Short of the Week
Oscar night has been a triumphal showcase for short film talents in recent years, with Short of the Week regulars Daniels and Gints Zilbalodis taking home statuettes in major categories. We hope that this trend continues in 2026, as Geeta Gandbhir contends in Best Documentary Feature, and Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams vies for Best Picture.
Truthfully, though, many film talents come up through shorts, whether they make it to Short of the Week or not, and so while we root for our alums, our primary focus remains on the three categories that truly hold our interest. As we’ve done in recent years, this article is one last opportunity for us to champion the films we love while also looking at past trends to guess how the Academy might vote.
While we do not engage in any special research or devise a prediction algorithm, historically, our predictions have been fairly accurate. Our recent track record: perfect in 2022, and 2 of 3 in 2023 and 2024.
Last year, however, we were derailed. None of our predictions took home the prize! Our disappointment at this development was tempered by seeing our favorite in the Live Action category, I Am Not a Robot by Victoria Warmerdam, win the award, but we’ve got a lot to prove this year to get back on track.
We’ve redoubled our efforts in 2026 in order to redeem ourselves. Here are our predictions for Best Animated Short Film, Best Documentary Short Film, and Best Live Action Short Film at the Academy Awards (98th edition). Good luck to all the contenders, and good luck to you and your Oscar pools!
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Best Animated Short Film
Winner: Retirement Plan by John Kelly
In a lovely twist, we have the feeling that our favorite in the Animation category might also be the winner. The Venn diagram of our tastes and that of the Academy as a whole possesses only a tiny overlap, but this year, John Kelly’s Retirement Plan might find itself right in the middle.
Since its World Premiere in Galway in July 2024, Retirement Plan has taken the festival circuit by storm. Anyone who pays attention to the scene simply cannot have missed this film. Picking up the Audience and Jury Awards at SXSW, it’s been on a prize tear, earning the most Qualifying awards of any film in the category.
While Academy members may not be overly influenced by festival recognition, the film’s varied qualities seem to have put everyone in agreement, having found a way to resonate with different audiences. The animation style is clean and appealing, the film is refreshingly short at only 7-minutes, it has a celebrity angle with Domhnall Gleeson providing its voice-over, and its bittersweet, sentimental message is universal and moving. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but if we were to put money on an outcome, we’d go with Retirement Plan.
Our Pick: Retirement Plan by John Kelly
As the only S/W selection in the category, Retirement Plan being ‘our pick’ is a foregone conclusion, but this is no “least-worst option.” The film’s undeniable charm simply made it one of our favorite shorts of the year. Deeply compelling, it leaves you with an urgent need for introspection and is the rare film that can linger long past its runtime. The writing is outstanding, and paired with Gleeson’s engrossing voice, gives a poetic and engaging rhythm to the film, while its simple yet delightful animation style is simply a cherry on top. This is the kind of film that you not only remember watching but also remember how it made you feel.
Picks by Céline Roustan
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Best Documentary Short Film
Winner: All the Empty Rooms by Joshua Seftel
There is a credible argument for most of the films in this category: Geeta Gandbhir is the betting favorite for Best Documentary Feature, which could aid her and Christalyn Hampton’s short, The Devil is Busy. Doing the double would be a great story! HBO’s other nominee, Armed With Only a Camera, is a familial tribute to a fallen artist so powerful that a scripted adaptation was just announced. While there is no shortage of options, I would not argue if you chose the Gaza war as the most dominant geopolitical issue of the past couple of years, so does that favor Children No More, and its legendary producer, Sheila Nevins?
