2025 OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORTS
The 2025 Academy Awards take place on Sunday, March 2, and as always, 15 short films compete across 3 categories—animation, documentary, and live action—for the golden statuette in their respective areas. Every year, I watch all of them and then write up my thoughts for Hammer to Nail. Thanks to ShortsTV, they have been available theatrically since February 14 in select markets. Below, I offer my thoughts—but not predictions—on each film and each category.
Once again, my favorite overall section was documentary, though unlike last year, there is one that I prefer above the others (with a close second), rather than a tie for the top three. Next up is live action, where I found two quite strong, the next two respectable, and only one fairly weak. This year, it is animation at the bottom, although my favorite among that bunch was not bad at all. What follows are my capsule reviews of everything, in order of category preference and then within those by film preference.
DOCUMENTARY
The Only Girl in the Orchestra (Molly O’Brien, USA, 35 min.)
This delightful portrait of Orin O’Brien, double bassist extraordinaire, follows her career from its beginnings to her recent quasi-retirement and beyond. Hired by Leonard Bernstein to play for the New York Philharmonic in 1966, O’Brien, as this movie’s title suggest, was the “only girl” in that orchestra for quite some time. Bernstein adored her musicianship and broad knowledge, and when, after 55 years, she finally decides to call that part of her life quits (while continuing to teach), the accolades pour in from generations of colleagues and students (and colleagues who were once students). It’s hard to believe she’s in her late 80s; perhaps we should all play the double bass if it imparts such youthful energy. Director Molly O’Brien is her niece and presents this touching love poem to the woman who inspired her childhood with deft cinematic grace.
Instruments of a Beating Heart (Ema Ryan Yamazaki, Japan, 23 min.)
It’s Tokyo in 2022, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, and life goes on for Setagaya City’s Tsukado Elementary School, in Japan, where the rising second graders prepare a performance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his 9th Symphony. The students’ young age does not insulate them from the pressures of rehearsal, especially since their music teacher is a hard taskmaster. For one girl, Ayame, the strain is particularly difficult to bear, though she is happy, at first, to be chosen to play the cymbals (after losing out on the big drum). Not to worry, though, for all works out in the end (different cultural norms for pedagogical browbeating notwithstanding). The joy on these kids’ faces when they get it right makes it all worthwhile. Director Ema Ryan Yamazaki is the perfect fly on the wall, even if her camera is sometimes uncomfortably close to the tears.
I Am Ready, Warden (Smriti Mundhra, USA, 37 min.)
John Henry Ramirez was executed in Texas in 2022 for a murder he committed in 2004, when he was 19. In I Am Ready, Warden, director Smriti Mundhra (a previous nominee in this category for her 2019 St. Louis Superman) features interviews with Ramirez prior to his death, along with archival footage about the murder and additional material with other involved parties, including the son of Pablo Castro, the victim. The movie indirectly asks big questions about the purpose of the death penalty and whether or not it produces more pain than healing for those who remain. Though some filming choices ride the line of documentary ethics, the overall work inspires deep and painful thoughts.
Incident (Bill Morrison, USA, 30 min.)
The new film from Bill Morrison (The Village Detective: A Song Cycle) centers on the 2018 killing of Harith Augustus in Chicago by police, all of it told from the perspective of security cameras and body-cam footage. Morrison begins with a wide-angle shot of the “incident” and then jumps to 15 minutes earlier to set it all up, moving forward from there. Given that there are multiple feeds recorded simultaneously, he soon begins to split the frame, at one point following the shooter and his partner as they leave the scene (so he, the shooter, can calm down) while remaining on location for the growing public outcry. The result is an often-fascinating, if sometimes-faltering, examination of how lack of training and an “us vs. them” attitude contribute to America’s brutal violence towards its Black and urban populations.
Death by Numbers (Kim A. Snyder, USA, 37 min.)
