Whether you’re hurling old plates at your friends’ doors, stuffing 12 grapes into your mouth while the clock taunts you at midnight, or just trying not to fall asleep before the ball drops, people around the world have some… let’s say, “creative” ways of welcoming the new year. Here at S/W, we prefer a slightly less hazardous approach: reflecting on the past year and (humble brag!) celebrating all our achievements.

One of my personal favourite traditions during this season is our annual ‘Favorite Short Films’ post. Unlike our usual curation, where we carefully consider both our platform’s goals and our audience’s expectations, this list is selfishly, unapologetically about us - showcasing the short films that made us laugh, cry, or ask ourselves, “Did that just happen!?”

Whether it’s an unexpected take on relationship drama, a bold dive into mental health, or literally a singing butt with legs, these films represent the truly wonderful people (some of my own personal favourites!) that make S/W tick. And if nothing else, they’ll remind you why short films are small in size but huge in imagination.

Long live short film (and singing butts)!!

-- Managing Editor, Rob Munday

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We're Kind of Different

dir. Ben Meinhardt

Recommended by: Georg Csarmann

Picking a favorite short of the year is always a difficult task. Apart from going with my personal tastes, I usually like to highlight films that make the most of the short form medium itself, like Anthony Ing’s artful video essay Jill, Uncredited, which manages to find a haunting melancholy in its arrangement of found footage material. Then again, Ben Meinhardt’s We’re Kind of Different has a walking butt character who cheerfully sings about coming to terms with one’s individuality and the joys of being unique through his celebration of having a behind beneath his face - and how can you beat that? It is funny, charming, and strangely touching, made even sweeter by the fact that the characters (and trumpet) were contributions from Meinhardt’s own son. To top it all off, at only 3 minutes, We’re Kind of Different is exceedingly re-watchable and highly shareable.

READ OUR FULL REVIEW

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Drijf

dir. Levi Stoops

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Recommended by: Serafima Serafimova

There’s something unsettling about a film that makes you laugh before forcing you to recognise your own worst tendencies on screen, and Drijf does exactly that. It’s a brutally funny and uncomfortably accurate depiction of a relationship built on bad communication and repressed resentment. Levi Stoops’ stripped-back animation gives you just enough distance to laugh, before the dialogue (and the loaded silences) start feeling a bit too familiar. The film’s more extreme moments are properly funny, but they work because they’re rooted in recognisable dynamics: wounded masculinity and control masquerading as care. Drijf is sharp, silly, dark in the best possible way - and unexpectedly honest – which is why it’s my favourite short film of the year.

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Retirement Plan

dir. John Kelly

Recommended by: Céline Roustan

To say that Retirement Plan is a crowd pleaser is an understatement; its festival pedigree (and awards) can attest to that. Additionally, the film made it onto the shortlist for Best Animated Short Film at the Oscars. The simplicity of its narrative, combined with its undeniable raw authenticity, makes it such a compelling and charming watch. The film stays with you long after you’ve seen it, and makes you ponder the meaning of it all, prompting its audience to think about the present and the future.

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Learning English

dir. Jean Liu

Recommended by: Irina Wirjan

I love it when a film manages to be two opposite things at once. Learning English is both wholesome and raunchy, bright-eyed and a little cynical. The film’s protagonist is new to the US and is eager to practice English and make friends - even through some erm… unconventional means. This sharp comedy is a fresh take on the immigrant experience and a total delight.

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The Piss Saga

dir. Derek Milton

Recommended by: Andy Allen

Over the last two decades, comedy has watched its share of the film market dwindle. So I’m always excited to stumble upon new, inventive comedic approaches. One of my favorites is silly documentaries about blowing the oddities of life out of proportion. And few do that better than Derek Milton, whose previous short Getting a Grammy, is also an all-time favorite. In these times of great uncertainty and outrage, where everything is made to feel hypercritical, we need absurd works like this to squeeze it all back into perspective.

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I’m Really Scared I’m Dying TBH

dir. Lindsay Calleran

Recommended by: Rob Munday

Many individuals encounter mental health challenges throughout their lives; however, a significant difficulty often lies in communicating these experiences to others. In I’m Really Scared I’m Dying TBH, filmmaker Lindsay Calleran has produced, in my view, one of the most compelling and authentic cinematic explorations of mental health in recent years. A contemporary silent short, Calleran’s film immerses the audience in the disordered headspace of protagonist Gabriel as he struggles to convey his internal turmoil to those around him. The most surprising short film I watched in all of 2025 - I certainly wasn’t expecting to find myself so moved by the chat feed in a live sex show.

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Beyond Failure

dir. Marissa Losoya

Recommended by: Jason Sondhi

More than any member of the team, I’m susceptible to visual flair in filmmaking, but my most rewatched film of 2025 was a scrappy one-woman show that probably cost less than $100 to make. Written/shot/edited/directed/performed by Marissa Losoya, this achingly funny film about the vital importance of building oneself a great ass reminded me of a couple of my favorites - combining the rapid-fire comedic delivery of a short like This is It, with the faux self-help stylings of How to Lose Weight in Four Easy Steps. However, its flatly delivered monologuing owes more to contemporary TikTok than anything, and through the subtext of its unrelenting accumulation, Losoya’s internet-tinged explanations are a remarkable and unexpectedly poignant window into the psychology of feeling “stuck” in one’s 20s.

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OYU

dir. Atsushi Hirai

Recommended by: Chelsea Lupkin

In the small town of Toyama, Japan, a man visits a public bath to retrieve a forgotten item in Atsushi Hirai’s Oyu, a film that has stayed with me long after I watched it. What slowly unfolds is an incredibly intimate emotional journey - one that makes you appreciate the time we have in this world with our loved ones through an altogether vulnerable viewing experience. Allowing us to piece together how one man feels as he immerses himself in a world that doesn’t quite belong to him, Hirai’s carefully crafted storyline reveals itself from the fringes of his character’s periphery. Simmering with what’s left unsaid, Oyu packs an emotional punch that left me feeling gutted by the end of its runtime - a truly powerful piece of filmmaking that became a surprise favorite of mine.

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皮蛋 (Century Egg)

dir. Charles Chen Barratt

Recommended by: Mariana “Rekka” Dominguez

The first film I added to my Best of 2025 playlist, I’ve found myself returning to Century Egg several times since it came out. That quiet ache of wanting to reconnect with a place or with people who once felt like home but are no longer there is incredibly powerful to me. While the cinematography and its progression over the film are amazing to watch.

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CHECK OUT THE S/W TEAM'S FAVORITE FILMS FROM 2024