Oscar-nominated Shorts: The Lowdown
A guide to the 15 nominees in the Animated, Live-Action, and Documentary Shorts categories -- and where to see them.
What place does the traditional short film have in a world of binge TV series on one hand and TikTok videos on the other? Back in the studio era, the form served as a warm-up act for the featured attraction, and in more recent decades shorts became a way for novice filmmakers to show off their chops and hopefully score a deal for a full-length movie. (Maybe someone should program a festival of early short films by great directors: Spielberg’s “Amblin’,” Scorsese’s “What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?,” Tim Burton’s “Stalk of the Celery Monster”. Oh, wait, someone already has.)
The short film as creative calling card still exists, but with the rise of digital distribution and streaming platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, Short of the Week, and many more, they’re become a crucial currency in our short-attention-span culture. (What’s a GIF but the shortest of short films playing on an endless loop?) We watch shorts on our phones on the bus ride to work, have them forwarded by email from siblings and friends – do everything, in short, except watch them in a movie theater.
In recent years, of course, you’ve been able to do that too, thanks to the traveling program of Oscar-nominated shorts that makes the rounds of art houses and independent theaters in the months leading up to the big show. These days, tellingly, the program is distributed by specialty streaming service ShortsTV and is split into two packages, with the animated and live-action nominees in one group and the documentary shorts (which tend to be longer) in a second batch. You can find out which theaters near you are showing this year’s nominated shorts at the ShortTV website – or you can stream 12 out of the 15 on a subscription service or website. Two nominees are available on Netflix, two are on Hulu, one each is at Amazon and Apple TV+, and a full five were released by The New Yorker and can be streamed on the magazine’s online outpost and YouTube. Later this week I’ll post my award predictions in all categories, but, for now, paid subscribers will find below a guide to locating the films (and which ones are worth the hunt) whether they’re hardened Oscar-ballot completists or merely shorts-curious. Trailers and in some cases the full movie are embedded beneath each entry.
Documentary Shorts
“The Elephant Whisperers” (40 mins, ⭐⭐⭐) – Charming, heart-warming tale of man, woman, and pachyderms at the Mudumalai National Park in South India, where two tribal locals, Bomman and Belli, care for two abandoned young elephants and raise them to adulthood. Five years in the making and beautifully photographed; what the film lacks in conflict it makes up in a stirring depiction of the human-animal bond. – Available on Netflix
“Haulout” (25 mins., ⭐⭐⭐⭐) – Another nature documentary, but darker than the above, as marine biologist Maxim Chakilev ventures up to the Siberian Arctic to measure the effects of climate change on the region’s animal populations. That’s all I’ll say other than that at exactly six minutes in, the film delivers one of the great reveals of any 2022 movie, short or feature. Available for streaming at The New Yorker and on YouTube (below).
“How Do You Measure a Year?” (29 min., ⭐⭐ 1/2) – Simple enough concept: A father videotapes his daughter every birthday from ages two to 18. The results are fairly dissonant, and not always in the way filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt intends. The time-lapse portrait of toddler-to-young woman can’t help but be moving, but – like so many well-meant but slightly fatuous parental projects – this ends up being more about daddy than daughter. Only playing in theaters.
“The Martha Mitchell Effect” (40 mins., ⭐⭐⭐) – Netflix grabs a little luster from Starz’ “Gaslit” series with this capable, angry, and overdue bio-doc of Mitchell, who galvanized the Watergate era with plain talk and plainer outrage before she was shut down by her husband, Attorney General John Mitchell, and the Nixon dirty-tricks brigade. Streaming on Netflix.
“Stranger At The Gate” (29 mins., ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2) – The remarkable journey of Iraq War veteran Richard (Mac) McKinney, who came home to Indiana primed for violence against Muslims but whose reconnaissance visit to a mosque led to community and conversion. A manipulative narrative structure can’t hurt a story this strong. Available for streaming at The New Yorker and on YouTube (below).
Animated Shorts
“The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and the Horse” (33 mins, ⭐⭐ 1/2) – Based on Charles Mackesy’s 2019 children’s book, this retains the delicate watercolor panoramas, but the tale – of a lost Christopher Robin-style lad and his animal pals discussing the Big Questions – is almost painfully twee and may cause teeth-grinding in confirmed adults. Your mileage may vary. Streaming on Apple TV+.
“The Flying Sailor” (8 mins., ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2) – A whimsical account of the 1917 Halifax steamship explosion as seen by a portly seaman blown out into orbit by the blast. Short and endearing, unlike the event itself. Available for streaming at The New Yorker and on YouTube (below).
“Ice Merchants” (15 mins., ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2) – Stunningly original in concept and execution, João Gonzalez’s hand-drawn fable concerns a father and son harvesting ice for their village from the side of a sheer cliff. Dreamlike, with a touch of the classic children’s book “Caps For Sale.” Available for streaming at The New Yorker and on YouTube (below).
“An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It” (12 mins., ⭐⭐⭐) – A stop-motion comedy about an office drone who realizes he’s in a stop-motion comedy. Goofy meta-nonsense from Australia is impressive as a work of puppet-craft and amusingly slight as entertainment. In theaters and streaming on Vimeo (below).
“My Year of Dicks” (26 mins., ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2) – Writer Pamela Ribon recounts the many ways she tried to lose her virginity in 1991, each episode told in a different animation style. The only short to come with a content warning, it’s smutty and sweet. Available for streaming on Hulu, and the first chapter is on YouTube (below).
Live-Action Shorts
“An Irish Goodbye” (23 mins., ⭐⭐⭐⭐) – If “The Banshees of Inisherin” is a shot of bleak Irish farce, here’s the chaser: A devilishly funny black comedy about two brothers sending their Mam to heaven while giving each other hell. Featuring a riotous performance by James Martin, an actor with Down Syndrome. Only playing in theaters.
“Ivalu” (17 mins., ⭐⭐⭐) – A gorgeously shot adaptation of a Danish graphic novel about an indigenous girl in Greenland searching for her sister across a mythical landscape that hints at darker realities. Haunting but maybe too elliptical. Available for streaming on Amazon.
“Le Pupille” (39 mins., ⭐⭐⭐⭐) – What do you get when maverick Italian director Alice Rohrwacher (“Happy As Lazzaro”) makes a short for the Walt Disney Company? This wonderfully eccentric cross between a “Madeline” book and Jean Vigo’s rebel-schoolkids classic “Zero de Conduite.” An anarchic joy. Available for streaming on Disney+ and on Hulu.
“Night Ride” (16 mins., ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2) – From Norway, a po-faced short story about a cold night, a weary commuter, a purloined train, a trans passenger, and a threatening pair of goons that hops the tracks from comedy to near-tragedy and back to comedy again. Neat trick. Available for streaming at The New Yorker and on YouTube (below).
“The Red Suitcase” (18 mins., ⭐⭐⭐) – A frightened 16-year-old girl (Nawelle Ewad) flies from Iran to Luxembourg and, upon arriving, plots her escape. From whom? To where? Cyrus Neshvad’s film plays like a suspense thriller that gradually unveils its details but lacks an ending with equal punch. Only playing in theaters.
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