The definition of a short film is technically anything with a runtime of 40 minutes or less, but it's generally thought that any feature too short to be a full-length movie is also a "short film." Anime is often connected with experimental or unconventional types of movies and has plenty to offer in this genre.
Best LGBTQ+ Anime To Watch (Updated For 2025)
These anime offer just as amazing LGBTQ+ representation and even better stories for viewers to enjoy.
There's no shortage of anime that fit this category. Even the earliest days of anime included a selection of short films in an impressive variety, and it's difficult to choose the best. Compilations of anime shorts under a single title or labeled as OVA are also a common way to find anime shorts, and there are plenty of hidden gems to enjoy.
Updated November 20, 2024, by Kristy Ambrose: Anime short films don't always make it into the mainstream market, with the top-sellers often serialized adaptations of popular manga or video games, only viewed by select audiences in venues like film festivals or comic book conventions. Even though there's a wide variety of short films, they aren't easy to find and get more circulation when they're part of anthologies or larger IPs like Bladerunner and The Matrix.
12 Labyrinth Labyrinthos
The First Of The Neo Tokyo Anthology
- Studio: Madhouse and Project Team Argos
- Runtime: 12 minutes
- Release Year: 1987
The Japanese title, "Labyrinth Tales," better describes the nature and design of this short film. The maze in this instance is the mind of a little girl who is playing hide and seek with her cat, who is aptly named Cicerone. Her visions include a deadly auto race and a nation too dependent on technology.
The film premiered to a favorable reception at the Tōkyō International Fantastic Film Festival the same year as its release. It's stood the test of time, and was rated #10 in Paste magazine's "100 best anime movies of all-time" list in 2021, and has since inspired a whole library of dystopian science fiction and experimental movies.
11 The House Of Small Cubes
A Unique Animation Style
- Studio: Oh! Production
- Runtime: 12 Minutes
- Release Year: 2008
If it's difficult to find information about this short movie under the English name, try the French one, La Maison en Petits Cubes. The film has won no less than seven awards, including the 2009 Oscar for Best Short Film at the Academy Awards, and it has a unique art style and prescient story.
The 15 Best Anime That Deals With Time Travel
For fans of traveling to the past or the future, these following time travel-themed anime shows are some of the best to watch.
The main character is an older gentleman, the last of his family it seems, and he lives in a house where the lower levels are filled with water. One day, he drops his favorite pipe into the lower floors, and his journey to find it takes him through the older parts of the house, even to the ground floor, which existed before the flooding began. The plot not only tells the story of his past but what happened to the world as water covered more and more of it.
10 The Sensualist
A Different Kind Of Erotica
- Studio: Grouper Productions
- Runtime: 55 minutes
- Release Year: 1991
The Sensualist is essentially a sexual biography of the protagonist that starts in his childhood and follows him into maturity and his adult years. The film is often viewed as a piece of erotic art or experimental anime, as opposed to pornography or "hentai." It has some introspective moments that overlap into life, aging, and physical beauty.
The movie is based on a book by Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko called "The Life of an Amorous Man." It was published in 1682, during the Edo Period, and the animation uses the historic setting to create a sensual and opulent environment. It's more about watching the rich colorful layers of the kimonos move than the actual sex, which is always expressed to the viewer symbolically.
9 Mon Mon The Water Spider
A Short Story With A Small Hero
- Studio: Studio Ghibli
- Runtime: 15 minutes
- Release Year: 2006
Also known by its Japanese title, Mizugumo Monmon, this is a charming story about a water spider that falls in love with a beautiful but dangerous water strider. The object of Mon Mon's affection lives in a whole different world above the surface of the water, which is partly why he's so fascinated with her.
The short film is 50 minutes long and is based on a story idea from Hayao Miyazaki that was originally about a caterpillar. It's one of the short films that fans can see at the Studio Ghibli theme park in Japan.
8 Program
Episode 5 Of The Animatrix
- Studio: Madhouse
- Runtime: 7 minutes
- Release Year: 2003
Program is one of the short films that make up The Animatrix anthology. It does stand alone, but makes more sense when viewed in the context of The Matrix universe. The animation is unique, modern, and designed to look like a heightened form of reality. It uses few colors and relies instead on its creative premise, as a program in the Matrix.
