A Deep Dive Into the 2025 Oscar Shortlisted Short Films + Nomination Predictions

[@HollyHargreaves]

My kind of video. Thanks for making it🎉

[@sebado4]

Hi Matt, This is a great video. It's very informative. I also try to see all the movies from the Oscar race. I have seen 38 of the 45 shortlisted shorts. It's great to get someone else's perspective since most people skip the shorts. Animation shorts are my favourites. I attend the Ottawa International Animation Festival every year where I see all the shorts in competition. I also try to see all the qualified shorts for the Academy Awards. I wanted The Car that Came Back from the Sea to make the shortlist. At least, A Crab in the Pool, Maybe Elephants and Beautiful Men made it! These are the shorts that I can't find: Chasing Roo, Death by Numbers, Keeper, Once upon a Time in Ukraine, The Quilters, Anuja, Clodagh, The Ice Cream Man If you have any links or information on where I could see this, that would be great! Thanks, Sébastien

[@fantasyfilmball]

I really liked The Car That Came Back From the Sea! Would have been in my top 15 from what I viewed. For those films, I had to reach out directly to the filmmakers. So unfortunately, I don't have any advice on how to track them down. So sorry!

[@ezracampanelli7888]

You mention that the shorts voters can choose to skip films after 6 minutes. Is that in all 3 categories? How does this work? Are these at home screeners? Are they screened in alphabetical order? Would love to get some more insight into this…could make a difference in the race. Awesome that someone in covering these in detail! Some of the most fun categories to predict IMO.

[@fantasyfilmball]

So here's what I was told by my voter friend: When voters attend screenings of the short films (pre-shortlist), they are all given a buzzer. At the 6-minute mark in each short film, two small lights turn on at the side of the screen, and attendees can click the buzzer to indicate that they would like to skip the film. If 50% click their buzzer, the film will be over. This happens every 6 minutes, so for longer movies, they have another chance at 12, 18 and 24 minutes to skip to the next. I am unclear on whether this happens in post-shortlist screenings. On the Academy Screening Room, from what I gathered, you only need to view 30% of a film for it to count as a "view". However, because my friend always went to the screenings, he was firm with the 6-minute rule (and did opt to skip a handful). Also, every eligible voter is assigned a certain group of short films that they must view. There were 88 animated short films total this year, and everyone was assigned 45 (but were able to watch anything else that they wanted to). These were assigned alphabetically, so my voter friend and I watched everything from A-M.

[@ezracampanelli7888]

@ thanks so much for the detailed response. I can’t imagine they have an option to skip shortlisted films. That would be my guess

[@johnfriction4919]

Thanks for such a detailed video! I’m doing the Oscars Death Race and will look for some of the ones you liked - am waiting for the nominations to start watching the shorts seriously.

[@madrouter]

Room Taken was bizarre and your take on it was hilarious. I had the same feeling watching it. This shit's creepy af! I almost feel like they will nominate it. Oscars love dead animals as much as dead kids (or bullied ones) so I wouldn't be surprised if Crust or The Last Ranger made it in. An Orange from Jaffa title alone sounds like a nominee but maybe it's been there/done that. Clodagh could surprise. Nice video.

[@Choekaas]

Thanks for the rundown! I am working myself through most of them and agree with you on several of these, and you provide excellent arguments on why the stories could resonate with the Academy. agree with you on the themes and content of "A Swim Lesson", I still think that Rashida and Will are that strong that they can propel the popularity of this film. She's been a little bit more of a topic now, after the speech at the Governor's Award for the Honorary Oscar to Quincy Jones. This all creates clicks and buzz, so I think it's a puff piece that's still going to get nominated. I know that it doesn't always go that way. Pedro Almodóvar's short film with Pedro Pascal last year was not nominated, but I think it will. I'll try to make a prediction video later this week after the BAFTAs. I'm also gonna be "hope-dicting" Don Hertzfeldt although I could totally see it not being nominated :P

[@fantasyfilmball]

Another great point about A Swim Lesson is it could be compelling to nominate a film about an everyday hero in LA right now. An ordinary person who makes his community better in a small way. Last year my biggest miss was The Barber of Little Rock, which I didn't think would get a nomination for the same reasons I don't expect A Swim Lesson to (too small in the grand scheme of things), but it ended up getting a nomination. Could definitely see A Swim Lesson be my big miss this year.

