Awesome Short Films

Social distancing has changed things since Nata Metlukh created her lighthearted animated short film. But we can still relate to its many examples of socially awkward situations that can pop up when the world is functioning normally. We quite enjoyed the quirky illustration style.

(Gore) While camping in the woods, a couple inadvertently leaves their mark in a horrific way. Their crime won’t go unpunished, though, as they also left behind photographic evidence. Nature strikes back with a vengeance in this darkly-comic short film from animation students at Ecole des Nouvelles Images.

The average person blinks roughly 28,800 times per day. You might not think a lot could happen during just a single blink, but that’s not the case. Melodysheep’s short film explains some of the millions and millions of events that happen in the universe in the time it takes to blink. They also made us feel really, really small.

Director André Øvredal (Trollhunter) presents a dark vision of the future, as a family returns from a day at the beach, only to be stuck in a painfully-long traffic jam waiting to enter a tunnel. But we gradually learn the passage serves a terrifying purpose. Based on the 1961 short story The Tunnel Ahead by Alice Glaser.

After leaving his friends for work, a satellite tech becomes bored and shifts his focus to his phone screen. Ironically, his lack of attention results in a catastrophic loss of communication. Benjamin Morard and Frederic Siegel’s short film is less of a cautionary tale about technology, and more a story about friendship.

After being stuck inside for far too long, Fraser Munden and Catherine Dubeau of Thoroughbread Pictures decided to animate some of the visions that isolation and dozing off with the television on has manifested. Despite the product placement, they’re quick to point out that Old Grand-Dad whiskey is not a sponsor.

What if God was an amateur computer programmer, and Earth was just one of the experiments he created using a graphical world-building application? That’s the setup for Magnus Møller, Mette Tange, and Peter Smith’s silly animated short film for Tumblehead. It also explains where that whole flat Earth thing came from.

Anyone who has sat through endless corporate meetings and conference calls can relate to the often uncontrollable desire to yawn. This animated short by Jakob Fløtre Eiring and Konrad Hjemli not only offers a humorous look at this situation but also is almost guaranteed to make you yawn by the end.

After returning from a trip to the moon, an astronaut is disappointed to find that the world has lost interest in her journey. As things progress, her life intersects with a filmmaker and a bear on a unicycle in this charming and touching animated short film by writer/director Mathieu Libman.

Bernardo Britto’s emotionally-satisfying short film follows the story of an ordinary man who is tasked with creating the definitive history of humanity before aliens come to blow up our planet. The animation captured numerous awards when on the festival circuit back in 2014. Now, the clip is for all to view online.

Filmmaker daihei shibata presents a satisfying compilation of images that start out with two polarized objects, then fill in the gradations between them to produce a smooth transition. The video expresses how blurring boundaries can expose complexity, diversity, and richness of information.

A man stumbles onto a YouTube video for a woman who claims she can reconnect him with someone he misses. But when he hits play, he gets more than he bargains for in this taught and minimal horror short film from director Dominic Grose. Best watched full screen with the volume cranked.

Filmmakers Vincent Urban, Max Neumeier & Tim David Höddinghaus of 27km created this amazing short film that offers a glimpse into the vast and varied nation of Russia. From the cosmopolitan chaos of Moscow to the icy and unspoiled Lake Baikal, the film is like a candy sampler box packed with all kinds of tasty visuals.

Zita and Rafael of Zurich-based animation studio Crictor love to make super-short videos with the goal of making people smile. Previously, they used a blow torch to pop a single kernel of popcorn; now they’re celebrating the new year by blowing streamers into the air with a hairdryer.

This animated short film plays out like a side-scroller action game, but the level design isn’t just some background scenery. Instead, the story of its protagonist’s tragic past relationship are recalled as she runs through the stages, fueled by a blast of caffeine. From director Hjalti Hjalmarsson and Blender Animation Studio.

This stop-motion animated short film by Soetkin Verstegen is an abstract journey to a place where workers are tasked with retrieving ice and preserving it before it melts. As they move the blocks, the creatures living inside are reanimated. It doesn’t follow a traditional plot but does a great job placing us in its chilly universe.