13 min · English · Comedy · Drama · Horror · Fantasy
For Owen, resisting a compulsion feels as if the world could end. This dark comedy takes that fear literally, mixing an everyday struggle with wildly escalating stakes.
Dark short films
51 Dark short films in the cafe, running 6 to 55 minutes. Many are suspenseful or thought-provoking. They span 9 languages. Each is a complete standalone short film, chosen by the cafe and played through its original video provider.
17 min · Malayalam · Thriller
Budget Lab's Malayalam crime thriller: an ordinary incident pulls its characters into a widening mystery. Seventeen dark minutes that only 12,000 YouTube viewers have found so far.
13 min · English · Horror · Drama
A family dinner becomes impossible to separate from grief. Choose The Dinner After for a horror short where the feelings Angela tries to escape will not stay outside the room.
14 min · English · Animation · Documentary
Take a short break with “Ryan” to see the world from another angle.
15 min · English · Drama · Thriller · Comedy
A parlour game becomes a test of belonging. Watch this dark comedy-mystery for sharp class satire and a family whose polished manners hide something troubling.
13 min · English · Science fiction
Karl Redgen's English sci-fi for DUST: two explorers crash-land on an alien-infested planet, and when one is infected the other faces an impossible choice.
33 min · Malayalam · Horror · Thriller
An ancestral home turns a family reunion into a source of dread. Try this Malayalam horror short for a homecoming that becomes frighteningly unfamiliar.
20 min · English · Science fiction
Andrew Zane Allen and Gavin Bradley's sci-fi for DUST: a prospector strikes a rare deposit in a wasteland, while the creature he enslaves to process it begins to resist.
13 min · English · Horror
Felipe Vargas's English horror for Dark Fun: a boy in an orphanage discovers the shadowy creature that collects the children's teeth, and wants more. Twelve chilling minutes.
22 min · Tamil · Drama
Naveen Mu's National Award-winning Tamil drama: an elderly woman supporting a paralysed, demanding husband is pushed to the edge when he threatens the rooster she earns her living from.
27 min · Tamil · Thriller · Science fiction
Haresh SelvaKumar's Tamil tech thriller: engineers build an astrology app that starts predicting their own deaths. Twenty-six minutes on fate, code and whether a forecast can be outrun.
27 min · Malayalam · Thriller
The intruders expect an easy last job. Thalla turns that expectation into a Malayalam crime thriller where the person they target may be the one in control.
21 min · Hindi · Drama
Make a little time for the story in “Nayantara's Necklace”. An accidental friendship between two unlikely women, and a necklace.
15 min · German · Comedy
Two craftspeople in a German village receive an unusual commission from a film production: building concentration-camp scenery. Everyday routines collide with the unsettling demands of recreating history.
39 min · Tamil · Thriller
How does a murder unfold when people are pushed beyond their limits? Try this Tamil crime thriller for a longer short-film mystery.
9 min · Hindi · Horror · Thriller
A lonely road and a house that will not let the past rest set the scene for this atmospheric Hindi horror short.
16 min · English · Action
A Western inspired by Marty Robbins's ballad Big Iron: an Arizona Ranger rides into Agua Fria to find the outlaw Texas Red. Fifteen minutes building to a showdown.
32 min · Marathi · Drama
Told through several perspectives, this Marathi short looks at how discrimination persists in workplaces, institutions and everyday encounters. Rather than dwelling on an act of violence itself, it stays with the survivors and their families afterwards, tracing the loneliness, fear and emotional collapse of having to wake up and keep living after everything has broken.
12 min · English · Horror · Comedy
A vet is summoned to a rural Irish village where a newborn calf will not stop screaming, and the locals treat him with suspicion.
17 min · No dialogue · Animation · Horror · Drama
Canis - an award-winning puppet animated short film by Marc Riba & Anna Solanas about a boy who survives isolated in a house constantly besieged by a horde of stray dogs.
37 min · Tamil · Thriller
The next victim may be running out of time. Try this for a Tamil crime thriller built around a race to stop a killer.