Yet, I argue All the Empty Rooms, a film which follows a celebrated journalist on his journey to photograph the preserved rooms of children who fell victim to school shootings, should be considered the favorite heading into Sunday. This is for a pair of reasons: first, Netflix is its distributor and has taken over from HBO as the 800-pound gorilla in this category. I underestimated Only Girl in the Orchestra last year, and won’t make that mistake twice. The second is that the film is the most emotionally affecting of the nominees, and on that important criterion, it can be argued as the most effective. As mentioned in our Voters’ Guide leading into the nomination phase, there is an admirable degree of restraint in Seftel’s film that allows the power of the Hartman and Bopp photo project to shine through, via a contemplative approach that pleasingly echoes the underlying premise of reflection and remembrance.
Our Pick: perfectly a strangeness by Alison McAlpine
While I was very moved by All the Empty Rooms, and will not object to its likely victory (an 86% chance according to Gold Derby), I find it interesting to note that I subsequently watched the 60 Minutes segment on Hartman and Bopp’s photo project, and it elicited an almost identical degree of emotion. How could this be? Seftel’s spare, observational treatment and the structured, formulaic journalism of 60 Minutes are almost diametrically opposite forms of documentary storytelling! What it suggests to me is that the true power of All the Empty Rooms lies in the underlying project itself, of which this short is simply one of multiple expressions. That does not invalidate what Seftel achieves, but it is an important contextualization when seeking to deliver life-changing honors.
Therefore, I’ll argue for the only short I absolutely cannot see winning. This is not me simply being contrarian; I genuinely love perfectly a strangeness, and wrote a bit about what I liked about it in our voters’ guide.
While my appreciation for the film remains undimmed, this choice does contain a germ of protest against the larger Oscar superstructure. I think it would be very healthy for perfectly a strangeness to win. Documentary is the most stagnant of the three Oscar categories, and it feels as though the same variations on hot-button issues and sympathetic character profiles keep advancing every year, with little to no variation in length, tone, or perspective. perfectly a strangeness is a shock to this—it is, frankly, bizarre that this Cannes-premiering short has even made it this far, as it is the least conventional nominee in recent memory. Calling it a “documentary”, in fact, feels like a stretch, and I would probably have settled on two other primary classifications before arriving at that one. But its sheer outlier status has the potential to light the way to a future for the category that is more adventurous, playful, and risk-taking.
Picks by Jason Sondhi
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Best Live-Action Short Film
Winner: The Singers by Sam Davis
I have to admit, in recent years, we’ve found that predicting the winner of the Best Live Action Short Film Oscar has become increasingly tricky. It honestly used to feel a bit easier to get inside the head of an Academy voter. Who seemed to respond more to subject matter than originality – “Oscar bait” has long been part of the short film categories too. However, last year voters surprised us by choosing what was, in our view, the best film of the nominees: I Am Not a Robot. Now, our usual way of predicting things is slightly off.
You could make a strong argument for any of this year’s nominees: a topical drama touching on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, an LGBTQ+ dramedy, a “period” comedy, a dystopian vision that echoes modern realities, and an emotive dive-bar drama picked up by Netflix. But in the end, we’re going to bet on the influence of that streaming giant and back Sam Davis’ The Singers to take Oscar glory.
A favourite on the festival circuit, The Singers is strikingly original, deeply immersive, and – perhaps most importantly when it comes to Oscar voters – it delivers when it comes to emotional stakes. At this point, we just can’t see past Davis’ film.
Our Pick: The Singers by Sam Davis
While we’ve already backed Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh’s impressive short film Two People Exchanging Saliva here on Short of the Week, it was honestly a toss-up between that film and Sam Davis’ The Singers as our personal favourite. However, with Davis’ work featured multiple times on our platform over the years, he’s a filmmaker we’ve followed for a long time – and a talent we’ve believed in from early on. Because of that, The Singers ultimately becomes our pick for Best Live Action Short Film.
Whether Academy voters will agree is something we’ll find out soon enough, but Davis’ short is the one that most closely aligns with the Short of the Week ethos – bold, distinctive filmmaking that connects emotionally and lands a reverberating impact. It’s the film we’re personally hoping to see rewarded when the ceremony rolls around on Sunday.
Picks by Rob Munday