This is part one of a series covering the Oscar® 2026 race. Each week, before the shortlist voting commences on December 8th, we will preview a short film category and its eligible films.

Animated Short Subject is first alphabetically, and first in my heart. Of the three shorts categories it has gotten the closest to celebrating a consensus “best” of its field in recent years, even if the ultimate winner has not always reflected this.

Tracking qualified films is part of our ongoing process, but the increasing ease of qualifying via “exhibition” makes it tricky to be exact. With Cartoon Brew recently publishing the official list, we can compile, with certainty, a Shortverse collection of the 113 animated shorts that are up for consideration.

[caption id="attachment_41635" align="aligncenter" width="609"]

Use Shortverse’s filters to isolate films by country or technique, online status and more.

Click to visit the collection. Use Shortverse filters to isolate films by country or technique, online status, and more.[/caption]

113 films is…a lot. I have not seen all 113, so this post is not an official endorsement like our Voting Guides for the Shortlist and Nominee stages. This is more of a guided journey through what has caught our eye, informed by the buzz we’re hearing from experts and insiders. We’ll structure it as a series of observations to guide your own exploration through the contenders.

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[caption id="attachment_41639" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Still from Les Betes

Still from Les Betes[/caption]

Hooray for Online Films!

11 of the shorts are online at this moment, including three of our favorites:

Les Bêtes - a nightmarishly baroque stop-mo we featured earlier in the year.
Retirement Plan - Best of Fest at Palm Springs, this contemplative short about aging is an unexpected crowdpleaser.
Shimmer - an impressive Mexican CG short, backed by Jorge R. Gutierrez.

The latter two are hitting S/W as official selections soon. This list is lighter than in past years, though, and some of these shorts are geo-blocked—so while there will be a rush to come online after the shortlist, this is a trend to pay attention to.

Can Miyu Break Through?

Anyone who goes to animation festivals recognizes the dominance of Miyu and the enormous slate of top-notch festival films it works with via its production and distribution arms. The company represented three of the five nominees last year but is still looking for a first win.

This year, it hopes to repeat that feat and go the final step with 12 qualified shorts. Our faves from the slate are among our favorites of the entire bunch, so we like their chances!

Scars We Love - a bittersweet break-up story that’s done 2M views on YouTube in Europe.
Luz Diabla - an absolutely wild queer-horror which was a favorite of ours from Sundance.
Hurikán - If you’re a fan of 90s and 2000s independent comics, you’ll adore this one.

[caption id="attachment_41641" align="aligncenter" width="640"] still from Versa

still from Versa[/caption]

Will a Studio Film Make The Cut?

While the medium’s artier practitioners have been well-represented by voters historically, one could crudely think of the voting body as split between “big studio” and “film festival” demographics. The expansion of the Academy’s membership in recent years, and more recently, Animation being split into its own branch, seems to have broken the power of the Big Studio voting bloc, and we’ve now gone the entire 2020s without a traditional American powerhouse studio nominee in a category that Disney/Pixar won 4 out of 7 years during a stretch of the 2010s. This year, there are a few worthy contenders, though:

Versa - from Disney, an emotional story about the loss of a child, which played at Annecy.
Wednesday with Gramps - A fun, intergenerational comedy from Dreamworks and a pair of writer/director brothers.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - While I don’t think a franchise short has much of a chance, the Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg-led reboot of the franchise for Paramount was sneakily excellent.

Yet, I think an established studio’s best shot may not lie with one of the giants, but with an underdog. Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon (Wolfwalkers, The Secret of Kells) is one of the prides of European animation, and their new short, Éiru, mixes the company’s trademarked geometric design and folklore with a timely message of tolerance that I think a lot of voters will dig.

AI is Knocking on the Door

The Academy released guidance on the use of AI earlier this year, announcing that AI and AI-assisted projects would be eligible. Inevitably, projects would try to walk through that door and attempt a historic first. While I don’t believe that the industry is as uniformly anti-AI as social media indicates, I do think the backlash is prominent enough that said breakthrough is still a few years away.