All the films in this collection are examples of effective filmmaking, so ranking this one at the bottom seems a bit unfair; it still proves moving. Director Kim A. Snyder—whose 2020 feature-length documentary US Kids was also set among survivors of the 2018 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—is no stranger to her subject here, and brings to the table all the raw passion that it deserves. She focuses primarily on one survivor, Sam Fuentes, as she meditates on the lingering aftereffects of the killings, which include physical and mental injuries. As gunman Nikolas Cruz’s sentencing approaching, Fuentes prepares to testify alongside her erstwhile classmates. Though it’s all extremely poignant, Snyder would have been better served by allowing the story to speak for itself without additional sentiment added through music, graphics and more.
LIVE ACTION
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Nebojsa Slijepcevic, Croatia, 14 min.)
Speaking of lack of sentiment, The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent offers a master class in how to tackle a terrible tragedy with restraint, making the eventual climax all the more devastating. Set in the early 1990s in Bosnia, the film takes the real-life sacrifice of Tomo Buzov (to whom director Nebojsa Slijepcevic dedicates the story) as its departure point to tell a story of true courage in the face of the worst aspects of human behavior. When members of a Serbian militia board a train and start removing passengers they suspect of being Croatian Muslims, Buzov (Dragan Micanovic) speaks up. Working within a 4:3 aspect ratio that heightens the claustrophobia of the environment, Slijepcevic deftly uses his camera to enhance every aspect of this harrowing narrative, one which unfortunately has many parallels with what is happening today in the United States.
A Lien (David Cutler-Kreutz/Sam Cutler-Kreutz, USA, 15 min.)
Which brings us to A Lien, my close second in this category. Brothers David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz follow a mother, father, and daughter inside a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office where the father has a Green Card interview. Heretofore without documentation, the dad (William Martinez) hopes all will go well so he can finally feel safe. While he is in the interview room accompanied by their child, his wife (Victoria Ratermanis) sees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrive and begin calling out names and taking away those who respond. As we learn in the end credits, this is in fact an actual tactic of ICE, to apprehend those who have been called in for Green Card applications. As the film continues, the situation becomes everything you feared it would be. This is very bleak stuff, but effective.
The Last Ranger (Cindy Lee, South Africa, 28 min.)
As is The Last Ranger, though this film leans a little too heavily into sentiment to be quite as strong as the above two. Still, this tale of rhino poaching and the tragedies that ensue is nevertheless a moving tribute to those who give their lives to protect endangered species. The main characters are Khusi (Avumile Qongqo), a South African ranger, her colleague Robert (David S. Lee, brother of the director and co-screenwriter), and Litha (Liyabona Mroqoza), a young girl who tags along with Khusi as she does her rounds. Unfortunately, on this particular day there are poachers about, who attack one of the rhino herds. Though bad things happen, not all is as terrible as it might have been, thanks to the remaining decency among some members of our species. The true standout of the movie is the cinematography, by James Adey, complemented by actual footage captured by the real-life Litha.
Anuja (Adam J. Graves, USA, 22 min.)
The titular child in Anuja works in a factory—the same one where her older sister, Palak (Ananya Shanbhag), also toils—where she is exploited on a daily basis. Gifted in math, she shood be studying in school (where, gifted or not, all kids should be), which is what an inspector tells the factory boss upon his visit. Unfortunately, that same bossman—a person without any apparent morality—presents Anuja with an impossible choice: go take the school exam and he will fire Palak. Yet without schooling, Anuja (Sajda Pathan) will be condemned to the same lack of opportunities that most girls and women in her situation face. Director Adam J. Graves sets his story in Delhi, India, where endemic poverty allows these kinds of situations to exist without any checks or balances. His actresses come from the very community where the movie is set, lending especial poignancy to the affair. It’s a worthy effort, though the open ending feels like a cop-out and there’s an overall atmosphere of white Western pity that detracts from the narrative’s power.
I’m Not a Robot (Victoria Warmerdam, Belgium/Netherlands, 22 min.)
