5 True Stories That Will Stay With You For Days
Oscar Nominated Short Films - Documentary
The Documentary Short category has been around since 1942, making it one of the Academy’s older prizes. It’s also one of the most emotionally intense viewing experiences on the Oscar ballot. This year is no exception. You’ve got a CBS newsman photographing the bedrooms of children lost to school shootings, footage recovered from a journalist killed in Ukraine, Israeli activists holding vigils for Palestinian children, an Atlanta abortion clinic navigating the post-Roe landscape, and three donkeys wandering into a desert observatory. That last one isn’t a typo. Four of these five will wreck you. The fifth will make you wonder what a documentary even is. Budget an emotional recovery period between screenings.
Perfectly A Strangeness
In the dazzling incandescence of an unknown desert, three donkeys discover an abandoned astronomical observatory and the universe. A sensorial, cinematic exploration of what a story can be.
Dir. Alison McAlpine | Canada | 2024 | 15 min. | No Dialogue
That this is in the same category as the other four is, frankly, baffling. It’s like Donald Duck being nominated for Best Actor alongside Pacino, Brando, De Niro, and Hoffman. Alison McAlpine’s film follows three donkeys traversing a desert to an observatory, captured with creative camera angles and an imaginative score. There are some genuinely lovely shots here, and once the donkeys arrive, the photography of the stars and cosmos is beautiful. But what exactly makes this a documentary? The Academy and donkey films have a history (remember EO?), but this feels staged from start to finish. It was filmed at two different observatories, which tells me the donkeys were used as props rather than observed doing something naturally. McAlpine herself acknowledges it’s hard to categorize, asking “what is a documentary?” in interviews. Fair question. My answer: not this. Not when four other films with far more substance and emotional weight deserved the slot. It sticks out like a sore… well, you know.
Children No More: “Were and Are Gone”
In Tel Aviv, activists gather weekly to demonstrate their opposition to the war in Gaza with a silent vigil for the children killed in Israeli attacks.
Dir. Hilla Medalia | Israel/USA | 2025 | 36 min. | In Hebrew with English subtitles
In Tel Aviv, Israeli protesters stand silently holding posters of Palestinian children killed in Gaza by the Israeli military. Director Hilla Medalia follows these activists whose vigils draw both support and fury, and with legendary documentary producer Sheila Nevins behind it, the film carries serious pedigree. Just being nominated made waves, and it’s not hard to see why. This is a film that asks voters to stick their necks out and pick a side with their ballot. In the current discourse around Israel and Palestine, it’s a bold selection. The activists remain undaunted even as some vigils are abandoned when situations turn threatening. Medalia captures how humanity and compassion can become acts of resistance. Whether you agree with its perspective or not, this does exactly what documentaries are supposed to do: enlighten, move, and challenge. The reverberations if it wins would be significant. Then again, that kind of impact is the whole point.
Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
An intimate chronicle about documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud, the first American journalist killed while reporting on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Dir. Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud | USA | 2025 | 37 min. | In English and various other languages with English subtitles
Brent Renaud and his brother Craig made documentaries in Haiti, Egypt, Iraq, and other hot spots for years before Brent became the first American journalist killed covering the war in Ukraine. Craig assembled this tribute from recovered footage and shared memories, and it’s well-made and engaging. Visceral footage of Renaud’s death, including his body, will pin you to your seat. Stories from colleagues and loved ones give real insight into who he was. There’s a striking detail about his neurodivergence. Clips of Brent’s work speak for themselves: a weeping Iraqi woman clutching her slain son’s jeans, a Honduran boy heading north alone, a Somali man telling him he films “from the heart.” The trouble is it all feels like the CliffsNotes of a longer documentary. A more expansive version would have left viewers truly knowing Renaud, not just aware of the name.
The Devil Is Busy
At an Atlanta abortion clinic besieged by protesters, the director of operations takes necessary risks to safeguard staff and patients.
Dirs. Christalyn Hampton and Geeta Gandbhir | USA | 2024 | 31 min. | In English
Set over a single day at a women’s health clinic in Atlanta, this documentary captures the post-Roe reality with a matter-of-factness that makes it land with enormous weight. Religious protesters on megaphones (all men, as co-director Gandbhir points out) fill the sidewalk while women inside discover their pregnancies are just past the six-week mark, making termination illegal in Georgia. Hampton and Gandbhir wisely focus on the providers rather than the patients, showing the daily risks these independent clinics take as roughly 50 Planned Parenthood sites closed in the past year. There’s a moment when the film pauses to interview Tracii, the clinic’s head of security, and we see just how far personal conflict extends among the staff that has led them to show up every day. That single scene captures the human complexity that so much political debate ignores. Both feature docs and short docs have tackled this territory before, but The Devil Is Busy hits different. Maybe it’s the directors’ fly-on-the-wall restraint. Maybe it’s the timing. Either way, this one is strong and poignant.
All the Empty Rooms
Follows correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they embark on a seven-year-long project to document the empty bedrooms of children killed in school shootings.
Dir. Joshua Seftel | USA | 2025 | 34 min. | In English
If the premise alone doesn’t put a lump in your throat, try getting through the actual film. CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp spent seven years documenting the bedrooms of children killed in American school shootings. Director Joshua Seftel, who hadn’t spoken to his former colleague in 25 years, turned their work into something that accomplishes everything a documentary short is supposed to do and then some. The rooms provide silent testimony. One is covered in SpongeBob memorabilia. Another has a rack where a girl used to lay out her outfits for the week, still waiting to be worn. You feel the weight in every frame, and you can see it weigh on Hartman and Bopp too. I’ll admit personal bias here. I’ve watched Hartman on CBS Sunday Morning for years, and his good heart has always led him to stories of grief, goodness, and community. This is him giving something back. It’s a tough watch, but an Oscar-worthy one.
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