Awesome Short Films

(PG-13: Language) “Do you have any work gloves or anything? This is like a huge job.” A loan shark’s hitman takes a debtor out to the middle of nowhere, and demands that he dig his own grave. But fulfilling this TV and movie trope isn’t as easy as it sounds in Kirk Larsen’s darkly comedic short film.

This silly little video clip from filmmakers Zita and Rafael of Crictor may be short, but it’s immensely satisfying. Watch as a single kernel of popcorn is dropped into a blow torch, and somehow ends up floating perfectly atop the wind made by a hairdryer. We wonder just how many takes it took them to get this just right.

Consistently awesome animator and illustrator Steve Cutts offers up a topsy-turvy take on the destruction of our environment and climate change, envisioning a world in which animals are destroying the place, and humans have to deal with the fallout of their actions. The Track is The Turning Point by Wantaways.

Artist Arktk Berkut created the mindblowing visuals to accompany Moa Pillar’s track And the Moon Stopped, complementing the dizzying ambient track with a kaleidoscopic journey through a virtual world made up of digitally-manipulated photographs.

As philosopher Albert Camus said “Life is a sum of all your choices.” In Kingdom of Something’s lighthearted short, they provide some stats about how much of our lives we spend performing everyday tasks, and some of the figures might help you better allocate your time.

Ritzy Animation’s amusing short film follows the journey of a down-on-his-luck Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer after he’s retired from Santa’s crew. But Rudy gets inspired to clean up his act, and again become the powerful sled-puller he once was. Naturally, there’s a training montage.

As we move further into a world where our art, literature, and information are stored not in physical forms, but as data, we face the prospect that we could lose our history in a blink – especially if licensors decide to revoke access. Chris Cousins‘ dystopian short film explores that prospect using a future museum to illustrate the dangers.

Through the use of high-contrast black-and-white imagery, and a stark, minimal soundtrack by Paul Vinsonhaler, filmmaker Jason Allen Lee’s incredible animated short will truly transport you into the isolation of outer space. If you can, watch it full screen in a darkened room with headphones on.

Colin Levy’s short sci-fi film follows two teens who prank people by swapping the contents of their drone deliveries. But when a hack goes wrong, they discover a dark secret about the unmanned aerial vehicles flying overhead. The production was funded via Kickstarter and through the efforts of volunteer CG artists.

A young woman comes face to face with an android in the desert outside of Dubai, and discovers the machine is looking for a fight. But is the robot her nemesis, or simply a reflection of herself? Daniel Askill’s impeccable short film packs a punch with crisp choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and a stellar soundtrack by Philip Glass.

(PG-13: Language) A man and a woman get together over what appears a delicious brunch, and have a particularly outlandish conversation over croissants and orange juice. John Purcell’s nonsensical short film is unabashedly silly and offbeat.

Photographer and filmmaker Bruce W. Berry Jr. collected and cleaned up video and time-lapse footage captured by astronauts on-board the International Space Station to give us this stunning short film that provides a glimpse of our planet from the vantage point of space.

An office worker finds himself the victim of a series of daily pranks by his co-workers. But in the end, the rage kicks in, and he gets his revenge in Damien Bastelica’s amusing and extremely well-drawn animated short.

Motion artist Thomas Blanchard’s colorful short film envisions an entire universe that lives inside of our eyes. What makes the vibrant visuals even more amazing is that they were entirely created with paint, ink, oil, and soap, without reliance on CGI or digital effects.

This amazing short film took animator Gooseworx two years to create, and the payoff was worth it. Follow along with a video game character named Runmo on his journey to discover the meaning of life (or in his case, lives). It’s a weird, wild, and wonderfully inventive look at what it might be like to live in a platform game.

Anthony Falleroni’s animated short follows a video game character who struggles with the difficulty of completing of the very first level in his game. We love the pixel art style, chiptune soundtrack, and most of all, the storytelling. His making of video is well worth a watch too.