Manhattan Short Film Festival 2026
Run Time: 120 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2026
Every autumn, the Manhattan Short Film Festival unites audiences in over 500 cities across six continents to screen the festival’s ten Global Finalists. You—not a jury—decide who wins: each audience member votes for the Best Film and Best Actor. Every film selected is automatically Oscar-qualified by virtue of this global run.
This Year’s Final Ten is a diverse slate of ten shorts from ten different countries — Small Talk (USA), Mary is Missing (Ireland), Candy Bar (Australia), Vultures (South Africa), Life Goes On (United Kingdom), Hai Davai (Moldova), Pickup (Russia), Norheimsund (Cuba), When the Sea was Calm (Georgia), and Never Give Up (Mexico).
Learn more about each film and read interviews with the filmmakers at manhattanshort.com.
About the festival:
Manhattan Short began in 1998, when founder Nicholas Mason gathered an audience of 200 people and showed 16 short films on a screen mounted to the side of a truck on Mulberry Street, Little Italy, New York City. A year later the Festival moved uptown to Union Square Park NYC, where audiences grew to love the annual event. From these humble beginnings, the festival has now transformed into a worldwide phenomenon.
Celebrating its 29th birthday in 2026, Manhattan Short is the only film festival on the planet to unfold simultaneously, in more than 500 cinemas on six continents, bringing over 100,000 film-lovers in all corners of the globe together for one week, via the next generation of filmmakers. Click here to read how it all began.
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