The Oscars 2025 shortlist was revealed Tuesday, and the Live Action Shorts category aims to pull on Academy voters’ heartstrings and appeal to their humanity.
With each showcasing and tackling a form of injustice, societal inequality and perseverance, highlights that found a place for themselves across the 15 dedicated slots include notable shorts such as Adam J. Graves’ Anuja, which follows the story of a young Indian girl who has to decide between education or employment at a factory. The short film grabbed wins for Best Live Action Short at the HollyShorts Film Festival, the Grand Prize at the New York International Short Film Festival alongside attaining support from filmmakers Mindy Kaling and Guneet Monga Kapoor, who signed on as EPs. Dovecote, directed by Marco Perego, stars Zoe Saldaña as a woman who contemplates the real meaning of freedom on her last day in prison.
In the Colin Farrell endorsed and EP’d project Room Taken, director TJ O’Grady Peyton centers the camera on an unlikely duo, when an unhoused Nigerian immigrant is faced with finding a stable environment until he gets on his feet, he secretly occupies the cramped, but cozy home of a blind elderly woman. Room Taken also took home awards for Best Irish Short Film at the Dublin International Film Festival and Best Short at Cannes Indie Shorts. Nebojsa Slijepcevic’s The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent brings viewers into the last moments of Tomo Buzov, a sole non-Bosniak train passenger who stood up against a rogue Serbian paramilitary group who began killing Muslim passengers at will. The Croatian historical drama won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Other standouts on the list today are shorts that evoke the spectrum between skepticism and awe when it comes to the advances of manmade technology.
Dutch filmmaker Victoria Warmerdam’s essential dark comedy I’m Not A Robot follows Lara, a music producer, who, after repeatedly failing rudimentary CAPTCHA tests, questions whether or not she might actually be a robot. As her life spirals out of control upon learning that there’s an 87% chance she’s AI, her search for answers begs the question: what does it mean to be human? The short film has had a successful festival run snagging wins at Cannes Lions, Flickerfest, Sitges and Bucheon. Given that the film reads like a feminist take on the works of Philip K. Dick or the next best episode of Black Mirror, it’s no surprise that Warmerdam is also working on a feature-length version of the film with Loki Season 2 EP Tobias Weymar.
Praised by the likes of industry giants Ron Howard and Roland Emmerich is Jean de Meuron’s Edge Of Space. A technical feat on all fronts, from sound design, cinematography and directing, the NASA-involved film takes a visceral dive into the struggles, sacrifices and triumphs of the great space race of the 1960s. Emmerich called the film a “thrilling, visceral dive.” The film has played at the LA Shorts International Film Festival, Indy Shorts International Film Festival, HollyShorts Film Festival (award nominee), New York Shorts International Film Festival and the New York Indie Shorts Awards.
Social injustice highlights also include An Orange from Jaffa. This French-Palestine-Poland production centers on the tense moments between a cab driver and his young Palestinian passenger looking for a ride to the Israeli border. In addition to the short’s various wins across festivals such as the Polish Film Festival and Krakow Film Festival, drumming up attention shouldn’t be an undertaking, especially considering the number of Hollywood insiders, filmmakers and actors who called for a ceasefire in the past year. Also, in the Oscars shortlist International category, Palestine raked in more representation with their From Ground Zero anthology film.
These are just a few standouts from today’s long, well-deserved list. Nomination voting ends on January 12, where five Live Action Shorts will then be selected in the final round leading up to the Oscars ceremony in March.
Here is the full list of Live Action Shorts shortlist nominees:
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Anuja
Clodagh
The Compatriot
Crust
Dovecote
Edge of Space
The Ice Cream Man
I’m Not a Robot
The Last Ranger
A Lien
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent
The Masterpiece
An Orange from Jaffa
Paris 70
Room Taken