The Academy’s Live Action Short category remains one of the industry’s strongest talent incubators, where emerging directors, ambitious craftspeople, and nimble producers collide with Hollywood’s spotlight. Voters tend to respond to crisp storytelling, emotional clarity, high production value on modest budgets, and shorts that feel complete. Cameos help, but resonance helps more. With that in mind, here’s how this year’s field is shaping up, based on craft signals, festival momentum, and early awards chatter.
Below are our very early predictions for this year’s hot list:
A FRIEND OF DOROTHY — Lee Knight (Executive Producer: Stephen Daldry)
Cast: Miriam Margolyes, Sir Stephen Fry, Alistair Nwachukwu, Oscar Lloyd
This quintessentially British short follows Dorothy, an elderly woman living alone, who forms an unlikely bond with her young neighbor after his football lands in her garden. Inspired by Knight’s real-life friendship with his late neighbor, the film blends gentle humor and intergenerational warmth.
RISE — Jessica J. Rowlands (Executive Producer: Misan Harriman)
Cast: Tongayi Chirisa, Sikhanyiso Ngwenya, Edmet Dube, Kelvin Taliana, Cilemeko Tickey Mudenda, Charles Ndlovu, Prudence Mubaiwa, Samson Mdimba, Phineas Makuvaza, Tobias Mupfuti
A breakthrough for Zimbabwean cinema, this true story of a boxing coach supporting vulnerable youth has surged on authenticity, emotional weight, and cultural visibility.
BEYOND SILENCE — Marnie Blok
Cast: Henrianne Jansen, Sigrid ten Napel, Tamar van den Dop
A generationally charged drama about women reclaiming their voices long after trauma has settled into silence. Powerful, timely, and deeply resonant. Stars deaf actress Henrianne Jansen.
THE SECOND TIME AROUND – Jack Howard
Cast: Caroline Goodall, Hannah Onslow
Set on a rainy London night, the film follows a young waitress confronted by a mysterious stranger, unraveling themes of trauma, identity, and generational silence. Supported by LGBTQ+ mental health charity MindOut, the short has earned recognition at HollyShorts, the Iris Prize, and festivals worldwide, and will broadcast on Film4 and Channel 4 VOD this October.
BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL — Trevor Morris
Cast: Curran Walters, Brielle Robillard, Michael Provost
Against Toronto’s urban pulse, a gifted jazz student battling OCD and anxiety prepares for a defining performance, supported by his brother and an unexpected new connection.
HIGHWAY TO THE MOON — Letitia Wright
Cast: Aboulaye Touray, Sekou Toure, Victor Prescott Jr., Kenyah Sandy, Lamar Waves, Rachel Sophia-Anthony, Treva Etienne
In a poetic blend of fantasy and grief, Wright imagines the mystical afterlife of boys taken by knife crime, transforming personal loss into spiritual cinema.
THE BOY WITH THE WHITE SKIN — Simon Panay
Cast: Boubacar Dembélé, Moussa Thiam, Alassane Diaw, Serigne Wadane Ndiaye
A rare glimpse into ritualistic gold mining in West Africa, following an albino boy whose voice is believed to protect miners deep underground.
A BEAR REMEMBERS — Zhang & Knight
Cast: Lewis Cornay, Anna Calder-Marshall, Ciarán Hinds (voice), Rhianna Compton
When a mysterious sound awakens a childhood legend, past and present blur in this lyrical meditation on memory, myth, and the unseen.
LARGO — Salvatore Scarpa & Max Burgoyne-Moore (Executive Producer Academy Award Winner Chris Overton)
Cast: Zack Elsokari, Tamsin Greig, Ammar Haj Ahmad, Kevin McNally
A young Syrian refugee builds a boat to search for his missing parents, illuminating displacement through a child’s hopeful imagination.
DUST TO DREAMS — Idris Elba
Cast: Seal, Nse Ukpe-Etim, Eku Edewor, Atlanta Bridget Johnson, Constance Olatunde
In Lagos, a dying nightclub owner leaves her legacy to her shy daughter. The return of a soldier father ignites turmoil—until music heals the fracture.
SNIPPED — Alexander Saul, (Produced by Academy Award Winner Kim Magnusson and Academy Nominee Rebecca Pruzan)
Cast: Louise Bodnia Anderson, Nicolas Brom Ellaha Lack
A darkly humorous cultural encounter unfolds after a Jewish convert undergoes ritual circumcision at a small Muslim clinic.
BOYFIGHTER — Julia Weisberg Cortés
Cast: Michael Mando
A retired bare-knuckle fighter confronts the violent legacy he’s passed to his son. A raw, poetic examination of masculinity, opportunity, and repair.
TRAPPED — Sam & David Cutler-Kreutz
Cast: Luke Cawley, Aedan Jayce, Ethan Jones
A high-school janitor faces escalating obstacles during a night shift in this taut, class-conscious thriller fresh off Oscar-qualifying wins.
THE PEARL COMB — Ali Cook
Cast: Beatie Edney, Clara Paget, Simon Armstrong, Ali Cook
In 1893, a fisherman’s wife miraculously cures tuberculosis, drawing suspicion from a doctor intent on proving women belong at home—not in medicine.
OLIVE – Tom Koch
Cast: Lesley Ann Warren, Tom Koch, Marie Louise Boisnier, Jeffrey Farber, Tómas Doncker
When a devoted husband uses imagination to guide his wife through the fading landscape of memory loss, their shared past becomes a fragile battleground between love and forgetting, revealing how much of ourselves can endure when the mind begins to disappear.
WILD CARD
WALUD — Daood Alabdulaa & Louise Zenker
Cast: (Not publicly listed)
Set in the Syrian desert during ISIS rule, the arrival of a second wife destabilizes a fragile household. A tense exploration of fertility, power, and control.
FILM & TELEVISION BUSINESS 