The weakest film of the bunch, I’m Not a Robot actually starts out quite well, and at first offers what feels like a welcome reprieve from the bleakness of the above four choices. A woman, Lara (Ellen Parren), working at a music agency of some sort, finds herself unable to complete one of those annoying CAPTCHA tests to distinguish between humans and robots when you try to log on to a site or verify your identity. When she calls tech support, the rep eventually concludes that she must be a robot. “Ha ha, very funny,” she thinks. Except that he is dead serious. Soon, even her boyfriend fails to reassure her, and it only gets weirder from there. Unfortunately, this promising premise—something to which we can all relate in this modern world—spoils when writer/director Victoria Warmerdam makes a major narrative U-turn and steers the plot down a completely humorless path. What was once charmingly absurd devolves into emotional torment unsupported by the earlier tone, resulting in quite the cinematic disappointment.
ANIMATION
Magic Candies (Daisuke Nishio, Japan, 21 min.)
My favorite among the animated shorts is Daisuke Nishio’s Magic Candies, which delivers on its titular promise with a glorious swirl of confectionery spells. Young Dong-Dong has no friends, playing in the park by himself with his marbles, his aging dog dragging behind him on a leash. But then he impulsively buys some marble-shaped sweets and, once home, pops one in his mouth. The resulting sorcery leads to surprising lessons about life and love, ultimately changing his situation for the better. A thoroughly engaging meditation on childhood and personal growth, Magic Candies offers honeyed truths without unnecessary treacle.
Wander to Wonder (Nina Gantz, Netherlands/Belgium/France/United Kingdom, 14 min.)
Wander to Wonder is so refreshingly odd that I wanted to like it even more than I did, though its originality earns it runner-up status. Director Nina Gantz imagines a world, brought to life through stop-motion animation, where miniature actors embody characters on a long-defunct broadcast show. Now forgotten and alone, they struggle to make ends meet, much less survive, in a world where they are but tiny, disused pawns in someone’s old dream. They document their activities via an archaic video camera, snippets of which footage we see intercut with clips from their discontinued series. If it doesn’t all quite hold together, narratively speaking, it’s mostly a lot of fun to watch.
Yuck! (Loïc Espuche, France, 13 min.)
Yuck!, or “Beurk!” (a much more evocative word) in the original French, follows a group of kids at a summer camping ground who find all forms of kissing repulsive. Until, that is, two of their number begin to feel the urge to kiss each other. What to do? Give in to peer pressure or desire? That forms the heart of the conflict. Director Loïc Espuche’s animation features the gimmick of people’s lips becoming pink as the longing to kiss starts to grow. While the story is cute, the animation is a little less so. Ultimately, this feels much slighter than the above two.
Beautiful Men (Nicolas Keppens, Belgium/France/Netherlands, 19 min.)
But at least it coheres more than Beautiful Men, in which three balding Belgian brothers travel to Turkey for hair implants. Another stop-motion entry, the film presents a fascinatingly moody visual landscape without much story to support the effort. We watch as the brothers quibble over who gets to have the hair implant (one of them having messed up the reservation) and who is selfish, the proceedings occasionally narrated by a woman’s voice. Director Nicolas Keppens is not without talent, and as an exercise in ambience, Beautiful Men achieves a certain artistic integrity, but beyond that, the film fails to engage.
In the Shadow of the Cypress (Hossein Molayemi/Shirin Sohani, Iran, 20 min.)
The same holds true for In the Shadow of the Cypress, which appears to tackle depression and grief (and possibly PTSD) in a richly drawn universe, yet never quite succeeds in crafting a meaningful story. Directors Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani begin their tale on a husband and wife arguing, the man coming distressingly close to domestic abuse, then bring in other elements such as an offshore boat and a beached whale. Metaphors and more literal images combine to approach significance while failing to coalesce into anything of much value. Still, it’s pretty to behold.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
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