Short stuff 2025

A look at some of the year’s best short films 

Exclusive to MeierMovies, October 30, 2025

It’s been another strong year so far for short movies. However, the strange and misunderstood process of Oscar qualification means that, yet again, it’s tough to predict which 15 flicks (five live narrative fiction, five animated and five documentary) will receive Academy Award nominations. But I’d put my money on at least a couple of the following seven films making the cut. (All are eligible for consideration after winning a top prize at an Oscar-accredited festival.)

 

Freyr, 4 stars (on 0-5 scale)

Films featuring protagonists who feel they don’t belong are almost as old as cinema itself. What makes Freyr, the new dramedy by writer-director David Telles, different is the unique attribute of its titular character: a third hand protruding from his chest.

“No one’s ever shaken my hand before,” Freyr (Auðunn Lúthersson) tells Tom (Benairen Kane), his co-worker and seemingly only friend. “No one’s ever held it.”

From an original story by Tommy Orange, Freyr asks us to reconsider what is normal and reaffirms that one can be beautiful with two hands, or three, or none at all.

 

Before You, 4 stars

A meditation on a couple’s decision to terminate a pregnancy, Before You has a familiar story but an original style. Shot and edited like a dream, with fantastical transitions, writer-director Lauren Melinda’s drama is designed not so much to inform as to tug on your heartstrings. It mostly succeeds thanks to its visual imagination, hauntingly lilting score and competent lead performances from Tala Ashe and Adam Rodriguez. It’s a reminder that everyone’s journey to, or away from, parenthood, is unique, noteworthy and often heartbreaking.

 

Ovary-Acting, 4 stars

An entirely different but no less memorable commentary on potential parenthood can be found in director Ida Melum and writer Laura Jayne Tunbridge’s fast-paced, funny, but also slightly melancholy animated, adult-oriented comedy. In the creatively titled Ovary-Acting, a potential young mother is forced into the conversation almost all women have at some point in their lives: whether to have a child. But instead of having that talk with her partner, family, friends or priest – as most women do – Eva (voiced by Synnove Karlsen) has it with her ovaries (Sofia Oxenham). Oh, baby! 

 

A Bear Remembers, 4 stars

Befitting its title, A Bear Remembers is the most difficult to forget of all these seven films. Part fairy tale and part environmental allegory, this drama by writer-directors Linden Feng and Hannah Palumbo is a haunting yet strangely vague tale of memory, isolation, grief and cultural loss. Set and shot in the Welsh countryside, Bear is bleak both visually and thematically, but also magical in a manner difficult to define.

The film stars Lewis Cornay as an inquisitive youth, Anna Calder-Marshall as an old woman with an improbable story and Ciarán Hinds as the voice of the bear. The effects are practical and low-budget but lend the story an endearing, tactile quality. You want to reach out and touch this film and its characters, much like the landscapes and small towns of Wales.

 

Retirement Plan, 3 stars

An animated essay about what Ray, an Irish everyman, wants, or thinks he wants, to do after he stops working, Retirement Plan will resonate with audiences thanks to its relatability and charm. Directed by John Kelly, written by Kelly and Tara Lawall, and voiced by Domhnall Gleeson, the film is simple yet somewhat profound. It’s also imbued with a certain melancholy, a tragic resignation that Ray will never accomplish his retirement goals and instead needs to tackle them while still young – by becoming “aggressively present,” as he describes it.

With rather crude and somewhat unimaginative animation, Retirement Plan is arguably the least cinematic of these seven films. But it’s also one of the most engaging because the main character is infinitely human, despite being drawn.

 

The Mourning Of, 4 stars

Maribel attends a lot of funerals, but not for the reason you might think. With the most clever concept of any of these seven films, writer-director Merced Elizondo’s The Mourning Of offers an original take on sorrow.

Despite a solid lead performance by Natalia Villegas and competent support from Julio Cesar Cedillo as a priest concerned for Maribel’s well-being and that of her fellow mourners, the film never quite reaches the full emotional potential of its great premise, but it comes close.

“Hiding out in other people’s grief certainly doesn’t absolve you of having to deal with yours,” the priest tells Maribel in the film’s central scene. “Grief is gray. It lingers.”

So does the film.

 

Trapped, 4 stars

When a high school prank goes wrong, the school’s janitor finds himself ensnared both physically and metaphorically in Trapped, David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz’s oddly poignant drama about the American class system.

Starring Javier Molina as the well-intentioned custodian stuck in an unenviable position, the movie contains the best social commentary of these seven fine short films.

 

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For ratings and reviews of more than 3,000 short films, see my short-film lists.