Looking for a brief escape? Try our animated short films offer imaginative worlds and inventive stories. Though many fantastic shorts exist, some of the most underappreciated gems can be found on Reveel. This list has a collection of criminally-underrated animated short films that deserve more recognition.

The town of Backwater is cursed by regular visits of The Undertaker and one day the town decides help death along.

A multi-award-winning short film from the acclaimed university of animation, The Animation Workshop. Widely praised for its unique visual style, dark and gruesome story, black humour. Original soundtrack from Death Country legends Sons of Perdition.

Director: Bo Mathorne 
Cast: Zebulon Whatley, Lucien Dodge, Philip Sacramento, Laura Post 

The Backwater Gospel

Backwater is doomed by the regular visits of the undertaker and its dwellers blame a tramp.

The Blissful Accidental Death came alive from various personal research, "like the knitting of a burgundy sweater." It started from finding a small, old drawing in an antique shop with a love letter on the back, which implied a secret love story between a famous poet and a painter, a secret that was kept for 80 years. Luckily and extremely surprising, the painter was still alive, a fabulous character in her 105th birthday who has spanned the whole of last century, meeting the elite Romanian artistic and intellectual scene. The script does not contain the real story but rather a sum of images of the interpretation of the painter's life, framed by the real story of meeting the drawing, and imagining the moment she wrote about, when she dreamed of "a blissful accidental death." The camera movement in the film itself simulates a POV, implying that this is a personal interpretation of the events. 

The Blissful Accidental Death

A drawing found in an antique shop makes a young man to start an unusual journey to find the truth about it.

This story follows a kind tree spirit forced to leave his home forest due to people cutting down his trees.

Roots

A short animation about the impacts of deforestation.

This story takes place in the future, when superluminal speeds allow for travel to any point in the universe. People are hoping to find extraterrestrial life, but as of yet no one has succeeding in finding anything. One day, a lonely man finds a message in a monolith that has been drifting in space. It helps him to find a portal that leads to the home planet of those who made the monolith. He finds a giant structure, a building. But ...This place is breathing on its own. Where has everyone gone?

Laniakea

One day, far into the future, a man finds a message in space. Maybe it has all the answers?

In a small Bosnian village, hidden amongst steep mountain cliffs, throughout the centuries, the ritual of the Great Dragon summoning takes place every spring. The Great Dragon is the village guardian. As the time goes by, the ritual gradually changes and loses its strength. The village is no longer hidden. Strange new beliefs and deities take over its people...

Aždaja / The Dragon

The ancient ritual of the Bosnian Dragon Summoning is threatened by various new beliefs throughout the ages.

When a Wizard sets out on a grand adventure - he is forced to wait in a forest where he meets a sentient tree that changes everything.

The Wizard in the Woods

The Lingers Home is a short stop motion animation which offers a magical look into the characters who appear as the lights go off.

The Lingers Home

Ever wonder who lives in your dollhouse once the lights turn off?

A short one minute film about a group of crows holding a funeral for a dead friend.
Awards:
- Best Animated Super Short (About 1 min) - Golden Kuker Sofia
- 2nd place - Galway Film festival 'One Minute Film Festival' 2019
About the Director:
Liam Fahy is an illustrator/animator who hails from the wet and windy west coast of Ireland. He left his home in the countryside to study animation on the east coast at the National Film School at IADT Dun Laoghaire. He enjoys exploring the limits of Black and White design in his illustration and stamp work.

Mourning Murder

A short one minute film about a group of crows holding a funeral for a dead friend.

2019 Sheridan Animation 4th year Graduation Film. A father sacrifices himself to save his 9 month old son from a wolf attack, only for another wolf to take the orphan child as his own.

Wolf's Child

A father sacrifices himself to save his 9 month old son from a wolf attack, only for another wolf to take the orphan child as his own.

A short fantasy heist film about a brother and sister who rob a witch's house hidden beneath a wishing well deep in the woods.

Awards:
Best 2D ~ Dingle Animation Film Festival 2020
Best Writer ~ Dingle Animation Film Festival 2020
Audience Choice Award ~ Dublin Animation Festival 2019

About the Director:
Liam Fahy is an illustrator/animator who hails from the wet and windy west coast of Ireland. He left his home in the countryside to study animation on the east coast at the National Film School at IADT Dun Laoghaire.

How To Rob A Witch

Why wish for riches when you can rob witches?

Dragons are sacred creatures; their blood can cure all kinds of illness. A courageous boy set off on a journey far from home to find a cure for his ill mother, despite risking his own life.

Dragon Blood

Dragons are sacred creatures; their blood can cure all kinds of illness. A courageous boy set off on a journey far from home to find a cure.

Glitch Noir is an animated story set vaguely in the future, in a paranoid world where warfare has been automated providing plausible deniability to the multinational corporations that finance and profit from weapon sales. The nameless protagonist sifts through the cracks and crevices of the global stream in a search to find the missing son of a client.

Glitch Noir

Glitch Noir is an animated story set in a paranoid, vague future in which automated warfare provides plausible deniability for corporations.

Faith is a wide-eyed young woman, who moves to Paris to attend a prestigious dance academy, wants nothing more than become a famous ballet dancer in the next big production "The White Nightingale." But soon she realises that it will be harder than she thought, as money, a job, physical stamina and mental health in the family puts weight on her shoulders.

White Nightingale

An optimistic young woman moves to Paris to attend a prestigious dance academy.

A list of well loved animated short films on Reveel