2024 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts Ranked - Oscars Rankography

Our shortest batch of nominees in  a while… but at least that meant the return of the Highly Commended films. Hey everybody, welcome to Mainely Movies. Today we’re going to finally be jumping into  some long-form Oscar-related content. I’ve got my annual ongoing Shorts series ranking the  nominees in each of the 23 Oscar categories, but I wanted to dig a little deeper here  and bring you some content that focuses on, arguably, the most underappreciated and underseen  categories: the short films.

I was lucky enough to be able to see all the Oscar nominated shorts  again this year, so I wanted to talk about them as part of my annual 3-part rankography series.  This way, even people who haven’t had a chance to watch them might have an opportunity to at  least get a sense of them before the Ceremony. If you’re new here, please consider subscribing  for a variety of movie related content like reviews, ranked lists, and trailer reactions. I’ll be talking about the Documentary and Live Action

shorts later this week, but today we’re  beginning with the Animated Shorts. Of the three shorts categories, this is usually the most widely  screened and is typically viewed as the lightest, though that’s not always the case. This year  things were more on the heavy side when it came to subject matter. The five nominees are:  Letter to a Pig, Ninety-Five Senses, Our Uniform, Pachyderme, and War is Over!. Since this is a  rankography, I’m going to be ranking these shorts, but remember this is j

ust my ranking, not  THE ranking, so be sure to post your own personal ranking of the 2024 Animated Short  Film Oscar nominees in the comments below. Coming in at #5: Letter to a Pig. This is a  joint French and Israeli submission and was directed by Tal Kantor. Using a mixture  of styles including abstract line art, rotoscoping, and even incorporating real  black and white footage, this short tells the story of a man recounting his experiences  during the Holocaust to a group of students. Even

though I’ve got this in the last place here,  I didn’t dislike this short. It had some good and really interesting elements and then it had some  stuff that didn’t work quite as much for me. The animation style for this particular short is  a very interesting mix. I’m not entirely sure if this is the case, but it seemed like most of  the first half or so of this film was primarily done using rotoscoping, at least in part.  However, the animation style does shift as the film progresses. Things st

art off with this very  realistic, but sketched out type of style before transitioning into an interesting blend of almost  abstract line art composited with actual footage, pulling focus away from faces and instead  placing emphasis on hands, before finally transitioning to something much more surreal and  fluid. From a story perspective, this film isn’t quite as interesting as its animation is. I much  preferred the first half of this film, focusing on the actual story this Holocaust survivor

tells  as well as the impact it has on the students in the class. But then things take a turn in what’s  sort of a daydream of one of the students. This part is much more visually interesting  with some action and a bit of suspense, and even a little creepiness or horror, but the  intention and themes get muddled at this point. Coming in at #4: Our Uniform. This is an Iranian  submission and was directed by Yegane Moghaddam. This very brief short incorporates art drawn  over top actual items of

clothing and tells the recounted story of the director’s  experiences with strict clothing rules while attending school in Iran as a girl. At only 7 minutes, this short flies by, but I do think it’s just about the perfect  length for this particular story. Because it’s not really a narrative story at all. Instead,  it’s more of a memory or a nostalgic observation, with the director recalling her time in school  and how everybody in this all-girl school still had to wear a hijab. This isn’t a fil

m that makes  a case for or against this really, but it does get at the sense of freedom that comes from being  able to choose what you wear. The story at the heart of this film is pretty simple as a result,  but this film’s big draw is its style. Fittingly, a short about clothing incorporates that clothing  into its animation style. Jeans, shirts, hijabs, belts - all sorts of different clothes are used  as the canvas for the art here. Not only does this impart a very tactile, textured quality t

o  the animation, but it also allows for a lot of creativity. Pockets move as animated characters  shift within them, animated vehicles weave around buttons or travel through sleeves, zippers and  safety pins open and close various scenes. It’s a very interesting experiment in mixed media art. Coming in at #3: Pachyderme. This is a French submission and was directed by Stéphanie Clément.  With a warm and textured digital watercolor style, this short focuses on a woman’s memories of  going to sta

y with her grandparents for a vacation as a young girl and the uneasiness  and fear that came along with that. This is easily the most subtle of the nominees  this year; certainly within the Animated Shorts category, but maybe within any of the Shorts  categories. Narrated by the adult version of the protagonist, this film is initially bathed in  a warmly nostalgic glow. Even the animation style reflects this. Almost everything in the short is  presented with a relatable childlike perspective. T

he girl’s creeped out by an elephant tusk in the  hallway, she thinks she sees eyes in the ceiling at night. She’s scared of creaking floorboards and  imagines being able to blend into the wallpaper so she can’t be seen. This all has a kind of innocent  and imaginative scared of the dark quality to it, but the fear here comes from something much  darker than the dark. Like I said, it’s subtle, but there’s a shift in this story and it suddenly  becomes apparent what this film is actually about. A

