30. Forevergreen (Best Animated Short)

With no Disney or Pixar entries in the Animated Short category, Forevergreen feels like the closest substitute to their sensibilities. A wordless film about a young bear, and the tree he befriends, becomes a kind of riff on The Giving Tree. Directors Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears opt for a colorful CGI look, sometimes fooling the brain to appear to be stop-motion animation. There isn’t much that’s revolutionary about the narrative within the film, but it’s charming enough to warrant a watch.

29. The Lost Bus (Best Visual Effects)

Fire effects are often the most difficult to create digitally, but The Lost Bus makes them look effortless. And given the sheer breadth of the fire within the film, they need to be seamlessly integrated. The visual effects work is so well done that, for even a brief moment, I believed that the titular bus full of school children was actually in mortal danger. Nevermind that the film is based on true events which took place in California in 2018, when wildfires threatened the town of Paradise and the surrounding towns. Points are lost at the film’s two-dimensional adult characters and their surface-level issues, but director Paul Greengrass at least has a tight grip on depicting action and ways to throw the characters in danger that doesn’t feel like it’s spinning its wheels for 2 hours.

28. Butterfly (Best Animated Short)

If you enjoyed recent feature films like Loving Vincent or The Peasants, you’ll probably also love Butterfly. Though they don’t share a filmmaking team, Butterfly utilizes a similar animation style, by literally painting each frame individually. The gimmick pays off, as the film tells the true story of Alfred Nakache, a French Olympian who swam before and after World War II. The painterly imagery helps the film feel like faded memories, or as one recounts their life experiences from long ago. With so many Oscar nominated shorts dealing with both WWII and the Holocaust, it’s refreshing to see a film like Butterfly deal with the familiar subject in a fresh, original way.

27. The Devil is Busy (Best Documentary Short)

For as heavily politicized as the topic of reproductive health has become, we often lose sight of those who dedicate their lives to ensuring women are safe enough to obtain proper healthcare. The Devil is Busy spotlights one abortion clinic in Atlanta – after Roe v Wade was overturned – and the woman who works as a kind of security liaison to ensure that all of the patients arrive without incident. This includes shielding them from harassment by anti-abortion protesters, who she treats not with open hostility but with a kind of understanding. The best documentaries give additional shading to a topic which is typically seen in strictly black and white terms, and The Devil is Busy carefully depicts a side of a hotly debated topic that often gets lost amongst the headlines.

26. All the Empty Rooms (Best Documentary Short)

For better or worse, you mostly know what you’re signing up for once you press play on All the Empty Rooms. Joshua Seftel follows Steve Hartman, a CBS News correspondent, as he documents rooms across the country which were once inhabited by kids who were killed in mass shootings. There are the expectantly heartbreaking moments, as parents and siblings relive their memories, the minute details of their personalities, and how they still honor their kids. Seftel veers dangerously close to turning the narrative more towards Hartman and the photographer tasked with capturing the rooms, but it ultimately regains focus and has its heart in the right place. Indeed, I saw Hartman as a kind of avatar for any sympathetic modern American who’s one step removed from one of the worst tragedies imaginable, and a depressingly common phenomenon.

25. Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (Best Documentary Short)

Believe it or not, my main takeaway from Armed only with a Camera was not just fascination with its subject, Brent Renaud, but with the nearly impossible task which all wartime journalists face. Brent’s brother and collaborator Craig assembles a veritable “greatest hits” collection of his footage and stories of a life dedicated to journalism. His career ranged everywhere, from gang conflicts in central America, to the Russian war in Ukraine, where he was ultimately killed. Craig’s non-linear approach to telling Brent’s story is unusual, to be clear, but effective in showing the sheer dedication necessary to telling stories across the world. Indeed, there are countless other men and women just like Brent, whose fearless approach is as vital as the soldiers who knowingly put themselves in harm’s way in order to show the world the truth.

24. Kokuho (Best Makeup and Hairstyling)

Kokuho works as more than a primer on kabuki theater to the world. It’s a sweeping historical character study about one outsider’s drive to be the best, and the institutions and cultural norms which prevented him from doing so. Through impeccable costumes, production design, and makeup, we’re immersed in the world spanning from the 1960s in Japan to the 2010s. Ryo Yoshizawa’s powerful performance grounds it all, along with Ken Watanabe’s forceful mentor character. The result is a richly detailed look at a method of theater focused on precision, and though the narrative could have been trimmed slightly below its three-hour runtime, it’s the kind of story which easily lends itself to lazy characterizations.

23. Jane Austen’s Period Drama (Best Live Action Short)

Jane Austen’s Period Drama may only traffic in one or two jokes, but those jokes are solid enough to carry a short film without any grander ambitions. Though Julia Aks and Steve Pinder have spared no expense in making the film feel authentic to the period (no pun intended) which it’s skewering. Essentially a kind of parody of British Victorian dramas, the film asks what if, in the middle of one of Austen’s grand romantic scenes, the action was stopped because of some very real, ahem, woman problems. The answer is expectedly hilarious, as men at the time understood or cared very little about women’s anatomy. Your mileage will certainly vary on your enjoyment of the film based on how crude your sense of humor is, but Jane Austen’s Period Drama at least deserves points for crafting a faithful homage to a genre which the filmmakers clearly have deep affection for.

22. Frankenstein (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Sound)

There are many who love Guillermo del Toro’s take on Frankenstein, and there are those who despise it. Count me somewhere in the middle, appreciative of the faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, but wishing there was more flesh on the bones. Of course, del Toro’s usual hallmarks are here, including his impeccable use of production design, costuming, and makeup, and Jacob Elordi gives one of the year’s standout performances as the Creature brought back to life. But the film is plagued by pacing issues, lackluster visual effects, and a first half lacking in intrigue which usually aren’t present in the best of del Toro’s films.

21. Bugonia (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score)

Some people have a genetic defect that makes cilantro taste like soap. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the films of Yorgos Lanthimos are like this for me, but I just simply can’t muster the excitement that so many of my peers have found, and the trend continues with Bugonia. The film is expertly acted; a two-hander between Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, who Lanthimos has hired before. And the subject matter is especially relevant to modern times, as a conspiracy theorist holds captive a CEO who he believes is an alien bent on destroying/enslaving the Earth. Though I ultimately enjoyed the film, and I can’t argue too hard with anyone who loves it more, I just wish I was more enthusiastic overall.