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Our Annual Look At The Year’s Oscar-Qualified Animated Shorts: 39 Profiles
With shortlist voting starting today, we’re revisiting all 39 Oscar-qualified animated short profiles we put together this year.
#Academy Awards
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘The Quinta’s Ghost’ Director James A. Castillo
Castillo discusses the film’s horror roots, innovative technological pipeline, and adapting the aesthetic of Francisco de Goya’s Black Paintings in animation.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Butterfly’ Director Florence Miailhe
Miailhe’s painted animation brings Alfred Nakache’s memories to life, charting a swimmer’s resilience through beauty, trauma, and water.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Jesus 2’ Director Jesse Moynihan
Cartoon Network vet Moynihan delivers a surreal tale of rebirth and existential dread, blending sacred imagery with lo-fi aesthetics.N
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Forevergreen’ Directors Nathan Engelhardt And Jeremy Spears (EXCLUSIVE BTS)
The gorgeous CG short follows an orphaned bear cub taken in by a paternal tree, before a hunger for human leftovers leads to disaster.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Póg Mo Pigeon’ Director Clíodhna Lyons (EXCLUSIVE BTS)
Featuring 2D, storybook animation, ‘Póg mo Pigeon’ is the distinctly Irish tale of Mikey, a boy growing up in a strict Catholic household.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Luz Diabla’ Directors Gervasio Canda, Patricio Plaza, And Paula Boffo
‘Luz Diabla’ is a folk-horror story from the team behind 2022 standout ‘Carne de Dios,’ blending queer rave culture with Argentine myth and neon 2D animation.
Oscar VFX Race Narrows To 20 Films
The Oscars reveal 20 VFX finalists, including big franchise entries like ‘Avatar,’ ‘Superman,’ ‘Wicked,’ ‘Predator,’ ‘Frankenstein,’ and ‘Jurassic World.’
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘I Died In Irpin’ Director Anastasiia Falileieva
Ukrainian director Anastasiia Falileieva discusses ‘I Died in Irpin,’ her autobiographical documentary short on war, trauma, and resilience.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Cafuné’ Directors Carlos F. De Vigo And Lorena Ares (EXCLUSIVE BTS)
‘Cafuné’ examines Europe’s immigration crisis through a child’s eyes, tracing the echoing trauma of her perilous Mediterranean crossing.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Il Burattino E La Balena’ Director Roberto Catani
The haunting Ottawa-winning short explores identity, autonomy, and the human world through the eyes of a puppet who, unlike Pinocchio, rejects transformation.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Inkwo For When The Starving Return’ Director Amanda Strong
Strong’s haunting stop-motion short unspools in the near future, where the fate of the world rests on Dove, a mysterious warrior who can shift gender.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘My Brother, My Brother’ Director Abdelrahman Dnewar
Abdel Dnewar’s hybrid-animated short examines twinhood, subjective memory, and loss, honoring the life and artistry of his late brother and co-director, Saad.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘A Sparrow’s Song’ Director Tobias Eckerlin
An elderly widow in WWII London finds healing through an unlikely bond with a sparrow, whose song brings hope to children sheltering from the bombs.
35 Animated Features Qualify For The 98th Academy Awards
The Academy has unveiled the 35 animated features eligible for the 98th Oscars, with some still needing qualifying releases to advance in voting.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Voyage Of The Red Rabbit’ Director Sam Gualtieri
The SCAD thesis short blends real family recordings with a rabbit’s cosmic journey, brought to life through Maurice Noble–inspired animation.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘The Wolf’ Director Theodore Ushev
Ushev’s ‘The Wolf’ is a stark, painterly short that delves into the primal tension between man and nature in a frozen, impressionistic wilderness.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Two Black Boys In Paradise’ Director Baz Sells
Based on Dean Atta’s poem, this stop-motion story explores love, vulnerability, and self-acceptance across two very different worlds.
2026 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Capybaras’ Director Alfredo Soderguit
Staring nature’s most popular and largest rodent, ‘Capybaras’ blends personal history, warm 2D animation, and powerful themes of empathy and collaboration.
113 Animated Shorts Qualify For The 2026 Oscars — Full List And Voter Guidelines Inside
See the full lineup of 113 animated shorts vying for the 2026 Oscars, along with voting requirements and key Academy awards dates.