Top 7 Animated Short Films That Rival Pixar (But on an Indie Budget)

The beautiful thing about animation is that, removed as a principle from the constraints of reality and realism, it has the fundamental freedom to do whatever artists can dream up. And the thing about Pixar is that it makes films that mix in the cute with the profound. Below you will find some of the most delectable of indie animated works that are one or both in some fantastic ways. 

The Present (2016) dir. Jacob Frey

A simple, sweet 3D animated film based on a comic strip by Fabio Coala that knows how to be—and stop at—feel-good before it hits saccharinity, The Present is a story of a boy and the puppy he decides to hate on sight. But who could really ever hate a puppy (and still be the protagonist of a happy film)?

In the Shadow of the Cypress (2025) dir. Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani

A literal whale takes the plot by its horns in this hand-drawn 2D film that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and leads all characters towards a destiny different from what they might have imagined for themselves. The unbelievable, magnificent, stuff-of-fantastic-dreams creature is stranded on the beach, which is also basically the human characters’ front yard. What ensues is so unbelievably moving on the first viewing, you might be tempted to go in for a few more so as to tame the storm it raises within you. It is the pet fish’s doom, multiplied a thousandfold. How can two humans triumph against something like that?  

Omelette (2013) dir. Madeline Sharafian

The cuter, funnier alternative to Blobby (find that below), Omelette looks like a comic brought to motion. The art style fits its main character, an astute little dog, like a glove. The expressions are hilarious and the editing as well timed as the dog’s interventions in its owner’s life. It is if Courage the Cowardly Dog were without freakish monsters and Courage a little quicker on his feet.  

Bridge (2011) dir. Ting Chian Tey

Another film that finds small animals at the business end of feet, Bridge, despite its brevity, does not worry about the complexity of the issue at hand. Do you, when push comes to shove, follow the logic of your predecessors, or do you find alternatives? And even better, how do you proceed after you have learned that dismantling the master’s house with the master’s tools may lead to perilous places?

Sidewalk (2013) dir. Celia Bullwinkel

Sidewalk peppers moments of levity to temper the fundamental gravity of an experience squeezed into a few wipe cuts and lateral shots. Sometimes the changes are euphoric and sometimes the changes are terrifying, and all the child-adolescent-woman can do—all anyone can do—is keep walking, keep finding a way to keep walking. And when she finds someone similarly terrified, take their hand and walk together a while. 

Blobby (2014) dir. Laura Stewart

Loneliness is its own kind of pet. A temperamental, apathetic cat. A clingy dog. A plastic bird. Blobby, omnipresent, malleable grey mass of a pet to a man with no name and the burdens of a long life, can be any kind of irritant the old man does not need. But in the empty house and its single bed, even troubles have to be accepted as companions. They must be, because either way, they are not likely to leave. This 2-minute claymation short leaves meaning up to both the man and the viewer. Make of loneliness what you will and for however long you can. Like life, meanings break down, decay takes hold. But squint and you see, it’s at least a little okay after all. 

Fox and the Whale (2018) dir. Robin Joseph

A dreamlike film with a fox as irrationally curious as any of us, Fox and the Whale looks and sounds stunning. At times the detailing emphasises an unreally real quality to the art, both too close to our physical world and yet somehow enchanted—it is what AI wishes it were and pretends to be. The fox, a humble 2D creature in this enormous, unfathomably dynamic world, is understandably hungry for more. In a word, it is moving. In a few more, it is the sort of film to watch before you sleep, for the chance to dream like it.