A mystery lives or dies on the gap between what you know and what you don't, and the short film keeps that gap taut. There's no subplot to wander into, no fifth red herring to wade through. Just a question planted early and an answer withheld exactly as long as it should be. The form is essentially a delivery system for the turn, and these films know precisely when to make it.
The puzzles here come in every flavour. Tudescends offers a woman a choice that could make her rich, and dares you to guess the cost. Wired watches a woman get gaslit by her own AI wellbeing hub, and What's in the Forest blurs reality with psychedelics as friends are hunted by something unseen. Vessel follows a young disabled girl trying to escape her religious mother's control, Touch sends a psychic to a homicide scene, and The Relic leads its adventurers to the worst discovery imaginable.
Twenty-two ways to be kept guessing, and not one of them costs you anything but your attention.