Best Animated Short - 2025: Winner

 Well, it's that night, the night of the Academy Awards!

To be honest, even though 2025 had been a fantastic year for movies, I hadn't really taken part in much of it. Sure, I watched all of the Best Animated Short nominees, but of the other major categories the only film I saw was Best Picture co-favorite One Battle After Another. I didn't even watch Sinners yet. I also haven't even seen the Best Animated Feature favorite Kpop Demon Hunters. It certainly is a dramatic change over 2012 when I saw eight of the ten Best Picture nominees before the ceremony. 

Oh well, it's not like it matters because of my work schedule I won't be able to actually watch the ceremony. But you know I'll be watching updates to find out what is going to win the one category that truly matters to me. And this year it is...

Best Animated Short - 2025

Procrastination is such a pain, huh? It's been over a month since the nominations were announced, and I had to delay writing the review because of the fact that I hadn't seen all of the nominees. However, when I did watch The Three Sisters I didn't go rushing to write this review. Sure, there were a lot going on in my life such as potentially having to move while transitioning from a day shift job to a night shift job to having a pony convention to driving to Arizona for spring training. And maybe parts of me was still bummed out that films such as Éiru and Snow Bear were snubbed, and another part of me was dreading just how long and detailed my reviews have gotten. But all of those are just excuses, and if I really cared about the Best Animated Short category then I would find the time to sit down and write down what I think about these films.

And so with it being less than a month until the Oscar ceremony I figure it's finally time for met to get this review out of the way. Better late than never, right?

Best Animated Short - 2025: The Nominees

A few years ago the Baseball Hall of Fame moved their announcements from the first week of January to around the third week of January. I have no idea why they did it and it kinda annoyed me. However, I had noticed that the Hall of Fame announcement is now just a day or two before the Oscar nominations announcement, and I suppose it's nice to not have to wait long before the end of the Hall of Fame season and the Oscar season. Well two days ago the Hall of Fame announced that Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones are the two newest Baseball Hall of Famers, and today we have our newest batch of Oscar nominees.

And thanks to a couple of loyal readers (with a special shoutout to Sean Ramsdelk and Fernando Lemon), I was motivated to watch more shortlisted films prior to the unveiling of the nominees than ever before, with a whopping 13 of the 15 nominees checked off. So obviously, it means that one of the nominees would be the two that I'm missing. Which is just as well, because with how long it takes for me to write each review it'll give me a little bit more time to write the review for the four that I have seen. Anyways, your newest nominees are

Forevergreen
The Girl Who Cried Pearls
Papillon (Butterfly)
Retirement Plan
The Three Sisters

Best Animated Short - 2025: The Shortlist

I'm going to be completely honest, for the past several years every time the Oscars wrap up and I write the post looking back at the winner, I don't think about the upcoming Best Animated Short category until the shortlist drops. It's not like in the early days of this blog when I made a post about all of the qualifying films. So even when outlets like Cartoon Brew are profiling as many of the films that have earned qualification status, I don't really pay attention and rigorously look up the films, at least not until the shortlist drops and I'll only have 15 films to write about, instead of the 113 that Cartoon Brew reported had qualified.

And of course for the past several years the shortlist just happened to drop right before I have to make the drive from Texas to Virginia where I would be spending the holidays with my family. And I don't have time to make this post until after I arrive, which is usually a day or two after the shortlist is announced. And so by the time I make this post, there are other outlets that preview the shortlisted films much better than I ever could, such as Animation Magazine. But this is the Best Animated Short blog darn it so I'm going to write about these films anyways.

Anyways, because I don't go to film festivals to watch animated short, nor do I work in the animation industry so I don't feel that I would qualify for the Animation Showcase that has most of these films on streaming. This means the only way I have to watch these films in full is if I can find them online, or if I can go to one of the screenings of nominees when they happen. Right now there appears to be four that are on YouTube, and one more that is available Vimeo on Demand. I don't feel like paying for the Vimeo on Demand film yet, so that means there are four I've seen. In the following profiles I'll keep from writing my full thoughts on the four I've seen, saving them for a full review if they are nominated.

Anyways, this intro has gone on for long enough, so here we go, the 15 shortlisted films:

Best Animated Short - 2024: The Winner!