39 min · Manipuri · Thriller · Drama
Follow a crime as its consequences reach three families. A Manipuri thriller about the wider impact of domestic violence.
56 min · Malayalam · Horror · Thriller
A father's search for justice takes a supernatural turn. Try this Malayalam horror-crime story for a longer short steeped in revenge and family bonds.
35 min · English · Drama
A grounded drama about how easily young people on a north London estate are drawn into street and gang life and violence, and the search for a way out. It was made through community workshops with residents affected by these issues, many acting for the first time.
31 min · Malayalam · Thriller · Action
A deaf former soldier loses everything to a crime that unfolds without him hearing a sound. Six months later, fate brings him face to face with the people or events behind it, and the silence he has lived with stops being a weakness as he sets out to settle the score.
18 min · English · Comedy
A father's final demand makes grieving unusually difficult. Watch this dark comedy for a strange family inheritance and the feelings money cannot settle.
16 min · English · Horror · Comedy
In the summer of 1980, a successful yuppie faces an existential crisis when a Nosferatu-like ghoul joins his social circle and threatens his status.
17 min · Hindi · Thriller · Drama
Rajit Kapur leads this Hindi chamber thriller from KARA Studios: two couples, one late night in a Mumbai flat, and long-buried truths that won't stay quiet.
20 min · Malayalam · Fantasy · Thriller
Enter a night forest where the shadows may be hiding something. Choose Irulan for a Malayalam fantasy short with a mystery waiting beyond the trees.
12 min · English · Horror · Thriller
A man living a quiet, peaceful life in a secluded cabin in the woods finds his world upended when three dangerous travellers arrive and lay siege to his home.
25 min · Kannada · Thriller
While the city sleeps, a serial killer is murdering young women in a disturbingly unusual way. A crime branch team must race against the clock to identify and stop him before he strikes again, in this 24-minute Kannada investigative thriller.
32 min · Malayalam · Drama
In a remote village on the edge of dense wilderness, an old man named Koyakka runs a much-loved biryani shop. He has no family, only a goat that follows him everywhere and has become his closest companion. When a young girl from the village suddenly disappears, fear spreads through the community, and rumour and superstition turn old affection into suspicion of Koyakka and his goat, until the mounting hysteria threatens to claim another victim.
12 min · English · Fantasy · Drama
What happens when Death has only one person left to find? Try this compact English-language encounter at the end of humanity.
20 min · English · Drama
Brenton Gieser's English sci-fi drama for DUST: in a near future without work, a despairing artist is a finalist for permanent digital bliss with all pain removed. Twenty minutes on what we lose when we stop feeling.
34 min · Tamil · Thriller
Two people disappear and an investigation leads towards a dangerous experiment. Try Mathiyin Pulan for a Tamil crime thriller built around finding out what happened to them.
15 min · Tamil · Horror · Thriller
Vidhya, an IT professional, has been harassed for years by Varun, who has followed her from school to college to her workplace. When she learns her close friend Ramya plans to marry him, her frustration boils over and she seeks out a black-magic group to have him killed. A meeting with a mysterious man named Alex and their talk about her plan and occult belief leads to an unsettling climax.
9 min · No dialogue · Animation · Comedy
A single flower turns neighbours into enemies. Watch Norman McLaren's wordless parable for an inventive, unsettling look at how conflict grows.
21 min · Malayalam · Drama · Thriller
Make time for a Malayalam short from Rithin Saj and ViiBee. A pick for exploring an independent filmmaking team's work.
29 min · Malayalam · Thriller
A journey turns into a nightmare where the hunter may become the hunted. Try Okaso for a travel-thriller premise with an unsettling sense of fate.
20 min · Tamil · Thriller · Drama
A crime anthology set over a single day in the lives of four policemen, two petty thieves and an innocent student, asking whether one would choose to live with guilt or die in peace.
Related guides
Thought-provoking short films · Bittersweet short films · Feel-good short films · Suspenseful short films · Light-hearted short films · Emotional short films · All guides