‘The 2025 Oscar Nominated Short Films’ Review: Bite-Size Stories, Big Ideas

Live Action

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, that drumbeat of anxiety pulsing through the live action segment of this year’s Oscar nominated short films. Proximity to Valentine’s Day notwithstanding, this stress-filled collection boasts nary a spark of romance nor a scintilla of comedy. There’s cruelty, injustice and existential angst aplenty, though — a thematic through line that suggests any filmmaker seeking a statuette had better wake up and smell the oppression.

Luckily, a nasty scent doesn’t have to mean ugly visuals. In “Anuja,” a very pretty picture with a disarmingly perky vibe, a 9-year-old garment-factory worker (Sajda Pathan) must make a risky, life-altering choice. Produced in cooperation with a nonprofit that supports street children (of whom the charming Pathan is one), Adam J. Graves’s movie feels a touch pandering, less raw and organic and more like a carefully manufactured gift to softhearted audiences.

By contrast, “The Last Ranger” — which also centers on a child confronting adult barbarity — is a gorgeous and grounded observation of a real-life attack on an endangered South African rhinoceros. Told through the friendship between a curious young girl (Liyabona Mroqoza) and a courageous park ranger (Makhaola Ndebele), this unsettlingly serene film, beautifully directed by Cindy Lee, shapes the complexities of wildlife conservation into a story that’s both touching and tragic.

Tragedy of a different sort awaits in “I’m Not A Robot” as a spiraling music producer (a spectacular Ellen Parren) is barred from accessing her computer files after failing successive Captcha tests. Sharp, shiny and original, this increasingly alarming movie, deftly written and directed by Victoria Warmerdam, raises weighty issues — including the right to die and what it means to be human — with energy and empathy.

Humanity is in short supply in “A Lien,” an achingly timely immigration drama from the filmmaking brothers David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz. Set in a Manhattan government building where a young couple (Victoria Ratermanis and William Martinez) have arrived with their small daughter for a green card interview, the film brilliantly conveys our powerlessness in the face of an impenetrable and terrifying bureaucracy. Unfolding in agitated close-ups and a stressful, naturalistic sound design, “A Lien” will raise your blood pressure, whatever your legal status.

Infinitely more subtle, yet every bit as disquieting, “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent” places us on a Bosnian passenger train that’s been boarded by armed paramilitaries. As they demand identity cards and begin loading passengers onto trucks, the movie focuses its tension on a single compartment where three men will make life-or-death decisions. In barely a dozen minutes, the Croatian director Nebojsa Slijepcevic (referencing an infamous 1993 massacre of innocent civilians) examines the cost of speaking up and, perhaps more important, the soul-destroying consequence of staying silent. — JEANNETTE CATSOULIS