Except for Disney’s “Get a Horse!’’ (a Mickey Mouse ’toon sublimely marrying black-and-white hand-drawn animation to full-color computer graphics, which is being shown before “Frozen’’), the primary exposure for animated shorts in this country is this annual compilation — which, as usual, is being shown along with separate programs of the Oscar-nominated live-action and documentary shorts.
The UK’s contribution, the witch fantasy “Room on the Broom’’ (with a bunch of star voices, including Simon Pegg and Best Supporting Actress nominee Sally Hawkins) wears out its welcome well before it ends at an overlong 25 minutes, but they rest are definitely keepers.
The French “Mr. Hublot’’ is a wordless man-and-his-mechanical dog story set in a captivatingly rendered steampunk city, while “Possessions’’ is stunning Japanese anime wherein long-discarded objects (including singing umbrellas) come to life. The other US nominee, “Feral,’’ uses highly expressionistic hand-drawn animation to bring new life to the classic trope of a child raised by wolves who is introduced to civilization.