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Home Academy Awards

An Immediate Reaction to the Shortlisted Shorts with Brandon MacMurray [Bonus Podcast!]

Joey Moser by Joey Moser
December 18, 2025
in Academy Awards, Featured Story, Film, Live Action Short, Podcast
0
An Immediate Reaction to the Shortlisted Shorts with Brandon MacMurray [Bonus Podcast!]
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Ahhhh, the shortlists. Most of Film Twitter tuned into Tuesday’s announcement to see what feature films would get a leg up (Wicked: For Good) and what the new Best Casting category would look like. For people like me and ShortStick founder, Brandon MacMurray, we wanted to see what films made an impact in the short film categories.

Across all three short film categories–Animated, Documentary and Live Action–nearly 500 films qualified, so parsing through so many shorts was no small feat. Brandon and I give our reactions to what we were happy to see and what we were bummed to find out didn’t make the cut. Alexander Farah’s tender, lovely One Day This Kid was both of our biggest disappointment in terms of omissions–stream it on Criterion Channel now!

We chatted hours after the shortlists dropped, so these reactions are very fresh! Make sure you follow Brandon and his team over at Shortstick for predictions, interviews, and upcoming coverage of festivals throughout the year.

Click here to listen!

Podcast Music:
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Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex
https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/

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Tags: Animated ShortDoc ShortDocumentary ShortLive Action ShortShorts
Joey Moser

Joey Moser

Joey is a co-founder of The Contending currently living in Columbus, OH. He is a proud member of GALECA and Critics Choice. Since he is short himself, Joey has a natural draw towards short film filmmaking. He is a Rotten Tomatoes approved critic, and he has also appeared in Xtra Magazine. If you would like to talk to Joey about cheese, corgis, or Julianne Moore, follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

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