Review of all the short films at the Oscars 2026: What should win?

The Oscar-nominated short films are divided into three categories and many themes, styles and temperaments. It is further evidence that an award made for duration need not be subject to anything else.

In the live action category, a mix of approaches, some inspired by classic literature, are polished by inspired performances. Lee Knight's “A friend of Dorothy” It may be a bit obvious about the cultural and emotional impact of a lonely London widow on a closeted teenager. But leads Miriam Margolyes and Alistair Nwachukwu practically shine with humor and warmth. “Jane Austen Period Drama” a loving adjustment of the writer's work by Steve Pinder and Julia Aks (who also stars), it's essentially a one-joke calling card for comedy-making and it should work. Its cast is exactly the cheerful ensemble needed to elicit your hypothetical laughs.

Two others simply fail in terms of bringing their tensions to powerful resolutions but benefit from who loves the camera. Meyer Levinson-Blount's “Butcher's Spot” Centered on a flimsy accusation against a friendly Palestinian butcher in an Israeli market, it undermines its gripping story with indifferent filmmaking and an unnecessary subplot, but protagonist Omar Sameer is in charge. The shock of the future in black and white “Two people exchanging saliva” Directed by Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh, it's an uneven European art bath of unrealized intimacy and casual violence (kissing is punishable by death, slapping is money), but it's given exquisite tension by stars Zar Amir and Luana Bajrami's graceful, unrequited swoon.

Then there's my favorite, the likely Sam A. Davis winner. “The singers” from Ivan Turgenev's story, which gives good results in fragments of moving warbles that briefly turn the anesthetic den of a bar into a temple of feeling.

Most of this year's nominated documentaries deal with the most horrific tragedies, as in “All rooms empty” and “There are no more children: they are gone and gone” that address the memory of brutally murdered children. The first film, by Joshua Seftel, follows CBS correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp on an essay project about the bedrooms of children gunned down in school shootings, whose private worlds heartbreakingly preserved by their families. This latest short film, directed by Hilla Medalia, bears witness to Tel Aviv's silent vigils for the children of Gaza, protests marked by signs with beaming faces and sometimes greeted with open contempt. These are diligent and sobering acts of mourning: Seftel is the likely winner. You might wish they were more than that, though, considering the issues (guns, war, political intransigence) that created the devastation.

Combat is what drove award-winning photojournalist Brent Renaud, murdered in Ukraine in 2022. But the fact that his brother Craig remembers him, “Armed only with a camera” is strangely dull, more of a flip book with excerpts from Brent's remote assignments than a meaningful portrait of how to excel at a dangerous job. A more poignant dispatch from the real world (and my choice, if I could vote) is “The devil is busy” directed by Christalyn Hampton and double nominee Geeta Gandbhir, also nominated for the feature film “The Perfect Neighbor.” Observe a day in the operation of a Georgia abortion clinic, run by women and carefully guarded, as if it were the last chance for medical care of a recently medieval world, making do with courage, compassion and prayer. He certainly won't forget Head of Security Tracii, the clinic's brave knight and guide.

A scene from “Perfectly a Strangeness”, nominated in the documentary short film category.

(Roadside Attractions)

His pursuer is Alison McAlpine's attractive and aptly titled film. “Perfectly strange” Without humans, but starring three donkeys in an unnamed desert located in a group of observatories on the top of a hill. The hum of science meets the wonders of nature, and this charming, gorgeously filmed ode to discovery (both on Earth and out there) makes one hope that the film academy will see fit to recognize more imaginative works of nonfiction in the future.

Animation, of course, thrives on the emotion of conjured worlds, like that of Konstantin Bronzit's silent desert island farce. “The three sisters.” It owes nothing to Chekhov (although there are seagulls), but a lot to a classic Russian sense of humor and Chaplinesque wit. Elsewhere, you can see the too cute Christian homily. “Always green” by Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears, about a nourishing tree, a restless bear, and the dangerous allure of potato chips. The message is confusing, but this eco-conscious journey is charming.

It's hard to predict a winner when the field is so strong, but John Kelly “Retirement Plan” revels in a tongue-in-cheek relationship, as Domhnall Gleeson chronicles the ambitious post-professional goals of a paunchy middle-aged man, while the cascade of deadpan, droll, thick-lined, worldly-toned images emphasize a more poignant, finite reality. In his very human view of life, this is, curiously, the opposite of a saccharine graduation speech.

A scene from “Retirement Plan”, nominated in the animated short category.

(Roadside Attractions)

The puppets of thin and aged dolls in the jewel of stop-motion “The girl who cried pearls” marks a sly fable about need, greed and destiny, centered on the Dickensian form of a wealthy grandfather from his poverty-stricken childhood in early 19th century Montreal. Filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski find a charming balance between storybook charm and adult deception. Maybe this one steals it?

Whatever the case, the animation that moved me the most is “Butterfly,” by Florence Miailhe, imagining the memory-laden last swim of French-Algerian Jewish athlete Alfred Nakache, who competed in the Olympic Games before and after the Holocaust. In the enveloping fluidity of a day on the ocean, rendered with thick brush strokes and splashes of sound, we travel through glimpses of community, injustice, achievement, love and despair. The visual and thematic constant, however, is water as refuge and poetic life force that fuels renewal.