Well, last night was the Academy Awards ceremony honoring the films from the 2024 film year (even though every other resource will call it the 2025 Oscars because of when the ceremony happened). Unfortunately I was unable to watch any second of it, as I was making a long distance drive from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Glendale, Arizona where I'll be staying in watching baseball spring training. But believe me I was keeping abreast of the winners whenever I can. And for the most part, it seems that most of the winners were what pundits were expecting. The categories that were the biggest surprise, it seems, were the animation categories.

Early on in the season it seemed that Flow was an early favorite for Best Animated Feature, winning a few critics prizes. But then The Wild Robot came steamrolling onto the scene, winning award after award and sweeping the Annies. It got to the point where most people thought that The Wild Robot was a lock, since it was after all a brilliant film despite being a big budget studio film. And yet when the dust settled on Oscars night, the winner turned out to be: Flow! 

And then there was Best Animated Short...

Best Animated Short - 2024

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since the Oscar nominations were announced, and while most people have been trying to work up the courage to sit through Emilia Perez to complete their viewing of Best Picture nominees, I've been on the hunt for the Best Animated Short nominees, just as I have been every year since I started focusing on this category all the way back in 2007. Besides the two that I found before the Oscar nominations were even announced I managed to come across Beautiful Men and Beurk! through Vimeo on Demand. Unfortunately I had not had the same success with Magic Candies which means I had to go to a showing to complete the set. 

But now that it's happened, I'm ready to work on my review. Which to be honest is something I'm a bit hesitant to do. These reviews have become quite time-consuming and labor-intense. It's not like my reviews from over a dozen years ago looking back at old studio films or shorter independent shorts. With these reviews I often try to get into the filmmaker's mindset before offering my own interpretation, and that often means a lot of research into interviews done with the creators. And with the films becoming much more intricate (a phenomenon referenced in an editorial on Cartoon Brew), it becomes a lot harder to get all of my thoughts organized. And with operating on a time crunch it means by the end I often feel that what I'm writing is incoherent, as I did with last year's review. 

But alas, I have seen and reviewed every single nominated film in this category dating back to 1932 (with the obvious exception of Rippling Romance). And so I must soldier on and provide my thoughts on the five newest addition to the Oscar nominated animated short lineup, a number that now totals 398!

Best Animated Short - 2024: The Nominees

Well it's been over a month since I drove back to my parents' in Virginia, and over a month since the shortlist for the upcoming Oscars were revealed. It's been so long that I've gone and completed the AMPS trio in my other blog. The Oscar nominees were supposed to have already been announced but were delayed due to the terrible California wildfires. But the day has finally arrived where we find out what the new addition to the Best Animated Short lineup will be. And as you might have already been able to tell from the header, the films are:

Beautiful Men
Beurk! (Yuck!)
In the Shadow of the Cypress
Magic Candies
Wander to Wonder

Best Animated Short - 2024: The Shortlist

It's that time of year again, huh? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the shortlist for selected categories on December 17, and we have a new list of 15 titles that still have a chance to receive the coveted honor of being named the Best Animated Short of the year at the Oscars. Normally I'd write about these shortlisted films as soon as possible after the shortlist's release, but for the third straight year I had to do some traveling after the shortlist's reveal, and didn't have time to put in the research necessary to write about the films because once again I didn't pay attention to any festivals or anything so I knew very little about the titles. Two years ago I neglected to even write about the shortlist but I figure nowadays I ignore this blog in between awards season so I figure I should write something.

According to the press release there were 88 films that achieved eligibility through festivals or theatrical releases. I don't think the Academy released the full list of films that have been eligible although sites like Cartoon Brew has certainly tried to compile lists of potential competitors, and some lists of eligible films have been leaked. As such, I have no idea what are considered snubs. But taking a look at these titles it does appear that the Academy has continued their recent habit of avoiding populist titles such as Once Upon a Studio last year. But what did make the cut, in the fourth straight year that the Academy has expanded the shortlist to 15? I'm not going to do an in-depth analysis of each of these films because the majority of them are only available as trailers but I do hope I will write enough for a basic understanding of what each film is like.

