Awesome Short Films

Artist Alain Biet created this mindblowing short film, which starts out with an artist painting an image of a pencil. As soon as he’s done with that one, more everyday objects start appearing and accumulating until the frame is completely filled. We can’t imagine how long it took Alain to create all 8,000 watercolor paintings. Music by Yan Volsy + Pablo Pico

Alfred Hitchcock loved to inject himself into scenes in his movies. In this cleverly edited black-and-white short film from Fabrice Mathieu, he made it look like the Master of Suspense was the one true killer in his films, making Hitch’s cameos much more ominous.

Jonathan Brooks’ science fiction short takes place aboard the International Space Station. When its lone astronaut loses contact with Earth and the station losing altitude, he starts wondering how he will survive and questioning what is real and imagined. Its creators began by searching the NASA Public Archives and wrote a story to match the source footage.

What starts as an ordinary day in the city quickly descends into pandemonium when a gigantic wiener dog appears and starts crushing, crumbling, and chomping his way through the streets. Does the big dog with the stubby legs mean harm, or does he just want some snacks? Crusoe the Dachshund stars in this silly send-up of monster B-movies.

Alan Becker’s Animation vs. series usually has stick figures battling the animation process or other stick figures. But in this short, our stick figure hero encounters a new challenge – mathematics. Things start with simple addition and subtraction, but the calculations quickly become harder to solve, especially when Euler’s Identity shows up.

Views of an AI imagines a film in the Blade Runner universe, but in the style of Fritz Lang, the man behind the 1927 cinematic masterpiece Metropolis. Like Ridley Scott’s original, it follows the story of a man who retires replicants and falls in love with one, then adds a new layer about a rebellion against the ruling class who created these androids.

In Carlos Gómez-Trigo’s short film, three survivors of an apocalyptic disaster debate how soon it will be safe to remove their helmets. After multiple signs point to an end to the threat, one of them becomes impatient and jumps the gun. What happens next might make you flinch. Be sure to turn on subtitles.

In this intense animation by MIKAN, a group of bicyclists find themselves in a race for survival. Which of the 25 colorful riders will make it to the end, and which will perish in some nightmarish fashion? It’s kind of like Squid Game but on bikes. Craving more bike survival action? MIKAN has got you covered.

Jean-Baptiste Chandelier and a very skilled camera crew take us on a wild ride through the mountains, as the paragliding pro flies over moving cars, chases down motorcycle riders, bicyclists, and skateboarders, and gives the cops a run for their money. The accompanying track is Ca Plane Pour Moi by Plastic Bertrand.

The early days of AI filmmaking are here, and the results are just as strange as you might imagine. Justin Hackney’s short film takes us to a carnival filled with freaky characters and retro-futuristic tech. He used DALL_E and Midjourney to generate style references, then entered modified prompts into Runway Gen-2 to create the footage. (Thanks, Gregory!)

This wildly imaginative short film from Panic takes us on a tour of the creative studio’s methodology, using animation to guide our way. The story is driven by a goofy character named Berthold, who learns about the meetings, scripting, storyboarding, illustration, sound design, and editing processes that went into bring his own story to life.

Filmmaker and world traveler Brandon Li takes us on a captivating and colorful journey through Morocco. The short film is packed with exciting motion shots that put us in the middle of the action and capture the energy of the country and its people. Learn about Brandon’s inspirations and process in the director’s commentary.

Filmmaker Conner Griffith scanned more than 1400 vintage engravings to create this meditative short film. It tells a series of abstract stories by isolating objects into individual frames. Conner’s effective sound design helps drive it along. The entire library of public domain images is available for download here.

Belgian filmmaker Gilles Havet sets our screens on fire by capturing an epic stage performance inspired by Norse mythology. The professional fire artists of Pyronix Production portray fire-wielding warriors in a eye-popping nighttime ballet of flame.

Writer-director Patrick Townsend’s short film takes place in the near future when online retailers ship us items based on what algorithms think we need. So when the system detects marital problems between Liz and Shane, it ships her a robotic boyfriend. Will technology bring them together or push them apart further?

Chad Nelson and Native Foreign’s animated short film is a hilarious parody of nature documentaries. As the narrator visits an unexplored forest, its residents have a thing or two to say about the invasion of privacy and being stereotyped. Its creators used DALL-E AI tech to make all of the creatures and environments.

(Flashing images) After making his first small purchase, a man finds himself pulled into a cycle of spending that quickly gets out of control. Animator Aaron Hughes’ award-winning short film is a witty and effective commentary on consumerism, appropriately drawn on market data pages from financial newspapers.

Mikhail Parkhomenko’s short film is more sizzle than steak, but what a sizzle it is. The loopable sequence was shot by pilot Emil Khaziev whose FPV drone descends from inside a building, chases a car, flies inside of it, then pauses to observe a scene. To pull that off a passenger had to catch the drone in motion while the pilot cut power.

Omozoc is known for their creative stop-motion animations. Their latest clip plays with the idea that everyday objects come to life and play while the humans are sleeping. It’s actually a commercial for Chinese automaker BYD, but you’d never know it until the logo appears at the end.

In this short film, a voiceover artist seeks approval from a picky client. But when he emerges from the recording booth, something strange is going on outside. Can he handle the real world? Filmmakers Dylan Bruno and Kasper Vejlø Kristensen cleverly use sound and off-screen action to build tension in their dark comedy short.

After being forced into retirement due to her age, a worker accidentally reinvents herself and ends up revolutionizing the workplace as we know it. Julien David’s outlandish animated short film takes on topics like corporate greed and our throw-away society in a hilarious and absurd way.

Filmmaker Fabrice Mathieu imagines that the Chinese spy balloon actually came from outer space, and it’s not the only one. In fact, an immense inflatable invasion is headed our way. Fabrice used footage from various movies (and music by Danny Elfman) to give his short film a great 1950s sci-fi vibe.

(PG-13: Language) Sascha Vernik’s award-winning animated short film takes us on a wild ride with a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown and whose efforts to set things right send him on a mind-bending journey through space and time. Read more about the filmmaker’s process Directors Notes.