I don’t watch enough short movies.

I helped MAKE a short movie once. It… wasn’t very good. But I was proud of it at the time. And, most importantly, it further taught me how absolutely difficult it can be to produce a film of any length or quality. I had made a few other films for classes in high school, and those were even worse than my short movie. But I learned a little each time!

Suffice to say, with what I’ve learned, I still could not make a short picture as good as Andrew Duplessie’s The Littles. The Littles debuted at New York Comic Con 2025, and it clocks in at a minuscule runtime of under seven minutes. It tells the tale of a young family–daughter, mother, and father–and the goings-on they discover in their home after the daughter stubs her toe on a loose floorboard.

In just a few moments, we are treated to everything we need to know about the family. The mother and father quarrel and seem to have little patience for one another, but despite this, they care for their daughter and will do whatever it takes to keep her safe and healthy. To her own end, the daughter is not oblivious to her parents’ struggles, and she takes out her frustration when she hears strange noises under her floor. But she quickly has bigger fish to fry.

And the ending leaves her–and the viewer–wondering what everyone’s fate will be… and hoping that maybe somehow and someday we will get an extended feature out of the short film.

Even with fingers crossed, that would be no mean feat to create, though, because The Littles features brilliant stop-motion animation that must have taken ages to get just right. Duplessie brought in the talented trio of Anthony Scott, Katy Strutz, and Aiden, of Aiden Creates on Instagram, to bring his vision to life. Even if this team could be re-assembled to do a feature length production of The Littles, you have to imagine it would take quite some time to perfect. I’m not sure how long it took to make The Littles, but I can bet it wasn’t an unsubstantial length of time.

As for me, I obviously enjoyed The Littles, if you somehow couldn’t tell, and I definitely want to see more of this world, though I appreciate how much work that would be to complete. The performances are strong in this quick little tale, and the effects and animation are glorious. This is what I need to watch more of in the world: short, punchy, to-the-point cinema that conveys a powerful story in just a few minutes.

The Littles will hopefully serve as my impetus to seek out more like it!

(The Littles stars Violet McGraw of M3GAN and M3GAN 2.0 fame, as well as Janel Parrish and Dominic Sherwood. It features music by Cornel Wilczek and VFX by Edward Douglas. It was edited by Justin Li)