The 2026 Oscar-Nominated Documentary Shorts Reviewed And Ranked
Five documentaries seek the Academy Award, but which one deserves it?
This year’s Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Short Film are a mostly forgettable bunch. I wouldn’t say they’re a disappointing group so much as the short documentary contenders from last year were underwhelming as a whole. I do have one definite favorite, but the rest were difficult to rank. You’ve got two films focused on violently murdered children, two films about innocent victims of wars, four heavy issue films, and one documentary following three donkeys around an observatory.
All five films are screening in theaters together as a single program block distributed by Roadside Attractions. The company is a new partner for all three short film Oscar categories, following a longtime deal with ShortsTV. While three of the documentaries are currently available to stream at home, two are not accessible at the moment except through this release, so it’s not just that you’ll be supporting short documentaries in the cinema, but to be a completist, you need to buy a ticket anyway.
In alphabetical order, the five films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film are All the Empty Rooms, Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud, Children No More: “Were and Are Gone”, The Devil is Busy, and perfectly a strangeness. I’ve reviewed and ranked them below and expressed some context for why one or another might have a good shot at winning the Oscar this year.
5. Children No More: “Were And Are Gone”
The least engaging film among the nominees, Children No More: “Were and Are Gone” is a document of a protest campaign in Israel recognizing Palestinian kids who were killed in the strikes on Gaza. The protests are admirable, and it’s important to show Israelis not just against the conflict but also empathetic toward its young victims on the “other side.” It’s also necessary for these events, entailing several Israeli activists holding photos of these children and when and how they were killed, to be documented for posterity. But if it had to be a film, it should have been interesting.
This documentary is produced by Sheila Nevins, whose pioneering leadership of HBO Documentary Films for decades has given the Academy much to nominate in issue-driven shorts. It’s wild that this is only her second credited Oscar nomination (she’s listed with director Hilla Medalia), having been recognized just two years ago for her directorial debut, the short documentary The ABCs of Book Burning (one of the lower-ranking of 2024, too). I don’t think it’s likely she’ll win this year either, so she deserves an Honorary Oscar one of these years instead.
Maybe if the Academy wants to continue support of Palestinians after last year’s feature win for No Other Land, it has some chance, but then they should have instead at least shortlisted the feature Torn: The Israel -Palestine Poster War on New York City Street, which handles the tension of the arguments briefly seen in Children No More more comprehensively and deeply.
4. All The Empty Rooms
Two more returning nominees in this category are director Joshua Seftel and producer Conall Jones, who were previously recognized in 2023 for Stranger at the Gate. This one follows broadcast journalist Steve Hartman as he works on a project spotlighting the empty bedrooms of school shooting victims. All the Empty Rooms documents his and photographer Lou Bopp's visits with the families of three children killed in separate incidents, learning about the deceased through their personal belongings and relatively untouched spaces, which have become shrines in their memory.
As a film about all the empty rooms of these children, the documentary is effective, but that makes me feel like it’s hijacking the point of Hartman’s project. Hartman and Bopp’s work seems really great and meaningful, but Seftel and Jones’s is then simply a vessel through which they give attention to that work. It’s a behind-the-scenes showcase. There is a polish to it, in the visuals and Alex Somers’s prominent score, the latter making it all feel really powerful. As a profile of Hartman, there could have been more about his work before this project, though the film does a decent job of expressing his thoughts about covering this topic and what it’s done to him psychologically as a father himself.
For the longest time, I thought All the Empty Rooms was the frontrunner in this category. I even thought this last fall when I first watched it as a contender for the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. I really thought it was going to win there, too. Now I’m thinking the Academy voters will also see through its qualities and how it’s worth watching because of the subject of its subject, not for anything it’s doing on its own. It certainly pulls on their heartstrings more, but that may not be what they want.
3. Armed Only With A Camera: The Life And Death Of Brent Renaud
Like documentaries on children in war and school shootings, we’ve sadly seen this subject before. Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud particularly reminded me of the 2013 feature Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington and the related 2017 film Hondros. It even shares a lot in common with documentaries about combat journalists who are still alive, such as last year’s feature Love+War. But just because it’s a familiar story doesn’t mean it’s not worth telling again. In fact, it’s probably worth telling again moreso because it’s become common. Documentaries about journalists and journalism are all over the place right now and should be. As this film states, it’s now one of the most dangerous professions in the world. It’s also one of the most endangered and still most important.