nd so, we end up with this really sad exploration  of trauma and pain, and how those things can be embedded and buried within a person’s memories. Coming in at #2: Ninety-Five Senses. This is a U.S. submission and was codirected by the  duo of Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess. It uses a variety of different animation styles  to tell the life (and regrets) of a man through his experiences with the five senses. So, I’ve got to admit that this short (and my opinion of it) got off to an iffy start. It’s

a  story that works its way through the five senses, starting with sight. The animation’s dynamic at  the beginning, but this short initially presents us with an old Southern man drawling on about  kids and their cellphones and how he’s never used one and so forth. This had me concerned  because I thought it might end up being one of those anti-tech “Back in my day” kind of stories,  but thankfully, it’s not that at all. I went into the short with zero knowledge about it, so I’m  not going to sp

oil a certain important reveal in this story for you either but let’s just say that  we learn something about this main character that recontextualizes the entirety of the story in  a surprising way. It’s interesting because it’s both a film about memory and about experiencing  the present and focuses on the important role of our five senses to both of those things. Since  the story progresses and shifts a bit with each sense that’s covered, it’s only fitting that  the animation changes with eac

h section as well, so including an animated sequence of  our main character in the present, there are actually six unique animation styles  here, each animated by a separate team. So that means my #1 Oscar animated short of 2024  is: War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko. This is a U.S. production and was directed  by Dave Mullins. Using blocky watercolor CG animation, it tells the story of two soldiers who  play a game of chess via carrier pigeon, unaware that they are fighting fo

r opposite sides. So, I have a feeling that not many people are going to put us at number one. In direct contrast  with the subtlety of a short like Pachyderme, this short is as blunt and heavy-handed with its  messaging as you could possibly be. There are admittedly some eye-rolling and cheesy moments,  like when the expected song finally kicks in, but I’ve got to say that I liked this one. Yes,  it’s completely oversimplified with its antiwar message and alternate history envisioning of World 

War I, but it fits an interesting story into that construct. There’s something so unique about  the idea of playing chess via carrier pigeon, especially when you realize that the characters  have no idea who they’re actually playing against. We as the audience know that they’re soldiers  from opposite sides of the war, of course, so it’s pretty predictable that they’re  going to eventually meet on the battlefield, but it was still a pretty positive, uplifting  story. The animation style definit

ely has a bit of a high-end video game quality to it, but  interestingly enough, it actually sort of reminded me of early DreamWorks animation, specifically  Antz. It wasn’t identical or anything, but there was something about the way these geometric CG  characters were shaded and lit that just was a little nostalgic for me in that regard. Okay, so I know I just went through the five nominees, but we’re not done because there  are two more shorts to talk about. That’s right, after two years wit

hout them, the Highly Commended  shorts have returned. Basically, these are shorts that just missed the cut for being nominated and  get added to the end of the nominee reel to pad out the time to something closer to theatrical  length to make theatrical viewing worth the cost of a normal ticket. So, I want to take a little  bit of time to quickly talk about and rank this year’s two highly commended animated shorts. Coming in at #2: I’m Hip. This is a U.S. submission and was directed by John Mus

ker.  This is a hand-drawn, cartoonishly styled musical short that follows a cat as he sings  and dances his way through a city, telling anybody who will listen about just how cool and  hip he is. While not actually a Disney short, this is the closest we get to something Disney  this year, with John Musker of course being a studio alum, having codirected a number of  animated movies including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules. This short definitely has  a throwback cartoon feel to it and

I appreciated the animation, but man is that cat annoying. And coming in at #1: Wild Summon. This is a UK submission and was codirected by Karni Arieli  and Saul Freed. Narrated by Marianne Faithfull, this is a photorealistically CG animated nature  documentary about the lifecycle and migratory behavior of salmon. The catch? (No pun intended).  The salmon don’t actually look like salmon and are instead these bizarrely humanoid creatures  who look like divers, complete with masks… which they’re

born with. It’s a weird film, for sure.  I think the intention was obviously to humanize salmon in a way that makes us more empathetic  to them and the various related environmental and social issues, but the choice to actually  physically anthropomorphize them is a little weird. There’s definitely some uncanny valley  stuff going on with this otherwise hyper realistic animation but it’s definitely memorable and at  least I couldn’t stop watching, even if I was kind of disturbed and put off by i

t throughout. Alright, so that’s my rankography of the 2024 Oscar nominees for Animated Short Film. Have you  had a chance to see these Animated Shorts? If so, what does your ranking look like? I’d love to  see some reasoning for your order, so be sure to post it in the comments below. Also, be sure to  check out my rankographies of the Documentary and Live Action Shorts later this week as well  as my entire Oscar Ranking Shorts series. Alright, so if you got some enjoyment, insight,  or informa

tion out of this rankography, I’d appreciate it if you’d hit that like  button. And, if you haven’t done so already, please hit subscribe while you’re at it, to  see more videos like this as well as movie reviews. Till next time, this has been Alyssa  with Mainely Movies: The way life should be.