This past Thursday, the Detroit Passport to the Arts held a red carpet screening of the short films nominated for a 2015 Academy Award, Hollywood in Detroit. This is right up my alley, seeing as how the Academy Awards are my Superbowl. In addition to the the fabulous dresses and Lady Gaga’s flawless performance, this year’s show was one of my favorites. So, here is the definitive (because we don’t actually have the Academy’s ranking) ranking of 2015’s Oscar short films. This includes both animated and live action.

Annie Hakim’s photo of the fellows all dolled up!

10. Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Beurre de Yak)
Hu Wei and Julien Féret

“Butter Lamp” is a French-Chinese short film about a photographer and his assistant on a photography assignment in a small Tibetan village.

9. Aya
Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis

In “Aya,” a young woman is mistaken by a man as an airport driver. Though she isn’t, she’s intrigued and doesn’t dispute it.

8. The Bigger Picture
Daisy Jacobs and Christopher Hees

Two brothers have a bit of a strained relationship with each other and their mother, but things change when she falls ill. This British short won Best Animated Short Film at the British Academy Film Awards. The stop-motion animation was unlike anything I’ve seen before.

7. A Single Life
Joris Oprins

“A Single Life” is only a few minutes long, but made everyone laugh. It’s about a girl with a magic record that represents her life, and when she skips a song, she skips ahead in her life. Don’t rush the future!

6. Me and My Moulton
Torill Kove

This animated short was a humorous take on the director’s childhood and her eccentric modern architect parents. She and her sisters wanted a bike,  and her parents agree, but her bike doesn’t look like everyone else’s. This got a reaction from everyone who always felt like they were the weird kid at school.

5. The Phone Call
Mat Kirkby and James Lucas

“The Phone Call” won the Oscar for Best Short Film, for good reason. It’s about a woman who works at a crisis call center, who receives a call who doesn’t necessarily want her help, he just needs someone to talk to. It was one of the most emotional 20 minutes of my life. Which is kind of an exaggeration, but not really.

4. Parvaneh
Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger

“Parvaneh” is about a young, naive immigrant girl and all of the roadblocks she encounters she makes while trying to send money to her family in Afghanistan.  She makes a friend who shows her more than she’d ever seen back at home.

3. The Dam Keeper
Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi

This animated short tugged at my heartstrings. It’s about a shy pig who lives in a windmill whose job is to turn the blades to keep a dark fog from engulfing the town at night. During the day, the other kids at school snort at him and tease him, but he continues to do his job. He finally makes a friend, who may not be as good of a friend as he thinks he is.

2. Boogaloo and Graham
Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney

In a small Irish village in 1978, two young boys are given baby chickens by their kind hearted father. The mother is okay with it until the chickens get bigger and they start bathing them in the kitchen sink. It won the Best Live Action Short Film BAFTA. I can’t even handle kids with Irish accents, I loved it.

1. Feast
Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed

“Feast” won the Academy Award and was probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Winston is a dog that’s used to being spoiled by having delicious human food thrown on top of his food dish, at least until his owner starts dating a vegetarian. How mad would you be if you were constantly given pizza and spaghetti and then started to be fed lettuce and spinach?