by Laura Smith

As the race for Best Live Action Short Film intensifies, a powerful cohort of Oscar-qualified contenders is making waves with bold visions, urgent themes, and new cinematic voices commanding attention. From psychological thrillers to socially resonant dramas, these films demonstrate that short-form storytelling can strike just as deep as any feature, sometimes deeper.

Here are Four standouts shaping the awards conversation this season:

There Will Come Soft Rains

Director: Elham Ehsas 

In a haunting portrait of climate-era grief, a devoted daughter exhumes her father’s body to move him to higher ground, a desperate act of love in a world literally sinking beneath her. Inspired by the reality of rising sea levels, There Will Come Soft Rains explores the intersection of memory, faith, and ecological loss. Ehsas infuses the film with both grit and poetry, grounding global catastrophe in a single aching human act. It’s intimate filmmaking with a global pulse, exactly the kind of work this category was built to honour.

Clout

Director: Jordan Murphy Doidge 

In the relentless pursuit of online validation, a rebellious boarding-school teen spirals into dangerous territory, his hunger for digital fame descending into tragedy. Sharp, modern, and unsettlingly familiar, Clout pushes into the dark psychology of social media obsession. Doidge delivers a stylised but brutally honest snapshot of a generation growing up under the glow of screens, where every choice can turn viral, and every mistake can be forever. This one lingers.

In The Clouds

Director: Alexandra Bahíyyih Wain 

Childhood adventure collides with the refugee experience when Sara, a curious six-year-old, sneaks out with her sister to explore their unfamiliar London estate. Through the girls’ eyes, ordinary streets feel foreign, but also filled with possibility. With tender restraint, Wain captures the fragile optimism of displacement: every step is risk, every discovery a tiny reclamation of joy. In The Clouds is a reminder that resilience often begins with play, and that sometimes freedom looks like a stolen afternoon outside.

The Truck

Director: Liz Rao

A Chinese American teen and her boyfriend set out on what should be a simple mission: obtain the morning-after pill. But in post-Roe America, the journey becomes a perilous quest for autonomy and safety. Rao’s film is raw, immediate, and unapologetically political, yet grounded in a deeply human love story. The stakes are personal, emotional, and heartbreakingly current. The Truck stands firmly in the lineage of socially vital cinema.