War is Over! Wins Best Animated Short

 

Well, the Oscars are tonight, and I can't watch it because I'm busy working my day job. However, I did see that Best Animated Short is one of the first categories being presented. And of course it went to War is Over!, the anti-war short film inspired by the music if John and Yoko. It's not too surprising, as it coalesced into the favorite over the past few weeks from its star-powered beginning and its noble message, and its connections to Pixar through director Dave Mullins. I've seen some really scathing reviews of this film and its over-simplified message. I even saw a list that ranked War is Over! as the 53rd best film nominated for an Oscar...out of 53...yeah, they really hated it.

I didn't hate War is Over! as much some of those other reviewers, but I do feel that it would be one of the weaker winners in this category. The anti-war message is delivered with very little subtlety and is extremely shallow. Especially when compared to some of the other nominees. Also I'm very annoyed that there is no way to get the film online, which means my digital collection of Oscar nominated animated shorts is missing an important entry. Alas, I have come to accept the inevitability of War is Over! winning, which it naturally did. 

But then Hayao Miyazaki won Best Animated Feature for Kimi-tachi wa dou Ikiru ka? (That's The Boy and the Heron for you non-weeaboos) and maybe things aren't so bad after all. Anyways, I'll give an overview of the rest of the ceremony once it's done.

Best Animated Short - 2023

It's been over a month since the release of the nomination list for the 2023 Oscars (because I have always believed that the Oscars year should refer to the year the films being celebrated were released), and I have been waiting to see if two of the five Best Animated Short nominees were ever going to appear online. I mean there was the Animation Showcase website that an anonymous commenter mentioned that had Our Uniform, but when I went to sign up the website said it was for industry professionals which kind of made me spooked, because I am definitely not in the animation industry. I am more of a freelance writer if anything. 

So it was down to searching constantly for Our Uniform or War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko. Of course, those searches have always been fruitless, so it came down to having to do something that I hadn't done since the 2018 Oscars, which is going to a showing of the animation shorts. While there were more theaters doing showings than there were five years ago, I was dismayed to find that the showings wouldn't open wide until February 16. I waited around but when the 16th rolled around I was dealing with some car issues that further delayed my being able to watch the films.

But finally my car problems were behind me, and I was able to find some time in my schedule to do not just one but two viewings of the Oscar nominated animated shorts. And at long last I can finally start my review of the 92nd set of nominees for the Best Animated Short category, growing ever closer to that milestone 100th year.

Best Animated Short - 2023: Nominees

It's been over a month since the Best Animated Short shortlist was released. Heck, it's been a month since I posted about the films on the shortlist, and that went up a few days after the release of the shortlist. The films have all been screened, and the votes have been cast, and today the Oscar nominations were announced. Normally I have to wake up at ungodly hours just to catch the nominees, but now that I work overnights I can just stay up after my shift and watch the nomination announcement. Which still kind of sucks, but going to bed later than usual is better than waking up earlier than usual. Anyways, between the Oscar nominations in the morning and the Baseball Hall of Fame announcements in the evening it's going to be quite a busy day.

I will say I am encouraged by how my shortlist post had a couple of comments. It's good to know some people would care enough to post even though I don't post very often. I have been trying to find the shortlisted films, but with varying effect. I haven't had the guts to request access to the Animation Showcase, because I don't actually work in animation. I do this on the side, and not very well at that. But now we shall see if any of the films that I was able to track down would get the nomination.

And the nominees are:

Letter to a Pig
Ninety Five Senses
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

Best Animated Short - 2023: The Shortlist

It's that time of year again, when I dust off this blog and force myself to write about the films that can potential win the Oscar for Best Animated Short. Of course I haven't really paid attention to the race beforehand, not like Cartoon Brew who have kept track of animated shorts that qualified by winning festivals, then interviewing their directors. Of course, yesterday marked the day when I can no longer ignore the race, since it was the day that the Academy released the shortlist for several categories, including Best Animated Short. 

