I was able to see the ten films nominated for the Academy Award in Shorts, five in Live Action and five in Animation.

I am going to list the five films in each category in the order in which I like them. I will then be adding my little Oscar predictions after it too. I will say which short film I think SHOULD win the Oscar and which short film I think WILL win the Oscar.

We will start off with the Live-Action Shorts or, as I dubbed it during my viewing, “the shorts that show that bad things happen to kids too” films. Most of these were really downers, with some really tragic circumstances happening.

LIVE ACTION SHORTS

#5. The After. This was my least favorite of the live-action shorts despite there being a very strong performance from David Oyelowo as the protagonist. It felt very disjointed despite being a short. Oyelowo was really strong in his part and I could see the Academy seeing the well-known actor and giving this the win because of it.

#4. Invincible. One of the tragic stories based on a true story that recounts the last 48 hours in the life of Marc-Antoine Bernier. If the Academy is pulled in with the true story aspect, this has a chance. I thought this was a good short among the downers.

#3. Red, White and Blue. A story of an Arkansas woman trying to struggle to get enough money to have an abortion. The road trip is part of the story and the twist ending was rough. I do not think this has any chance of actually winning, considering the controversial topic. Still, it was well acted and powerful.

#2. Knight of Fortune. The one that does not involve a kid, finds a man at a morgue, trying to build up the courage to look at the body of his dead wife. This actually had quite a bit of hope for life involved as well as an unlikely friendship is created.

#1. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. This was the one short of the ten I saw today that I had seen previously. I watched this on Netflix last year and even wrote a review for it. It was one of the longer shorts and was directed by Wes Anderson. This was one of the Roald Dahl films Anderson did for Netflix last year. I loved the way the film is directed and the writing is clever and quick. We get Dev Patel, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley in the short. This was funny and considerably lighter than the others in this category.

SHOULD WIN: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

WILL WIN: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

I think this is the easiest of the two categories here. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is full of energy, clever writing and a story that bounces around, engaging the audience at every turn.

ANIMATED SHORTS

I liked the animation shorts more than I liked the live action this year. If I remember correctly, it was that way last year too. Creativity is all over this category and I love that.

#5. Our Uniforms. From Iran, I almost put this at number four instead because of the amazing cleverness of the animation style here, but I did not find the story to be as strong as the others. This was awesome to look at though.

#4. Pachyderme. This was very deep, and while I did not love it, the story did elevate this ahead of Our Uniforms. It is the story of a girl remembering her visits with her grandparents in the countryside.

#3. War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko. This was a great animated short, albeit fairly simple. I loved the message of the short and I, of course, love the Beatles and John Lennon’s War is Over song provides the biggest emotional score of the film. I really loved this, but the other two were just a little higher for me.

#2. Letter to a Pig. A story of a Holocaust survivor and how he escaped from the Nazis by hiding in a pig pen. But it was more than that. This was very abstract and the animation was absolutely stunning. I LOVED this animation above any other of the five films I saw. I thought this would be my top favorite because of the animation, but the story did become a little too abstract in the ending, giving the number one spot on my favorites list to…

#1. Ninety-Five Senses. This one caught me off guard, as it was shown after Letter to a Pig, which I thought was going to be my favorite, but this passed it by. Voiced by Tim Blake Nelson, this follows the story of a character who has made his share of mistakes in his life and is about to pay for them. This was really powerful and carried its share of emotions with it. This was my personal favorite short of the day, animated or live action.

SHOULD Win: Letter to a Pig

WILL Win: War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

This shows the depth of the animated short category. My personal favorite was Ninety-Five Senses, but I think it does not win this category. Letter to a Pig is the best overall animated short here, both story and animation, but I do think the connection to John Lennon makes War is Over the ultimate winner. I might actually be rooting for Letter to a Pig though because of the stunning design of that animation.