Five Websites To Find The Best Short Films, Part 2

Early Internet viral short “George Lucas in Love.”

Seven years ago I posted a list of five great websites you can find the best short films, and thankfully more indie film websites have continued popping up. The need for short films hasn’t thinned over the years, thank goodness. Short films are great launch pads for big time directors, they’re great for proof of concepts to sell to studios, and they can just be mini-masterpieces that, at most, are about thirty minutes.

Hell, major film festivals like Fantasia, Slamdance, and Sundance still have short film line ups, so there’s no denying short films are absolutely valid forms of filmmaking. If you find a great short film, time just flies. That’s the joy of being a film lover.

If you fancy yourself a connoisseur of short films, or are interested in reviewing them for your blog, or podcast, or tiktok, here are five I wholeheartedly recommend. 

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Director James Gunn commits to a very interesting fear in avoiding the third film curse by shifting a lot of the focus for his odyssey of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Rather than continue on the journey of Peter Quill, Gunn focuses on the more problematic characters that have entered in to the Marvel Universe. Throughout the trilogy we’ve only know a bit about Nebula and Rocket Raccoon. We know that they’re in essence hard heroes to understand and cope with and Gunn gets down to the nitty gritty and give us compelling back stories. Along the way their back stories allow us to garner a further understanding as to why they relate to the other characters as they do.

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Superman I-IV 5-Film Collection (1978-1987) [4K UHD/Blu-ray/Digital HD]

2023 was the 85th anniversary of the first appearance of Superman in the comics, and Warner Bros has released two coveted box sets featuring the Donner and Salkind era of “Superman” movies. For folks that consider themselves strictly fans of the Christopher Reeve Superman films, this set is very much in your wheelhouse. Thankfully the movies still hold up very well, even though the box set leaves so much to be desired.

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“Iron Man” Fifteen Years Later: The Tech Superhero We Didn’t Know we Wanted

Recently I was on Tik Tok, and I came across a comic book content creator who was under fire from commenters who took issue with his claim that before he became a big screen hero, Iron Man was not at all popular. It’s quite the comical turn of events because if you were a fan of comic books in the late eighties throughout the nineties, Iron Man was not popular. Out of all the superheroes running during that time, Iron Man was at best a third tier superhero.

While The Punisher, Spider-Man, and X-Men were selling huge for Marvel Comics, Iron Man was low on the totem pole in terms of status and popularity. His series was constantly cancelled, rebooted, and restarted, while his alternate War Machine became the more celebrated of the pair. While he was respected as one of the Avengers’ founders, he just wasn’t a popular or even appealing character.

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All Star Superman (2011) [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]

“My last adventure is about to begin…”

As many know I’m a hardcore Superman fan and “All Star Superman” is one of the better Superman stories that I’ve ever read. The Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely mini series stands among some of the best literature from the character. Quitely’s highly detailed pop art aesthetic perfectly matches up the story of a god who realizes he’s fading away like the sun. The animated adaptation is thankfully about as loyal to the source material as possible, and while I would have loved about twenty more minutes added to the run time, “All Star Superman” is a top notch adaptation.

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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always (2023)

After thirty years, “Once & Always” feels a lot like not just a tribute to the fans of the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” but some much needed justice. As many know, David Yost was horribly bullied when he originally joined “Power Rangers,” while Walter Jones was poorly utilized. So it’s no big surprise that the special centers mostly on Zack and Billy, two of the remaining elements of the original “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.”

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Superman Awakens (2023)

Antonis and Stavros Fylladitis’s short fan film “Superman Awakens” is an absolute accomplishment. It’s only four minutes in length but it conveys a very interesting and intriguing story that is complimented by the massive animation. Rather than attempt a live action film, “Superman Awakens” is animated through CGI, created with Unreal Engine 5 using Lumen technology, and tells the tale of a Superman that has lost it all and is trying to find a reason to keep going.

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