Oscar® Shorts 2025: Documentary

Four of this year’s short documentary nominees are from the USA, and three of them deal with violence: death row, Parkland, and a police shooting incident in Chicago, 2018. Happily the other nominees focus on classical music: Molly O’Brien and Lisa Remington’s The Only Girl in the Orchestra is an affecting portrait of double bassist Orin O’Brien, of the New York Philharmonic, and from Japan, Instruments of a Beating Heart, about first graders in Tokyo learning to play “Ode to Joy”.

Instruments of a Beating Heart, Ema Ryan Yamazaki and Eric Nyari, Japan, 23 min: First graders in a Tokyo public elementary school are instructed to form an orchestra and perform “Ode to Joy.”

Incident, Bill Morrison, USA, 30 min: A police shooting in Chicago in 2018 is told through footage from security cameras and police body cams.

I Am Ready, Warden, Smriti Mundhra and Maya Gnyp, USA, 37 min: In the days leading up to his execution, Texas death row prisoner John Henry Ramirez seeks to contact his victim’s son.

The Only Girl in the Orchestra, Molly O’Brien and Lisa Remington, USA, 34 min: Double bassist Orin O’Brien was the first woman hired to play in the New York Philharmonic, and she reflect back on her trailblazing career.

Death By Numbers, Kim A. Snyder and Janique L. Robillard, USA, 33 min: A Parkland shooting survivor testifies at the trial of the shooter, and confronts her trauma while examining the nature of hate and restorative justice.