There seems to be a simplicity to the craftsmanship of Armed Only with a Camera, but it holds together well and is structured with more cohesion than others of its kind. Basically, the documentary is a eulogy for Brent Arnaud, who died while covering the war in Ukraine. As is typical, the film looks back at other docs and stories Arnaud worked on that were also as vital and perilous. The most interesting of these connect to an attendee or speaker at his funeral service, each of whom gives more context. There’s also understandably a good amount of time devoted to his brother and sometime collaborator, Craig Renaud, who is the primary director of the short. The other credited director is Brent Renaud, giving him a posthumous Oscar nomination.
The idea that Brent Renaud would be honored multifold if the film won the Academy Award could easily push it through with voters. That and the fact that the Renauds were part of the documentary filmmaker community, and this work represents the significance of their job as well as that of artists, gives it even more reason and likelihood to win. Plus, it has just enough about Ukraine to make it timely, despite Brent Renaud’s killing taking place four years ago — though it still wouldn’t make up for the fact that the best documentary of 2025 was snubbed in the feature category.
2. perfectly a strangeness
I don’t know the last time this category had such an outlying oddity as perfectly a strangeness. The shortest of the bunch by half, at only 15 minutes, the film is more artistic. Poetic even. You could’ve guessed as much by the all-lowercase stylizing of the title. It doesn’t tackle an issue. It doesn’t even have any humans, let alone dialogue. You could argue that it’s not even a work of nonfiction storytelling since it’s kind of forced in its concept and its execution. The short follows three donkeys, Ruperto, Palomo, and Palaye, as they walk about the site of a supposedly abandoned astronomical observatory in Chile (namely La Silla, but some of it was also filmed at Paranal, which takes away from the reality of the piece if you know that). There’s a lot left to interpretation here, which is not normal for the Academy to nominate here.
It ranks so high for me partly because it’s so unique. I’ll admit that any or every idea it communicates is rather shallow, but the effort has some originality, and the film looks and sounds amazing. I’m especially impressed that it’s composer Ben Grossman’s first score. This film is the one most worth seeing in the theatrical package release of the Oscar-nominated documentary shorts, and the one that makes that package worth seeing altogether (don’t wait for its Criterion Channel premiere next month). If you like it, I recommend following it with Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light, which has similar settings and themes but is more intellectually and sensorially resonant.
Of the five nominees, perfectly a strangeness has the smallest chance of winning the Oscar because it’s so different. It’s so contrary to what the documentary purists will want to recognize. In this case, it really is just an honor to be nominated because that was a surprise in and of itself. For the film to win, all of the Academy members who watch all of the nominees will have to agree that, in the times we’re living in, a cinematic morsel that hints at humanity’s insignificance in our world and the universe as a whole is better to celebrate than four documentaries shedding light on important causes, including one that literally showcases the significance of one man in our world making a difference and two more that acknowledge the preciousness of life.
1. The Devil Is Busy
Geeta Gandbhir, whose film The Perfect Neighbor is the frontrunner for Best Documentary Feature Film, has the distinction of being nominated for two Oscars this year, one in each of the doc categories. I don’t think The Devil is Busy is as notable, but it’s still the best of the five nominated for Best Documentary Short Film. Also directed by Christalyn Hampton, the short focuses on the familiar issue of reproductive rights. But it’s not necessarily an argument for pro-choice so much as it’s a look at one healthcare clinic in Georgia impacted by the heaviness of the debate and by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. For most of its runtime, it’s primarily a character-driven film centered on the clinic’s head of security. When she’s not on screen, the documentary loses some of its concentration and appeal, but not terribly so.
When I highlighted The Devil is Busy for its release on HBO Max as my Pick of the Week, I celebrated its central character as “the kind of person we need more of in the world right now, filled with faith, acceptance (even if her general lack of judgment still allows for shade thrown at hypocrites), and courage.” I don’t consider this documentary an issue film unless we think of being good as an issue in these dark times (I guess we should). Another bit from my original review of the film: “I’m actually not certain it has an overall political point other than to promote compassion for everyone, maybe even the protestors in front of the building.” Unlike some other heavy-topic-focused documentaries in this bunch, The Devil is Busy is more interested in the human subjects at hand, not the subjects of their subjects’ work. The result is a more memorable film.
Whether the Academy voters aim for memorable characters over hotter topics will determine if The Devil is Busy could win the Oscar. Some voters may like the idea of honoring Gandbhir in both categories for a historical achievement (I think she’s already made history by being nominated in both). It’d cement 2025 as the year of Geeta Gandbhir, as I’d been calling it. Other voters may want to spread the wealth and look elsewhere in this category while expecting Gandbhir to win for Best Documentary Feature Film. I think it’s the most deserving, either way.