FINAL 2024 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED SHORT, DOCUMENTARY SHORT and LIVE ACTION SHORT

The shorts categories are traditionally your Oscar pool makers or breakers. Even the avid Oscar fan hasn’t seen many or most of them so sometimes it’s a guessing game, sometimes the people behind a film can clue us in on it receiving extra attention and of course, title and subject matter can be crucial.

In the cast of the three shorts categories this year, all three are quite competitive. Animated short more recently has strayed pretty far from the Disney and Pixar shorts of cute little animal stories and are weighted down by intense, issue-driven stories and this year, featuring war and Nazis, give more than a cheery cinematic respite. I think this race is between WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko and Ninety-Five Sense, the former being a bludgeon to the head and the latter a soft and thoughtful measure of a life. After winning the Annie for short film and having the backing of Peter Jackson’s WETA for its animation and visual effects, as well as having the worst needle drop of the year, WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko feels like a winner here.

Documentary short sees all five films in very strong contention with each other but, in my estimation, a clear top 3: The ABCs of Book Banning, The Last Repair Shop and Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó. Each hit the viewer with either timeliness of topic, pulling an emotional chord or a lightness that separates it from the rest of the nominees. The timeliness of Book Banning and celebrated filmmaker Sheila Nevin should be able to pull several voters in. Sean Wang’s Nǎi Nai, about the comic life of his two elderly grandmothers, is the shortest of all nominees here and the only without an issue-driven, dark message. That could be an advantage or a disadvantage. But one thing is sure, voters and stars have loved meeting Wang’s grandmas and he and they have been all over the country promoting the film. But last week, the day before Oscar voting started, The Last Repair Shop, about a Los Angeles musical instrument repair shop, saw the L.A. Unified School District Education Foundation announced a $15M campaign directed at the shop itself and announced at Hollywood High School, mere blocks from the Dolby Theatre where the Oscars are held. It’s a call to action unlike anything else this year and puts it in an enviable position, awards-wise.

Live action houses the biggest name of all fifteen nominated shorts with 8-time Oscar-nominated director Wes Anderson and his charming The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. But at nearly 40m and the slightest among the group of stories, a win here might largely depend on name recognition and that’s just not always the case, even though the entire Academy of 10,000 people can vote here. While that makes visibility and viewability key here and benefits Sugar, voters in this category often prefer darker, issue-driven stories that, like we have in animated, really hit you over the head. That makes The After (an intense tale of violence and grief) and Red, White and Blue (a timely crossing state lines abortion story) more up the alley of voters looking for ‘important’ subject matter.

Here are my ranked final 2024 Oscar winner predictions for Animated Short, Documentary Short and Live Action Short.

ANIMATED SHORT

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

LIVE ACTION SHORT