This year’s Oscar-Nominated Short Films: Animated program is being presented in theaters starting February 20 by Roadside Attractions. Five different films demonstrate just how much can be accomplished in mere minutes of screen time. Each one offers a unique perspective, proving that brevity can heighten impact.
While the shorts vary widely in tone, they share a common thread: each shows a character trying to pursue something important to them while facing forces beyond their control. I’ve ranked the films based on how strongly they resonated with me.
THE GIRL WHO CRIED PEARLS
CANADA / 17 MINS / 2025
Directors: Chris Lavis, Maciek Szczerbowski
Dark fairy tale about a young girl whose tears transform into luminous pearls. A young boy quietly gathers them and sells them to a pawnbroker, who hungers for more. Tempted by greed, the boy wrestles with his exploitative desires.
Stop-motion animation, with handcrafted puppets and detailed miniature sets, brings this grim fable to life. I was reminded of the work of Brothers Quay, which is equally unsettling. Their mouths don’t move, and so the narration carries the story, not voices. Comes from the National Film Board of Canada, with the most nominations in this category behind Disney. Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski were previously nominated in 2007 for Madame Tutli-Putli.
FOREVERGREEN
UNITED STATES / 13 MINS / 2025
Directors: Nathan Engelhardt, Jeremy Spears
An orphaned bear gets lost in the woods. Raised by a gentle evergreen tree, the young cub grows increasingly hungry. That appetite for human junk foods ultimately leads to danger.
Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears are professional animators who have contributed to major productions at Walt Disney Studios, including Encanto. Forevergreen was developed independently, outside of studio projects, as a personal film. The narrative draws inspiration from the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son through an allegorical forest setting. The short features highly polished CGI animation with textures that evoke carved-wood sculptures brought to life, giving it a handcrafted aesthetic.
BUTTERFLY
FRANCE / 15 MINS / 2025
Director: Florence Miailhebi
Biography of Alfred Nakache, the French Olympic swimmer born in Constantine, Algeria, to a North African Jewish family. Nakache’s life is one of extraordinary resilience. Under Vichy anti-Jewish laws, Nakache was banned from competition. Arrested in 1943 and deported to Auschwitz, he survived the war and resumed his swimming career afterward.
Its blend of historical significance and distinctive artistry makes Butterfly the film to beat in this category. Alfred Nakache’s story is rendered in a painterly style using paint-on-glass animation, with oil paint manipulated frame by frame beneath the camera. The emotional impact comes more from the visuals than words. You’ll likely want to explore the real history behind what you see on screen to fully appreciate the depth this short tries to encapsulate.
THE THREE SISTERS
ISRAEL & CYPRUS / 14 MINS / 2024
Director: Konstantin Bronzit
Dialogue-free yarn about three women living in isolation on a small island. Each in her own modest house, but bound together by proximity. When financial necessity forces them to rent out one of the homes to a visiting sailor, their routines begin to shift into a rivalry.
The film’s minimalism is pretty slight. The clean, expressive animation efficiently serves the portrait but rarely dazzles. The sailor’s arrival doesn’t fix their loneliness; it just shifts the dynamic, exposing tensions between them. And the ending, which offers no sweeping transformation or moral summation, will leave viewers unsure what has changed. An underdeveloped saga.
RETIREMENT PLAN
IRELAND / 7 MINS / 2024
Directors: John Kelly (co-written with Tara Lawall)
A reflective monologue that unfolds like a spoken poem, not a plot-driven story. A man imagines the ideal future once he retires: tending a garden, fixing small things, moving through a quiet daily routine. The anxieties surrounding his own mortality come through.
The animation features simple drawings with soft lines and muted colors. The rudimentary style illustrates a life-lesson essay, recalling pieces such as All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Except that these observations are lightly sketched and surface-level.
02-09-26