Ranking the Oscar Nominated Shorts: 2012 - 2021

Welcome to a very special edition of the Best Animated Short blog. We are still a few weeks away from the Academy Award ceremony, where the Best Animated Short category has been relegated to second class status. Yet it is also the 90th year where the Academy has a category for Best Animated Short. Which means it's time for me to pull out an old favorite from when I was going back in time reviewing the nominated shorts: I'm going to rank the Oscar nominated films from the past 10 years by how much I enjoyed them.

If you've been reading my reviews over the past ten years you'll know that at the end of each review I rank the shorts by quality and by preference. However, both of these metrics are incredibly subjective, and quite frequently how much I enjoy a film goes a long way by how good I think it is. There are certainly times where I can recognize the artistry into a film I didn't really like, but they almost never claim the top spot in rankings by quality. Anyways, when I have to go back over the 50 short films that were nominated in the past ten years, I think it's easier to solely rank them by preference. That is what I did with my eight previous entries, and that is what I'm going to do here.

This edition is going to be different in certain ways from the eight previous rankings that predated this one. For those I had almost all of the films available to me in some fashion, and I was able to make those rankings every ten reviews, which usually took a few weeks. For these 50 films I had to wait for the Academy to announce their new sets of nominees, and to do that for ten years. That means a lot more time for my tastes to change and evolve than with my previous reviews, especially since there are several of these films that I haven't seen since I wrote the review in their respective years. I have watched all of the films again to make these rankings, so yes, there will be some discrepancies between my rankings in the individual reviews and this one. 

And also, just because a film is ranked low doesn't necessary mean I hated it. There are just that many more of the nominees I liked more than it. I think it is a testament to how well the Academy had been doing in formulating these nominees. It's just a shame that they would relegate this category to secondary status. Anyways, as in previous entries, I will be writing small blurbs about each film that will get longer and longer until they become mini-reviews. I hope you're getting all settled because here we go.

If Anything Happens I Love You Wins Best Animated Short

So, it sure seemed like it was only yesterday that I was hard at work trying to finish the review of the Best Animated Short nominees in advance of the Oscars tonight. Oh wait, it was yesterday. Where did all the time go?

Anyways, the Oscars have come and gone, and as most of us expected If Anything Happens I Love You walked away with the Best Animated Short Oscar. I was watching at a friend's house and didn't bring my computer so it's been a while since I was able to post this result. Nevertheless, it was a well deserved win for a strong film, and we can all go home knowing that the Oscars were perfect tonight and that there is absolutely nothing to complain about.

If only we were that lucky.

Best Animated Short - 2020

Doesn't it seem like forever since I wrote one of these reviews? Thanks to the delay in the Oscar ceremony, it's been 15 months since I wrote the review for the 2019 nominees. And of course there's the entire issue of 2020 being the longest year in people's lives given the problem with COVID and quarantine. But now the upcoming Oscar ceremony is finally upon us. While at times it seemed doubtful that I'd be able to get this review written, largely due to the fact that I was unable to get myself to a showing of the Best Animated Short nominees. (It always sucks to have to miss those showings, I like going even if I've seen all the nominees.) Yet one of the loyal readers of the blog (I'm surprised that those exist, considering my lack of a background in animation means my opinions are largely through a layman's eyes) came through with an assist, and I am finally able to present to you a review of the Best Animated Short nominees from the most difficult year in human history.

Best Animated Short - 2020 Nominees

As I'm sure you're all aware, the Academy Award was pushed back by over a month as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and so we are getting the nominations now in the middle of March, well after the previous Oscar ceremonies since I've started writing this blog nine years ago. Nevertheless, the nominees have finally arrived, and that means we will see who will contend for the chance to enter the echelons of greatness of being a Best Animated Short winner.

This year I had seen eight of the shortlisted films, since many of them are available on different streaming platforms. This was far greater than how much I usually get to see before nomination day, and if things go right, then I had a shot of having seen all the nominees by the time nominations were announced.

Things did not go right.