Jan 1, 2021

2021 Academy Awards for Best Animated Short: List of 96 Nominees (Exclusive)

In November, before this year's torrent of animated shorts settled into the Oscar race, we surveyed the films likely to compete for the gold statue. Now that the qualifying period has ended, it is clear that 96 short films have made the long list.

Below is the list in alphabetical order. This list has been compiled from publicly available information and verified by sources within the Academy. After comparing this list to previous years' surveys, it appears that 96 animated shorts were nominated, which is an Academy record, but we have not confirmed this.

To summarize, a short film is eligible for an Academy Award in one of three ways: it can be shown in theaters in L.A. or New York under certain conditions, it can win at a designated "eligible" film festival (see list here), or it can win a Student Academy Award. The filmmaker must then submit the film to the Academy. The pandemic wreaked havoc on the film festival circuit, with some events being postponed and others cancelled, but this did not seem to have a significant impact on eligibility - record or not, 96 is a high number.

Short films are where one can find the most beautiful, innovative, and unique animation. However, many of them remain inaccessible to the general public during the festival (although the rise of virtual festivals in the past year has changed that somewhat).

The Academy Awards category is not very well known, and most people outside (or even within) the industry do not have a clear idea of what is up for nomination each year. As the Academy considers shortening its television broadcasts, the animated short category has often been rumored to be one of the categories excluded from the live broadcasts. We are publishing this list to draw attention to the diversity of animated shorts and to spark discussion among the animation community, and hopefully beyond, about which films should be considered for the Academy Awards.

Please note that the information regarding how each film qualified is based on our own research and is neither complete nor definitive.

Films that qualified in 2020 include:

Benoit Berthe Siward contributed research to this article.

Top Left to Right: Symbiosis, World of Tomorrow Episode 3: David Prime's Absent Destination, Canvas, and Altering.