Best Story: A brand-new category for the Into Film Awards 2025

We're excited to announce Best Story - a brand-new category for the 2025 Into Film Awards! Every year we watch an abundance of short films made by talented young filmmakers, with many boasting brilliant narratives and plots. So, we wanted to create an additional category to recognise this, and give young people entering yet another chance of winning a trophy and being showcased at the Into Film Awards.

This new award will work a little differently to all the others. We want to honour films with creative plots, engaging characters and innovative ways of telling a story. So, rather than entering your films into a specific Best Story category, instead all films that are entered to the Into Film Awards - across all categories - will automatically be considered for Best Story. That means if you've already submitted a film, you don't need to do a thing. 

Once entries have closed in March 2025, the judges will choose three films from across every film submitted to be nominated for Best Story, with one ultimately crowned the winner at our awards ceremony in June 2025.

The categories for the Into Film Awards 2025 are:

• Best Animation (5-11)
• Best Animation (12-19)
• Best Film (5-11)
• Best Film (12-15)
• Best Film (16-19)
• Best Documentary
• Time for Action
• Filmmaking Champions
• Ones to Watch
• Audience Choice*
• Best Story**

Find out more about each category's entry criteria

* This category is a public vote via social media, and does not open until we have this year's nominees. We'll share more information after entries close in March 2025.

** Nominees in this category will be selected from across all of the films submitted to other filmmaking categories - you cannot enter this category directly.

Best Story entry criteria

Of course, even though this isn't a category you need to manually enter, it is still worth considering the criteria, and keeping this in mind when making or submitting your films. The following criteria will be used when judges are shortlisting films, to help assess whether they are suitable for a Best Story nomination.

Plot/Narrative

The plot is clear, with a confident structure or a creative subversion of familiar story tropes. Makes creative use of narrative devices, like plot twists or foreshadowing, which may be used to add originality.

Character/Character Development

Characters are well-developed throughout the film, with believable motivations. They undergo meaningful journeys, showing growth or transformation.

Dialogue/Action

The dialogue flows naturally, enhancing the pace and tone of the film. It balances 'show, not tell', making effective use of action rather than forced dialogue to reveal characters' inner states. The film may equally have little or no dialogue, and make effective use of action/visual storytelling to communicate the story.

Themes

The film explores resonant themes such as good vs. evil, community, or climate anxiety, offering creative and/or engaging perspectives and insights into these ideas through, among other things, the use of character, action, dialogue, and plot.

Do you know of a film that you feel is worthy of a Best Story award? Enter it into the relevant category at the Into Film Awards (e.g. Best Film 16-19, or Best Animation 12 and over) and it will have a chance to be nominated not only in its individual category, but also for Best Story, meaning every film now has twice as many chances of being nominated.

Or, encourage the young people you work with to make a brand-new film over the Christmas break, and 2025 could be the year you and your pupils walk the red carpet triumph at the Into Film Awards.

The Into Film Awards ceremony will take place on Tuesday 24 June 2025, at central London's famous ODEON Luxe Leicester Square. The ceremony promises to be another unforgettable event, with famous faces from across the screen industries on hand to present the Awards.

Entries for the Into Film Awards close at 12pm on Tuesday 4 March 2025.