Looking for a way to pass the time? Check out these amazing short films, which are available on YouTube and other online platforms.
The best short films share many characteristics: straightforward narration, excellent acting, an original premise, and beautiful graphics. Each will teach you anything, so which are the best to watch?
We’ll start with our list of the best short films of all time. We’ll also dissect these short films and show you how to transform your next idea into one of the best short films of all time. Begin studying.
Any well-known director had to start somewhere. Short films seem to be the best way for young filmmakers to get their careers started. Many of these films highlight the talent of promising filmmakers who make their first break in feature film work.
Some short films, such as Whiplash, act as proof of concept for subsequent, more familiar work. Others have found and continue to support their viewers on the internet. However, not all short films must be a stepping stone to a career in feature films. A short film is an art form in its own right, and it necessitates a totally different set of objectives than a feature film.
The Jog
The Jog’s appearance on YouTube couldn’t have come at a better time. The COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and numerous social justice campaigns, including racial equality, have characterized the year 2020.
In this short film, a man receives a phone call informing him that he has been admitted into a police academy, which has always been his dream. He then heads on a morning jog, during which he sees a woman in distress. He pursues her and dispatches her attacker, a white man wielding a pistol. When the cops arrive, they mistakenly believe the black man is guilty. The film’s conclusion is powerful and timely.
Pitch Black Heist
Suppose Christopher McQuarrie ever got sick on the set of a Mission: Impossible film and needed a cheap stand-in. In that case, Pitch Black Heist director John Maclean might be his guy.
Mclean’s acclaimed, BAFTA-winning small stars Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham from Game of Thrones as world-class safecrackers who embark on what they think is a foolproof scheme to circumvent an office’s alarm system. With feature-length suspense crammed into this 13-minute thrill ride, there’s no telling what Maclean can do with longer run-time and a bigger budget.
Zamboni Man
Zamboni Man, released in 2004, is set in the chilling quietness of an ice rink’s after-hours. The film, directed by Seth Hendrikson, is about an unexpected relationship between a soft-spoken, simple-minded Zamboni driver (Michael Shannon) and a graceful young figure skater (Tatiana Totmianina).
Though Hendrikson has not directed much since (except for his movie debut, the 2017 Big Foot-based holiday comedy Pottersville, also starring Shannon). Zamboni Man moves as much as one of the film’s two characters does when they gain the tranquillity of absolute aloneness their empty ice rink provides.
Also Read, What we’ll wear In The Future, only if Sci-Fi Films Have It Right
Locker Room
Locker Room, an Australian short film, is about a girl’s alienation from her male peers. The play is all about toxic masculinity and locker room culture at prestigious private schools.
Carla, a young girl, finds a hidden group chat formed by her male peers. She must choose between being faithful to her mates and doing the right thing, and revealing their exploitative acts.
Greta Nash’s Locker Room, a brilliantly cinematic and thought-provoking coming-of-age film about the female perspective, will make you rethink your place in an ever-growing narrative of gender inequality and sexual abuse. Locker Room examines the social duty of witnesses to bad conduct and the pressures that can lead them to turn a blind eye through the lens of neither a victim nor a survivor.
Locker Room dramatizes the case, highlighting both the underlying misbehavior and the involvement of those in a dysfunctional society who do not speak up. The film is centered on Carla, a teenage student who finds a secret chat party, her male friends, have kept away from her. It raises a spiritual and social quandary at a fragile and confusing period of life.
A Trip To The Moon
The film, which is available in both black-and-white and colorized editions, is a must-see for every aspiring filmmaker’s first “History of Cinema” course.
Certain scenes in some films are well-known. Many have lines of dialogue that can be quoted. There is, however, a very limited and exclusive club of films that are recalled and symbolized by a single photograph.
A moon face with a missile in the socket. The picture from A Trip to the Moon is so well-known that even people who have never seen a single silent film will recognize it. From children’s literature and music videos, it has been cited and imitated. Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film, was based on the scene and its maker, Georges Méliès.
The way ahead of its time, a French film about a group of explorers and their mission to man an exploration to the Moon, directed by George Méliès, later became the oldest representative on Steven Schneider’s list of “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.”
What Did Jack Do?
Despite announcing his retirement from feature films, the one-of-a-kind artist often dabbles in short films.
In his latest Netflix short film, David Lynch, who has previously teased a season 4 of Twin Peaks, blends in perfectly as a detective who shares several characteristics with his favorite Twin Peaks character, FBI Agent Gordon Cole. He spends most of the noir-sendoff engaging in a game of reverse shot-dependent, back-and-forth wits with a sentient monkey (the titular, Jack), whom he is hellbent on apprehending for murder. To say, What Did Jack Do? is the most straightforward story the four-time Oscar winner has written since his 1999 Disney feature, The Straight Story.
Zion
The short film documentary, another Netflix Exclusive, tells the story of a teenage wrestler born without legs.
Despite the anticipated adversity, Zion Clark moves as a real-life underdog capable of seeing his unlikely triumph adapted into a feature-length Hollywood film someday. Suppose the respectable awards consideration it has earned during the festival circuit season is any indication. In that case, one should prioritize taking the meager 11 minutes out of their day to witness the most inspirational story they have not yet learned.
Sherlock Jr.
Buster Keaton dazzled crowds worldwide with Sherlock Jr. before finishing The General (1926), many believe to be the vaudevillian’s defining production.
Keaton revealed how generations of filmmakers would follow his example, from the unprecedented visuals of his film projectionist character stepping through a cinema screen to the masterful visions he achieved when within the meta-beyond-its-years movie-within-a-movie. The realistic special effects-dependent Sherlock Jr. plays like a Robert Zemeckis or Russo Brothers film that will be remade in the future with Robert Downey Jr. or Tom Holland (or both).