All Heart - The heavyweight contender, it re-teams the writer/directors of the beloved 2020 Oscar-winner, If Anything Happens I Love You, and deploys the full backing of the buzzy studio, Asteria, co-founded by Bryn Mooser and Natasha Lyonne.
Ahisma - Qualifying through a theatrical run, this short is an impressive look at what an individual can achieve solo via AI, but it won’t silence any doubters when it comes to taste.
The Eggregore’s Theory - If an AI film breaks through, it is more likely to be like this, where AI is deliberately used to comment and critique upon itself, from a creator known previously for getting the first machinima film into Cannes.
flower_gan - Another film utilizing AI to question AI, this smart short won a Student Academy Award in the experimental category and is available online as well.

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still from The Night Boots[/caption]

Rare Techniques on Display

Speaking about how films are made, there are a pair of shorts in the running that utilize niche techniques that are worthy of highlight:

Balconies - Oil on glass is rare, but this German short from Xenia Smirnov executes it well, and does so in a style very different from the classical impressionism of the technique’s most famous practitioner, Aleksandr Petrov.
The Night Boots - I mostly created the section to highlight this short, which must be considered a favorite in the category. The Cristal-winner at Annecy, the short employs pinscreen animation, a century-old technique that is in the midst of a revival, as this piece in Animation Obsessive explains.

Topical Storytelling: Ukraine

The previously mentioned expansion of Academy membership has greatly increased European representation, and while it is a concern to people everywhere, the war in Ukraine is an especially huge story on the continent. I would not be surprised if a short that touches on the conflict makes it to the shortlist.

I Died in Irpin - Another betting favorite, the film won the most qualifying prizes, making it eligible three times over (*correction* - Retirement Plan leads the way with four). Major fests too, like Manchester Animation, Fest Anča, and Bucheon. It also took home the Emile Award as Europe's Best Animated Short.
Bound - Born out of the Pixar co-op program, this folklore tale is not about the conflict itself, but the artist’s determination to create this embroidery-style short was steeled by the war.
Winter in March - From alum, Natalia Mirzoyan, a powerful hybrid piece that the filmmaker coins a "documentary road movie”, as a flight from home at the start of the war turns into a surreal nightmare.

[caption id="attachment_41644" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

BTS still from the set of The Girl Who Cried Pearls

BTS still from the set of The Girl Who Cried Pearls[/caption]

Celebrating Our Alums

Finally, a shoutout to all our Short of the Week alums we haven’t touched upon yet. Learn more about these shorts and seek them out!

Andrea Dorfman’s NFB short, Hairy Legs, will be familiar to lovers of Flawed, and is online now!
Lavis and Szczerbowski have their long-anticipated follow-up to the Oscar-nominated classic, Madame Tutli-Putli. I would be surprised if it doesn’t make the shortlist.
Iulia Voitova is an elegant artist, as evidenced by her S/W selection, La Plongeuse. We’ll be rooting for Longue Distance.
Ida Melum delighted us with Night of the Living Dread. We’re still waiting to check out her latest, Ovary-Acting, but eagerly anticipate it!
Stéphanie Lansaque is represented here for Sisowath Quay, a horror short I’m dying to see. It’s been 15 years, but Mei Ling remains etched in my mind.
Zohar Dvir’s Butterfly Kiss is excellent and is a recent Staff Pick!
Boris Labbé is an immense talent that straddles the fine art and animation worlds. La Chute is an experience unlike any other, and while I don’t know much about Glasshouse, I assume it is too.
Andy Martin is a well-loved animation and motion designer under his Handymartian Studio brand. We featured a small piece of his waaaay back in 2009, and it’s nice to see him with an impressive gig—the latest short for Magic Light Pictures, the producers of The Gruffalo and other famous animated shorts.

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Thanks for following us through this long post! These take a long time, so if you appreciate it, please let us know! The plan is to be back next week with a preview of the Documentary Short Subject category.