THE BEST Short Films

Filmmaker Peter Davies, along with cinematographer Nuri Moseinco present a beautifully-shot short film, captured as they traveled across Morocco, offering a brief look at the lives of the people who call the vibrant North African country their home.

For those of you who haven’t been there, Coke is a very powerful drug. No no no, not that coke, the other one – with the caffeine. Enjoy this cautionary tale in the four minutes of ardent animation and fluid (and true) storytelling from Dress Code.

Brian Donahue packs boxes at UPS. But he’s also been an NFL player, a WWF pro wrestler, a Disney theme park actor, and for decades now a stuntman and an actor. His body is broken, but he’s still in the mix, hoping to catch that big break in Hollywood.

(PG-13: Language) Dishwashers are the unsung heroes of restaurants. CBC Docs’ documentary gives us a peek into the life of three dishwashers. Instead of focusing on their work, the short film humanizes them by showing us their struggles and experiences.

Five logs find themselves lost on a cold, dark night, freezing to death, when they realize the only source of warmth is lighting their own kind on fire. A darkly comic animated short from Nils Hedinger. It’s sort of like the wooden equivalent of the movie Alive.

Written and directed by Andy Goralczyk this beautifully animated CGI short film is about a girl and her dog who encounter mysterious spirits as they trek through a forest. Blender Animation Studio is offering up the production assets for animators to learn from.

Remi Devouassoud’s visually stunning CG animated short presents us with an image which plays with our minds. Are we looking at another universe, or an up-close image of a human eye? Or is it both?

“I could tell he was a real space man… because he had these funny little boots on.” Dan Britt’s animated short for Adult Swim’s SMALLS tells a story of an ordinary man abducted by an alien who needs a little help. But that’s not all…

A street corner party erupts in the strangest possible way as a group of visually-distorted computer-generated characters get their rave on. Enjoy more of director Nikita Diakur’s wonderfully creative madness over on the website for his short film Ugly.

The Atlantic shares Edwin Lee’s beautiful documentary, Wasabia Japonica. It’s about Shigeo Iida, a 75-year-old who’s an eighth generation wasabi farmer. Most “wasabi” is actually dyed horseradish. Iida’s crop is the real deal, and fetches up to $250/kg.

A man enjoys his quiet and calm world every day until something loud and distracting enters his universe to shake things up. Animator Dan Castro’s short film proves that less is often sometimes more, and how sound can be just as important in telling a story as imagery.

Sava Zivkovic’s computer animated short film follows an alien creature who must deliver a mysterious object back to its home. The story only scratches the surface of the mystery, but the mood it sets is incredibly captivating. Go behind the scenes with its creators here.

Reddit newbie MaggieePearl asked her boyfriend Jason Velasquez for advice on how to best interact with the unforgiving world of the link-sharing platform, and rather than just walk her through a few tips on Reddit etiquette, he made this video instead.

(PG-13: Language) Penny was an astronaut from the ’60s who was sent through a wormhole. She ended up 1000 years into the future, and found nothing but a wizard who’s addicted to cola. Joe & Lloyd Stas’ comedy short film is definitely driven by its characters.

Everyday lives in a neighborhood are shaken up when a mysterious stranger appears on the scene, and stokes the fire burning within each and every resident. Davide Dell’Edera and Airplan Studio’s animated short is an exercise in less-is-more storytelling.

After a night on the town, a man with a few too many drinks in him stops in a public toilet to relieve himself. But when he’s not exactly tidy, the restroom reminds him to clean up his act. Director Simeon Duncombe’s darkly-comic short film is well worth a watch.

Director Claudia Barral’s intriguing short film invites us to explore a series of locations over the course of many years, but rather than look at time in a linear fashion, scenes play out simultaneously in the same exact places.

(PG-13: Language) Two New Yorkers trying to break into Hollywood finally lose it, and everything goes to hell. Writer and director Gil Freston tries to make a name for himself by making fun of the very industry and city that he needs in this meta-comedy short film.

An elevator stops on the wrong floor in this super-condensed, but nonetheless super-creepy horror short film by Toby Meakins. Trust us when we say this half floor is way worse than the one in Being John Malkovich.

Director Katarina Lundquist’s beautifully animated short film tells the story of an old man and his best friend living out their days deep an a Norwegian forest. But one day, his pal disappears, and the man must deal with the emotional fallout of his loss.

A stray kitten is threatened when a pit bull moves in next to its hiding place. The cat does its best to push the dog away, but one day sees that they both could use a friend. This Pixar artist-made short film does a great job of capturing the nuances of a kitten’s behavior.

Miss Gazelle and Mister Bear have a dinner date. But things don’t quite go according to plan in this hilarious and rapidly-escalating animated short by Veronica Solomon that reminds us of the classic Bambi Meets Godzilla for some reason.

(PG-13 Language) Paul Trillo teamed up with Aerobo to create this dark and dizzying short film in which a group of neighbors debate how to handle an unstable man who appears in their cul-de-sac. Incredibly, the entire film was shot in a single take using a drone.

Keiichi Matsuda’s film feels like a short episode of Black Mirror, as a woman contemplates a big change in order to better understand the AI that runs everything around her. The interfaces in his 360º universe seem like a natural extension of his earlier short Hyper-Reality.

Based on a short story by Elizabeth Bonesteel, and directed by Device, this animated short film follows two operatives who must work together to infiltrate a prison, but all is not what it seems in this science fiction story about a son’s love for his father.

Smash works inside a locomotive, powering the engine with his partner Grab. He’s tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and more importantly if being literally tied down to his job. So when he sees an opportunity to escape, he doesn’t hesitate.