[@cybotico_]

I really really hope A Lien gets the nomination

[@reallygoodname]

Having seen all 15 animated shorts, my predictions are: Wander to Wonder, Beautiful Men, A Crab in the Pool, Shadow of the Cypress and Yuck! I am thinking of switching Yuck! for Bear Named Wojtek. I found Wojtek a huge drag to watch, but I can't deny that if it gets nominated it will be the frontrunner. My worst nightmare is that The 21 gets nominated and suddenly becomes the favorite to win. As weird as it is, I kind of think Wander to Wonder has it in to win if Wojtek doesn't get nominated. My personal favorites were Beautiful Men, Wander to Wonder and Maybe Elephants. Also fun coincidence that I also had watched and loved Wereawolf too.

[@reallygoodname]

I have seen 12 of the Live action shorts (I have not seen Anuja, Clodagh or Ice Cream Man). From what I saw I was predicting: The Masterpiece, The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, An Orange From Jaffa, I'm Not a Robot and Paris 70. But after listening to your arguments, I will replace Paris 70 with Anuja. My personal favorites were The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent and An Orange From Jaffa.

[@latissimusdomsi]

Goat

[@moonfallfan6933]

What are tips for finding most of the short films? I’ve had a hard time finding most of them

[@fantasyfilmball]

This year I was lucky enough to be supplied with screeners for the films that weren't readily available. Unfortunately I don't really have any tips this year! Normally I have to get crafty, but this video gave me a good reason for filmmakers to send me their films. I recommend going to reddit.com/r/oscarsdeathrace and asking around. Lots of users on there will be able to supply you with films that you're missing.

[@FrakkinToasterLuvva]

Where can we see all these films, or at least some of them?

[@fantasyfilmball]

A bunch of them are on KZbin! Others are on Vimeo, PBS, or other online platforms. Check out reddit.com/r/oscarsdeathrace, as someone on there will have compiled all of the available links.

[@purekinema]

I've seen 21 of the 45 short films so far, but I still have no idea which films they will nominate. Most of the films were a 6/10 or 7/10 for me, and I don't feel like I have a good enough sense of their taste to split the hairs. Here are my personal rankings from favorite to least favorite. Documentary: 1. Instruments of a Beating Heart (Loved this film! Emotional and surprisingly intense and gave me a lot of food for thought on education) 2. A Swim Lesson 3. Incident (I love the approach of showing without editorializing, but at the end of the day they undermine this - they editorialize by skimming over and de-emphasizing the shot where the man seems to reach for his gun) 4. Seat 31 5. Planetwalker 6. Makayla's Voice (Easily the worst film of the 21 I've seen. I found it really funny that every time it shows the letter board, Makayla is pointing at letters that couldn't possibly spell anything. The so-called poems she's writing are obvious fakes. I would question the intelligence of the voting body if they fell for this scam. Even if they did fall for it, Makayla is sweet but the film is so basic.) Animated: 1. Me (the only one that stood out to me, an amazing philosophical sci-fi puzzle piece) 2. Origami 3. A Crab in the Pool 4. Wander to Wonder (I really don't think the Oscars will go for this one) 5. Goodbye My World 6. In the Shadow of the Cypress (something about it was inert and lifeless to me) Live action: 1. The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (I'm sickened by your minimization of the Bosnian genocide by comparing it to contemporary events in the West Bank of all places. You seem to be lacking historical and media literacy on a very basic level) 2. Crust 3. The Masterpiece 4. Room Taken 5. A Lien 6. An Orange from Jaffa 7. I'm Not a Robot 8. Dovecote 9. The Last Ranger