Awesome Short Films

After getting fired from her job, Penny the cat encounters a stranger who offers her a chance to make a lot of money. His proposition is equal parts Fight Club and Squid Game. Victoria “Vewn” Vincent’s off-kilter animated short film explores how a need for cash and acceptance can lead us to some very dark places.

In this gross-out short horror film from writer-director Oskar Lehemaa, a balding man receives an unexpected bottle of hair growth formula on his doorstep, and he decides to try it. Only the serum has unintended consequences after the hair starts to sprout and wreaks havoc on Leo and his world.

After being adopted from a shelter, an innocent rescue dog discovers that its new home is haunted by the ghosts of the family’s prior pets. Joe Cappa’s weird and creepy animated short film has moments of humor but is definitely more horror than comedy. We also love the tagline “Are You Afraid of the Bark?”

Barcelona design studio Six N. Five takes us on a journey through time and space represented as a circle moving through various locations. Director Ezequiel Pini says “We are a circle, without boundaries, beginning or end. Infinity, Unity, connection, just a circle in expansion.” Part of the Moco Museum collection.

Independent filmmaker Danny Donahue set out to make a movie about time travel and dinosaurs. Despite having virtually no budget, he created an impactful short film that relies heavily on sound effects to build dramatic tension. Even more impressive is that Danny did the CGI himself with no prior knowledge of the tech. (Thanks, Rob!)

(PG-13: Language) In this tense short film by Andrew David Barker and Ashley Price, a man receives a harassing phone call from a debt collection agency and refuses to meet their demands. But there’s more to the circumstances surrounding the intimidating call than just the small amount of money he owes.

(PG-13: Language) We’re sure our actor friends can relate to this short film about a man who takes a rather unglamourous gig for a chance at a good part. Liam Harkins stars as Malky, the actor who knows he can do so much more in this understated comedy by writer-director Tom Nicoll.

Remember the Fizzy Lifting Drinks scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Well, if this comedy sketch from Rick Darge and John Weselcouch is to be believed, you can achieve the same basic effect by just drinking way too much LaCroix sparkling water.

Filmmaker Thomas Blanchard created this captivating music video for the electronic track Bellatrix by Sébastien Guérive. He created the monochrome imagery by saturating hot water with chemicals that spontaneously crystallize when cooled. Go full screen, dim the lights, and crank up your headphones to 11 for this one.

Visual artist Darren “Darius Twin” Pearson is known for his long-exposure light paintings. He has a particular fondness for skeletons. For the short film Fiat Lux, he captured more than 680 hand-painted scenes, then assembled them into an animation. Each of the 11 scenes is also available as an NFT.

When a scrap dealer is about to crush two old gondola cars, he realizes that there might be more to their story than just some inanimate hunks of metal and glass. This sweet and charming animated short was created by French animation collective MegaComputeur.

Despite an intentionally low frame rate, the animation in Olivier Lescot’s short film The Rift is impeccable, producing a great sense of movement through the use of motion blur and other visual techniques. Strap in for a brief but action-packed ride as a man finds himself chased into the night by a mysterious and heavily-armed crew.

Do you need a better way to eat your spaghetti? How about a new way to dust your house? This off-kilter short film by Jared Lapidus pokes fun at those commercials for superfluous products and the people who need them. And then things really weird… and really dark.

(PG-13: Language) Amber Schaefer and Yoni Lotan’s exceptional short film paints a realistic portrait of an aspiring travel and lifestyle influencer and how reality threatens to interfere with his bubbly on-screen persona and undying dedication to his followers.

What would happen if three of the greatest adventurers came face-to-face in search of the same treasure? Devin Supertramp and crew headed to Uzbekistan to find out. This short action film stars stunt actors Braxton McAllister, Michaela McAllister, and Corbett McAllister as the heroes of Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Rick Darge and Hilary Smith star in this super-short and amusing film about a woman and her desire to see what her partner’s face looks like beneath his facial hair. The moral of the story… some questions are best left unanswered.

A little while back, Mr. Michal showed off a sweet mini artillery truck he built that fires ball bearings. Now watch the chaos that ensues as that truck does battle alongside a similarly-equipped tank on a field filled with plastic army men and toy tanks in his action short film “Battlefield 2022.”

The biggest cruise ships out there can be taller than a 10-story building. So imagine what it must be like living in a cozy Norwegian cottage when one of these floating behemoths pulls up outside your window to dock. Odveig Klyve’s wordless short film View puts things in perspective.

Nathan Boey and Spy Films enlisted the help of 39 fellow animators to create this collaborative short film. The concept is simple: animate a ball for three seconds, then hand it off to another animator in a different country to pick up where they left off. The result is an inventive and engaging 2-minute animation in a variety of styles.

Pip Ketchip and Nic Musterd are friends. One day, they stop to enjoy lunch outdoors and strike up a conversation about tap water, bicycles, vacuum cleaners, and bear attacks. And then The Fuzz turns up. Real Big Boys knocked it out of the park with their comedy sketch about homophones.

During a video shoot, a cameraman finds himself trapped in a seemingly endless maze of rooms and corridors on the other side of reality. Kane Pixels’ grainy “found footage” short film shows how to create tension without a budget. (Thanks, Rob!)

Sandro Bocci of JuliaSetLab and Dugong Films creates art by photographing the interactions between liquids, as see through the lens of a microscope. Watch as these puddles of fluids of varying viscosities form patterns that look like the clouds and planets of a distant galaxy.

Inspired by the 15th-century painting The Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello, animator Georges Schwizgebel imagined the movement that played out on the battlefield in the moments leading up to the scene in the original painting. Each frame was hand-painted with acrylics.