”, which the world premiered in SXSW and won the best US short in Palm Springs.
-Jami Lang