Unlike other stories in this franchise, the viewer is always aware that the action is taking place in a simulation, but the nature of that simulation is unclear until the very last moments. The plot is a callback to the original movie in which the traitor is among them and "the call is coming from inside the ship" so to speak.
7 Cat Soup
Abstract Animated Comedy/Horror
- Studio: J.C.Staff
- Runtime: 34 minutes
- Release Year: 2001
This "experimental film" is iconic for its unsettling animation style and overall design. It starts with a young anthropomorphic cat almost drowning in a bathtub and gets even weirder and more terrifying from there.
The main character, Nyata, is the near-drowning victim who has to travel through a terrifying and surreal wonderland of sorts to retrieve the other half of his sister Nyaako's soul. Their adventures aren't exactly colorful and childlike fun, but they are interesting. For anime fans who like the more daring and creative, Cat Soup is a great anime short film.
6 Inaka Isha (A Country Doctor)
A Different Kind Of Literary Adaptation
- Studio: MovieImagica and Yamamura Animation, Inc
- Runtime: 21 minutes
- Release Year: 2007
An artistic interpretation of A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka, the film crams as much tragic surrealism as possible into 21 minutes. This is a dark and somber story about the daily and often unrealistic burdens placed on doctors.
The film uses a horror-fantasy aesthetic, but the message is one of realism, finally culminating in loss and disappointment. It won several awards, such as the 2007 Grand Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. However, because of the subject matter and short run time, not many anime fans know about it.
5 The Garden Of Words
Profound And Visually Stunning
- Studio: CoMix Wave Films
- Runtime: 46 minutes
- Release Year: 2013
Viewers can find The Garden Of Words under search terms like "piano music" "ambient rain sounds" and "shoe design" along with some of the top-rated anime of its time. The same year it was released, it was honored at the Stuttgart Animated Film Festival and the Fantasia International Film Festival and won the Kobe Theatrical Film Award.
Best School Anime Everyone Should Watch, Ranked
Exams, crushes, after-school hijinks — these school anime explore all the ups and downs of life as a student — in ordinary or extraordinary worlds.
The plot is a simple "slice of life" type of story. The main character is Takao Akizuki, who skips what seems like his pointless classes to sit in a garden pavilion and make shoes. A young woman with an equally ambivalent attitude about her job joins him, and together they overcome their fears about life, which is symbolized by "learning to walk again."
4 Blade Runner: Black Out 2022
A Prequel To Bladerunner 2049
- Studio: Cygames Pictures
- Runtime: 15 minutes
- Release Year: 2017
Most people are under the impression that there are two movies in the Blade Runner franchise, but there are five of them. Three are also short films that fill in the lore between the movies, and one of those is the animated feature Black Out 2022.
This anime short film tells the story of the Blackout, an incident that is referenced in the full-length movie when the power was lost and everyone's electronic records were wiped clean. The event is referenced several times in Bladerunner 2049 and takes place ten years before the full-length live-action movie. The director is Shinichiro Watanabe, whose other work includes Cowboy Bebop and Macross Plus.
3 Someone's Gaze
A Coming-Of-Age Story
- Studio: CoMix Wave Films
- Runtime: 7 minutes
- Release Year: February 10, 2013
It's a simple plot about a common family dynamic told through the eyes of the old housecat Mii, who keeps Dad company while daughter Aya is working or living in her new apartment and Mom is working overseas. Flashbacks show how circumstances and time bring the family together, draw them apart, but then bring them together again.
8 Isekai Anime That Are Surprisingly Tense
These anime break away from the typical power fantasy formula by focusing on the psychological toll of navigating dangerous worlds.
The movie is also entitled Dareka no Manazashi and has plenty of both happy and sad moments, as every family does. The two main ideas in the story are the bonds of family and the future, universal themes that virtually every human being experiences. The profound emotional moments make Someone's Gaze a real tearjerker, so watch it with a friend and have some tissues handy.