Ideally I'd write about the shortlisted films the day the shortlist was released, but I was driving to Pittsburgh on no sleep and went to watch a Pittsburgh Penguins game, so I really didn't have a chance to watch the trailers for each of the shortlist or learned a little more about these films. But now that I'm back home there's no excuse for me to delay. Of course I'm not going to be reviewing the films, since that's not the point (and also because I've seen barely any of them). Which makes me wonder why anybody would read this post.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse wins Best Animated Short - 2022

After last year's debacle where the short categories were presented before the live telecast, the Academy finally reversed their decision and included them in the telecast. Of course, that didn't stop host Jimmy Kimmel from blaming the short categories for the length of the show (and not stuff like the bullshit Warner Bros montage or the Little Mermaid trailer). Anyways, it's good that Best Animated Short gets its regular due, although it means I have to watch the rest of the telecast to find out who won. Not that I mind, since it seems like Everything Everywhere All at Once is a top contender for Best Picture.

But there really shouldn't have been any surprise. While My Year of Dicks made some splash with its name and Ice Merchants touched the hearts of viewers, the front-runner the entire season ended up capturing the crown: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.

No real qualms from me. While I enjoyed all of the rest of the nominees more (and thought Ice Merchants should have won), The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is still an exquisite piece of art that expound on the idea of kindness, something that is sorely lacking in today's society. At 34 minutes, it does surpass Peter & the Wolf to become the longest winner in this category.

More about the rest of the night after the break.

Best Animated Short - 2022

Well, here we are, the 91st year of the Best Animated Short category at the Academy Awards. It's already been the 17th year since I started following this category closely with the 2007 Oscars. And it's the 12th year since I started this blog before the 2011 Oscars so I have a space to write my reviews instead of posting them on my Facebook page (which is probably a good thing since Facebook ended their notes.) Of course it's also been close to ten years since I've finished catching up on the reviews, and I still haven't exactly found anything else animation-related to write about. (I did recently watch and write about Ke Huy Quan's 1993 Taiwan TV drama The Big Eunuch and the Little Carpenter so I'd appreciate it if y'all check it out.)

But for the most part this blog is still dedicated to the Best Animated Short category at the Oscars. Yes, I'm still pretty upset that the short categories including this one were relegated to pre-recorded status. And yes, I'm still not over the fact that the pretty but pretentious The Windshield Wiper walked away with the Oscar over four films I liked a lot more. But it's another year and we have another five films to review. I had a difficult time finding An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It and I was getting worried I had to watch it on the big screen to get all the nominees reviewed. It was something I hadn't had to deal with since 2017 when I had to go to a showing to watch Negative Space. I suppose I don't mind it that much because I do enjoy going to the showings. I mean I did go to the showing for the 2018 nominees even though I had finished my review because I enjoyed the films that much. But I do find it more convenient to have the films at my disposal when I write my reviews. Thank goodness a copy of An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It finally showed up and I am able to get this review out before the official release on February 17.

Anyways, now that I've seen the nominees for the 91st time I'm here to write a review on all of them.

Best Animated Short 2022 - Nominees

Yes, this is the beginning of the tenth decade of the Best Animated Short category at the Oscars. Of course, I haven't exactly been the most diligent at updating this blog. (I guess a part of me is still somewhat upset at The Windshield Wiper taking the category this past year.) Why, the shortlist was announced all the way back on December 21. Normally I'd make a post introducing the shortlist, but as you might have noticed I haven't done so this year. It doesn't help that December 21 happened to be the day that I drove cross-country and didn't have the chance to make the post, but it's been a whole month since then and I still hadn't made the post. I guess I just didn't think it was all that necessary.

Of course by no means did it indicate that I was no longer paying attention to the category. During the month-long deliberation I had managed to watch 11 of the 15 shortlisted films. And all that leads to the nominees, the final list of five animated short films that could be up for the exalted honor shared by such legendary films as Magoo's Puddle Jumper, A Greek Tragedy, and The Windshield Wiper.

And the nominees are:
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
The Flying Sailor
Ice Merchants
My Year of Dicks
An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It

The Windshield Wiper wins Best Animated Short - 2021

Well, the Academy has gone ahead with their plan to remove several of their categories from the main broadcast, which includes Best Animated Short. As a result I will not be watching the ceremony. The good news is that the excited categories would be announced early on. The bad news is we find out early on that the Academy has voted The Windshield Wiper as the Best Animated Short of 2021, and the 90th winner of the category since its inception in 1932.

