Family Adventures: Oscar Shorts 2026

Our child is home for spring break.  This past weekend, we went to see all of the Oscar-nominated shorts at Vermont International Film Festival's screening room in Burlington.  This is something we used to do every year.  We started with the animated shorts, figuring those were likely to be the most child-friendly, then added the other categories in other later years.  It was great to renew the tradition.

My favorites are shaded in red.  The ultimate winners are in bold.  

Live Action Short Films

The Singers - 4 stars out of 5

A Friend of Dorothy - 4

Butcher's Stain - 3

Two People Exchanging Saliva - 3

Jane Austin's Period Drama - 5

Without a doubt, this was the strongest of the three categories.  I could understand and even defend any of the three of them winning.  A shared victory is only fitting.

Dorothy is a wonderful story of intergenerational platonic love.  Elderly Dorothy encourages young and handsome JJ in dramatic pursuits.  It hit all of the right emotional buttons for me, even if it was a bit predictable.

via Wikipedia

Jane Austin's PD is a delight and the only one of these 15 that my wife and I had seen before.  An Austin-esque heroine must explain her menstruation to a young suitor.  It's hilarious.  Every line of dialogue is an absolute zinger.  Everyone should watch it.  Forever.  I think it's a real shame it didn't win.  The Academy nearly always favors drama over comedy which is absurd.

Best Documentary Short Film

Perfectly a Strangeness - 3

The Devil Is Busy - 4

Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud - 3

All the Empty Rooms - 4

Children No More: "Were and Are Gone" - 3

I fully expected Armed Only with a Camera to win.  Brent Renaud is a documentarian who died in the field and I figured his peers would honor one of their own.  

All the Empty Rooms is about school shootings, a topic virtually guaranteed to inspire a profound emotional reaction from me.  Interestingly, the middle three in my list above all address gun violence in America in one way or another.  

Best Animated Short Film

The Three Sisters - 3

Forevergreen - 3

The Girl Who Cried Pearls - 3

Butterfly - 3

Retirement Plan - 3

This year's batch was good, not great.  In my experience, the Oscar usually goes to the most visually-impressive film in this category rather than the best story.  I understand Pearls as the choice here, a hyper-realistic marionette play.  I found the character figures a bit creepy, otherwise it might have been my favorite, too.

via Wikipedia

Retirement Plan's artwork is dead simple but the story of a man anticipating finding deeper meaning later in life resonated with me.