FINAL 2026 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED SHORT, DOCUMENTARY SHORT, LIVE ACTION SHORT
As they’ve often been, the short film categories can often make or break your office Oscar pool (is that still a thing?) or at least boost your online street cred.
But at their hearts are 15 films from burgeoning filmmakers, often taking years to complete projects as short as 18 minutes long. In a recent conversation with The Singers‘ director Sam A. Davis, we talked about how it took over 30 producers to go from idea to finished work.
For a deep dive into all of these short films, click on the category link for the fantastic analysis from AW contributor Cody Dericks.
Here are my final winner predictions in Animated Short, Documentary Short and Live Action Short for the 98th Academy Awards, which will take place on March 15, live at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California.
| 1. Retirement Plan John Kelly and Andrew Freedman |
| 2. The Girl Who Cried Pearls (National Film Board of Canada) Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski |
| 3. Butterfly (Sacrebleu Productions) Florence Miailhe and Ron Dyens |
| 4. The Three Sisters (Polydont Films/Rymanco Ventures) Konstantin Bronzit |
| 5. Forevergreen Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears |
| 1. All the Empty Rooms (Netflix) Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones |
| 2. The Devil Is Busy (HBO) Christalyn Hampton and Geeta Gandbhir |
| 3. Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (HBO) Craig Renaud and Juan Arredondo |
| 4. Children No More: “Were and Are Gone” (Sky) Hilla Medalia and Sheila Nevins |
| 5. Perfectly a Strangeness (Second Sight Pictures) Alison McAlpine |
| 1. The Singers (Netflix) Sam A. Davis and Jack Piatt |
| 2. Two People Exchanging Saliva (Canal+/The New Yorker) Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata |
| 3. Butcher’s Stain (Tel Aviv University Steve Tisch School of Film and Television) Meyer Levinson-Blount and Oron Caspi |
| 4. A Friend of Dorothy Lee Knight and James Dean |
| 5. Jane Austen’s Period Drama Julia Aks and Steve Pinder |
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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FINAL 2026 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED SHORT, DOCUMENTARY SHORT, LIVE ACTION SHORT 
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