2025 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation
BEAUTIFUL MEN
Director: Nicolas Keppens
Synopsis: Three balding brothers travel to Istanbul to get a hair transplant. Stuck with each other in a hotel far from home, their insecurities grow faster than their hair.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE CYPRESS
Directors: Hossein Molayemi, Shirin Sohani
Synopsis: Living in a house by the sea with his daughter, a former captain who has post-traumatic stress disorder leads a tough and
secluded life.
MAGIC CANDIES
Director: Daisuke Nishio
Synopsis: The other kids at the park never ask Dong-Dong to play. But he’s fine just playing marbles on his own. One day he goes out in search of new marbles, but ends up buying a bag of colorful, marble-shaped candies instead. But the first time he pops one of them into his mouth, he’s astonished to hear his old sofa start talking to him! For the next few minutes, until the candy melts away, he has the most unexpected and amazing conversation of his life. Realizing that these are no ordinary candies, DongDong looks at the rest of colorful sweets. Who else will he be able to talk to, and what else will he learn, through these magic candies?
WANDER TO WONDER
Director: Nina Gantz
Synopsis: Mary, Billybud, and Fumbleton are three tiny humans who star in a kids’ TV Series called WANDER TO WONDER. After the creator dies, they are left alone in the studio. Struggling to find enough to eat, they continue to make increasingly strange episodes for their fans.
YUCK!
Director: Loïc Espuche
Synopsis: YUCK ! Adults kiss each other on the mouth, and children find it disgusting! What’s more, you can see it from afar: when people are about to kiss, their lips become all pink and shiny. Little Léo makes jokes about it, as do the other kids at the summer camp. But he has a secret he won’t tell his friends: his own mouth has actually begun glistening. And, in reality, Léo desperately wants to give kissing a try.
2025 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action
A LIEN
Directors: David Cutler-Kreutz, Sam Cutler-Kreutz
Synopsis: On the day of their green card interview, a young couple confronts a dangerous immigration process.
ANUJA
Director: Adam J. Graves
Synopsis: ANUJA tells the story of a gifted nine-year-old girl who, alongside her sister Palak, faces a life-changing opportunity that tests their bond and mirrors the struggles of girls worldwide
I’M NOT A ROBOT
Original Title: Ik ben geen robot
Director: Victoria Warmerdam
Synopsis: After repeatedly failing CAPTCHA tests, music producer Lara becomes obsessed with a disturbing question: could she be a robot?
THE LAST RANGER
Director: Cindy Lee
Synopsis: When young Litha is introduced to the magic of a game reserve by the last remaining ranger, they are ambushed by
poachers. In the ensuing battle to save the rhinos, Litha discovers a terrible secret.
THE MAN WHO COULD NOT REMAIN SILENT
Original Title: Covjek koji nije mogao sutjeti
Director: Nebojša Slijepčević
Synopsis: In the middle of winter, a passenger train is stopped by paramilitary forces. As they arrest innocent civilians, only one man out of 500 dares to stand up to them. This is the true story of a man who could not remain silent.
2025 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentary
DEATH BY NUMBERS
Director: Kim A. Snyder
Synopsis: DEATH BY NUMBERS turns an intimate lens on school shooting survivor Sam Fuentes’s journey to reclaim her power, processing trauma through journaling. To prepare for a confrontation with her assailant in his harrowing sentencing trial, she examines complex questions of collective hatred and justice.
I AM READY, WARDEN
Director: Smriti Mundhra
Synopsis: The latest documentary short film, from MTV Documentary Films, I AM READY, WARDEN, by acclaimed filmmaker Smriti Mundhra (INDIAN MATCHMAKING, ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN) tells the harrowing and emotionally charged story of John Henry Ramirez, a man convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Texas. Through his time on death row, the film offers a rare and intimate glimpse into his attempts to seek redemption and reconciliation. To gain access to the Texas prison system, Mundhra collaborated with journalist Keri Blakinger, whose New York Times Magazine article THE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS PLAYERS OF DEATH ROW was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
INCIDENT
Director: Bill Morrison
Synopsis: Through a montage of surveillance and police body-camera footage, a reconstruction of a deadly shooting by a Chicago police officer becomes an investigation into how a narrative begins to take shape in the aftermath.
INSTRUMENTS OF A BEATING HEART
Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Synopsis: A New York Times Op-Doc. First graders in a Tokyo public elementary school are presented with a challenge for the final semester: to form an orchestra and perform “Ode to Joy” at a school ceremony.
THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ORCHESTRA
Director: Molly O’Brien
Synopsis: Trailblazing double bassist Orin O’Brien was never one to seek the spotlight, but when Leonard Bernstein hired her in 1966 as the first female musician in the New York Philharmonic, she inevitably became the focus of media attention and, ultimately, one of the most renowned musicians of a generation.