Minecraft and the Oscars aren’t exactly two words you’d expect to see written in the same sentence, which is what makes it all the more impressive that the mind behind Hollywood’s latest video game adaptation previously worked on a short film that was up for an Academy Award. Released in 2023 and nominated during last year’s awards cycle, Ninety-Five Senses is a masterclass in short-form storytelling that combines engaging visuals with a devastating exploration of the human condition. Directed by husband-and-wife duo Jerusha and Jared Hess, the work is a far cry from the more playful tone of the latter’s work on A Minecraft Movie, but Ninety-Five Senses is nonetheless a testament to the enduring power of art and the bitter depths of living with regret.
What Is ‘Ninety-Five Senses’ About?
Longtime fans of Jared Hess as a director shouldn’t be surprised that the filmmaker behind Napoleon Dynamite understands how to develop a project that resonates with viewers, but what is especially notable about the director’s work on Ninety-Five Senses is the darkness of his source material. In an interview with Animation Magazine in late 2023, Jared and Jerusha confirmed Ninety-Five Senses was originally inspired by interviews with death-row inmates in a Texas state penitentiary shortly before their scheduled executions. From this incredibly fraught, emotional premise, the longtime creative collaborators added another wrinkle mined from their own artistic curiosity—a death-row prisoner reflecting on his life through each of his five senses.
If there’s one thing Ninety-Five Senses does better than anything, it’s humanizing its imprisoned subject. Enriched by Jared Hess’s comedic touch and the endearing narration of Tim Blake Nelson, Ninety-Five Senses brings its personal story to life mere moments before that life is set to end and consequently draws more attention to an ongoing controversy within the American justice system. Likewise, the main narrative trajectory of the short film is deceptively simple, as Nelson’s death-row inmate gradually recounts his distressing childhood, reckless crime, and long incarceration one sense at a time.
‘Ninety-Five Senses’ Delivers Smooth Animation Alongside a Mature Meditation on Death
Outside its basic structure, Ninety-Five Senses makes solid use of its animated medium to both set the film’s bitter tone and keep viewers engaged. The contrast between the lush colors implemented during Ninety-Five Senses‘ most hopeful, idyllic moments and the grainy grays that define the narrator’s stay in prison highlights the depressing distance between the man’s wishful thinking and morbid circumstances. This contrast is also strengthened by the use of a playful, almost cartoonish art style throughout much of the short film, which only heightens Ninety-Five Senses tragedy by emphasizing the visual innocence of the narrator’s otherwise guilt-ridden memories. That said, while this art style is thematically relevant, its simplicity also makes Ninety-Five Senses much more accessible than the kind of short films you’d expect a typical film buff to recommend.
Due in large part to the six talented animation teams that the Hess couple selected for their project, Ninety-Five Senses blends both of these aesthetics together seamlessly, allowing the film’s brightest scenes to segue effortlessly into its darkest in order to illustrate the colorful highs and neutral lows of its narrator’s difficult life. The project’s most memorable sequence occurs towards its end, when the narrator daydreams about another version of his life in which he marries his defense attorney, Karen. Constantly balancing the warm tones of this fantasy against the growing shadows of the narrator’s bleak reality, this moment underscores the power of Ninety-Five Senses’ animation and storytelling, reminding viewers why this short film earned its nomination in 2024 with a beautiful glimpse into what might have been.
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For those who are either drawn to Ninety-Five Senses from Jared Hess’ more upbeat work or in seeing the first reactions to A Minecraft Movie, there’s no reason to be put off by the film’s despair. Despite its heavy subject matter, Ninety-Five Senses culminates with a refreshingly blunt acknowledgment of the narrator’s impending execution, as well as an astonishingly optimistic exploration of what a human body feels after all awareness fades to black. This final outlook balances the short film’s bleak tone and complements its humor to deliver a complex commentary on mortality, effectively turning Ninety-Five Senses into a film as existential as it is heartbreaking in just under fourteen minutes.
A Minecraft Movie
- Release Date
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April 4, 2025
- Runtime
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101 minutes
- Director
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Jared Hess
- Writers
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Chris Galletta, Gavin James, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Allison Schroeder, Chris Bowman
- Producers
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Jason Momoa, Jill Messick, Mary Parent, Roy Lee, Todd Hallowell, Cale Boyter, Jon Berg, Jon Spaihts, Brian Andrew Mendoza, Vu Bui, Lydia Winters
