7 Must-Watch Animated Short Films
In the early days, animation companies used short films to test new technology and techniques. These animated short films are classics in their own way.
Let’s talk about animated short films.
A hundred years ago, short films were the province for up-and-coming animation companies like Walt Disney, Hanna-Barbara, Fleischer Studios, Pixar Animation, and Warner Bros. Cartoon. Short films allowed animators to test nascent animation techniques and build its brand through a variety of characters. Often, they were one of the attractions in a cinema, playing before the feature film.
But somewhere along the way, animated short films have gone the way of the dodo. I mean, sure, they’re still being made— there’s still an Academy Award given for Best Animated Short! Yet their place in the media ecosystem seems to be largely restricted to festival screenings or online releases.
At the start of 2026, I actually got a chance to experience what it must have been like to see a short film screened before the main feature when the animated short Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2 – Lost in New Jersey played in front of The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.
It was great!
I think cinemas need to bring back this tradition. A fun short film is like the band that warms up the audience at a concert before the main star comes on stage, it really makes a difference watching a movie after enjoying a satisfying short film.
Plus animated shorts can be truly fabulous on their own.
So here’s a list of seven animated shorts that I love ranked in the order of the year that they came, that I think you absolutely should check out.
Note: Wherever possible and available, I have attached links to either the entire shorts or clips from them. The full-length ones are, unsurprisingly, hard to find online.
1. Lonesome Ghosts - Walt Disney Productions, 1937
Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy are ghost exterminators lured to a haunted house by bored ghosts, and shenanigans promptly ensure. Was this where Ghostbusters got its idea from? Lonesome Ghosts is fun and riotous, and there’s even a gag with Goofy and a ghost that pays homage to the famous mirror scene from the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup. Incredibly, this was the 98th (!) short film in the Mickey Mouse series, and it was released just three days after the premiere of Disney’s first full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
2. Red Hot Riding Hood - MGM Cartoon, 1943
A Tex Avery short film is never dull, and this one is chock-full of his signature style: visual gags from beginning to end, a risqué sense of humor, and a subversive streak. This one starts off as a typical version of the Red Riding Hood story until the characters break the fourth wall and express their annoyance with the clichés. Suddenly, the story is given a makeover: Red Riding Hood is now an adult performing as a nightclub singer called Red Hot Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf is a Hollywood swinger who is gaga about Red, and Grandma is EXTREMELY thirsty for the Wolf. It’s great.
3. The Little Orphan - MGM Cartoons, 1949
Tom & Jerry are the titular leads, but The Little Orphan is famous for giving us the perpetually hungry Nibbles, an orphan sent to spend Thanksgiving as Jerry’s guest. Nibbles promptly tries to eat and drink everything in sight at a table laid out for Thanksgiving, only Tom will be damned if he’s going to allow them. One of the funniest gags is Nibbles swallowing an orange whole, prompting Jerry to slap it out of him which then flies into a sleeping Tom’s open mouth. It’s got some of the best visual gags of the franchise, including Jerry dressed in a pilgrim’s hat and Tom wearing a broom that makes him look like a Native American. It’s got some classic Tom & Jerry chase gags, including Jerry firing a champagne cork at Tom, and Tom getting a custard pie catapulted into his face. But since it’s a Thanksgiving episode, it ends on a rare conciliatory note with Tom & Jerry sitting down together to eat… only for Nibbles to demolish the turkey. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short 1948.
4. Duck Amuck - Warner Bros. Cartoons, 1953
Daffy Duck thinks he’s starring in a Three Musketeers spoof, only to break the fourth wall when the unseen animator keeps riling him up in a series of increasingly escalating and sadistic pranks until poor Daffy finally gives up, only for the camera to reveal the punchline that Bugs Bunny was the animator. It’s a Chuck Jones classic, and voted #2 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons by members of the animation field in 1994, before it was added in 1999 to the National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
5. Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers - Aardman Animations, 1993
Only Nick Park could have made a silent penguin with small unblinking black eyes look terrifying. The Wrong Trousers introduces Wallace & Gromit’s arch-enemy, Feathers McGraw, as a lodger who creates a fissure in the relationship between the cheese-loving Wallace and the skeptical Gromit while carrying out his plan to steal a valuable diamond. Park thought it would be fun to stage an action sequence in a living room, and co-writer proposed having a model train be the centerpiece, leading to a chase sequence that has been praised as one of the best action sequences ever (by no less than Danny Boyle). No, really. The Wrong Trousers was only the second Wallace & Gromit short film, but it was the one that really elevated Aardman Animations as a force to be reckoned with. It was also revisited as a feature-length sequel in 2024 with Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Want to get into the Wallace & Gromit world but don’t know where to start? This is the place. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short 1994.
6. La Maison en Petits Cubes - Oh! Productions, 2008
An ageing widower lives in a town with rising water levels, and keeps adding new floors to his house each time it does. But when he drops his pipe into the water and goes to retrieve it, his descent through the many floors causes him to relive his memories. No dialogue, a minimalist art style and animation, and a simple yet poignant piano soundtrack, La Maison en Petits Cubes is a sweet tale told without being saccharine or treacly, finding just the right balance between sentimental and melodramatic.
7. Day & Night - Pixar Animation, 2010
Two characters, Day and Night, are uneasy about each other, yet come to appreciate what the other has to offer. There’s no dialogue, but then it doesn’t need it, telling us all we need to know courtesy of some gorgeous visuals combining 2D and 3D elements and visual storytelling, including some gags certain to raise some chuckles (like when Day wakes up and moves to a running stream that makes it look like he’s peeing). It’s a well-made short about prejudice and overcoming it that never gets ham-fisted or preachy about its message, trusting the visuals to convey it instead.
What are your favorite animated short films? Please share your answers in the comments below.
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Long live the movies!
D.L. Holmes