Yeah...the film that I ranked 50th out of 50 films nominated between 2012 and 2021.

It's not that I think it's a bad film. I did rank it fourth in quality in my actual review over the seasonal front-runner Robin Robin. I just felt that it tried to be too cute in the way the vignettes were presented, and as a result left me feeling empty. But obviously it was enough to impress the Academy at large. So with that out of the way I can move on to something else and ignore the rest of whatever the Academy has to say.

Re-ranking my top 10 favorite nominees 1932-2011

A week ago I had completed my ranking of the 50 nominees from the past ten years (2012-2021) by how much I liked them. During the introduction I noted that my tastes change with time, so the overall rankings could feature some differences from the individual rankings. That led me to thinking about the rankings I did for the previous decades that I did as I was writing those reviews. I created the rankings after every ten years I reviewed, but since I finished my last review in 2013 that would meant those rankings were made between 8-10 years ago. Surely there would be some changes during that time.

I didn't revisit every single ranking, but instead I focused on the top ten favorites from every decade. I re-watched those in the top ten, as well as some of the films that were near misses just to see if some might sneak into the top ten. Well, as it turns out every single decade had some changes in the individual rankings. What are those changes? Well, let's visit each of them and find out.

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.

Best Animated Short blog - 10th anniversary

Over the past few days I've been watching and rewatching the Oscar nominated short films from the past ten years in order to formulate by rankings. There's already been some changes from the individual rankings from each year, but who knows if this is going to be any more.

Meanwhile earlier this week an important milestone passed by with little notice. It was ten years ago, on February 24, 2012, that I wrote the first post in my blog, and introduction to what I intended was an attempt to review all of the Best Animated Short nominees. Little did I know that even with a six-month hiatus and a spacing out of the reviews, I'd get done with all the reviews by 2013. Over the next eight years the blog has been lying dormant for ten months before coming to life again around the time of the next Academy Awards. I've had some ideas of other animation-related posts, but they never got written. I haven't even reviewed Last Day of Freedom, the animated documentary nominated for an Oscar. I've had somebody start a Facebook group of which Frank Mouris, Oscar winner for Frank Film, was a member, but I never really put any effort in growing it. I suppose I've come to a crossroads over what exactly I want to do with the blog. I suppose it'll end up being the status quo because I'm too lazy for anything else, but we shall see.

Meanwhile enjoy this new collage of the first 89 winners in this category. Who would be the 90th? I hope it's Affairs of the Art, but really who knows?

Best Animated Short Cut from Academy Awards Telecast

So, I've been re-watching the Best Animated Short nominees from the past ten years in order to solidify my ranking post, but a news report has come out saying that the Academy Awards would be cutting eight categories from being awarded live on its telecast in order to "streamline" the show. That's not to say that the categories won't be handed out, but it would be done pre-recorded in private and then aired during the live show. Still, the press release reports that the time saved from these categories moved to a pre-recorded format would provide "more time and opportunity for audience entertainment and engagement through comedy, musical numbers, film clip packages, and movie tributes." I've no idea what sort of extra stuff would be added, but I'd probably wager the bonus material are probably irrelevant. The Academy had previously excommunicated honorary Oscars to pre-recorded territory, and now those awards barely make a dent in public consciousness.

 And of course one of the eight categories banished to is Best Animated Short.

I suppose part of me isn't that surprised that Best Animated Short was given the axe. Live Action Short and Documentary Short were also on the cutting room floor*, and it's clear the Academy has a bias against the short film categories. It may not be so surprising for Live Action and Documentary since those are usually so hard to find, but animated shorts are usually out there in the public for all to see. It is still a cauldron of creativity and visual diversity. So yeah, I do feel that it is a shame that it won't be in the main ceremony. Heck, the reason why I started this blog in the first place was to try to show everybody that the Best Animated Short category is one that is worth watching, even going back nine decades.

So needless to say, I will not be watching the ceremony when it airs on March 27. I can find out what wins Best Animated Short by searching online.

*The other categories that were cut include Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Original Score, and Best Editing. That's the majority of the craft awards, and Best Editing is often viewed as a close analog to Best Picture.