What Our Birthdays is about
Our Birthdays centers on a Belgian family whose daily life looks, on the surface, completely unremarkable — shared meals, recurring routines, the low hum of a household that keeps going because households have to. The film's real subject, though, is what lives underneath that surface. Home videos thread through the present tense, and somewhere in that weaving, a presence that should be gone simply isn't. At 22 minutes, the documentary doesn't have the luxury of a slow burn, so every image earns its place. Silence does a lot of the heavy lifting here. The film asks whether memory is something we carry or something that carries us — and it doesn't offer a clean answer, which is exactly the point.
How Our Birthdays came together as a documentary short
Our Birthdays arrives in 2026 as part of a broader wave of short-form documentary work finding serious distribution through streaming platforms — a format that's quietly having a moment, even if it doesn't always get the trade-press attention that feature films command. Hard to say if the project originated from a personal story or a more observational approach, since detailed production notes haven't surfaced widely in advance coverage. What's documented is the runtime — 22 minutes, which places it firmly in the short documentary category recognized by major awards bodies — and its genre classification as a documentary, suggesting a non-fiction foundation even as the film plays with the blurry territory between memory and imagination.
The absence of a large cast in the traditional sense is worth noting. Documentary shorts like this one tend to rely on the subjects themselves, which means the emotional credibility of the film rests entirely on the family at its center and the filmmaker's ability to earn their trust. Movie OTT tracks titles like Our Birthdays across streaming platforms precisely because short documentaries often slip through the cracks of mainstream coverage despite carrying real emotional and artistic weight.
For context, 2026 has produced a number of notable titles exploring grief and memory in different registers. The French thriller The Birthday Party by Léa Mysius, which IndieWire reviewed as tense but predictable, shares a thematic neighborhood with Our Birthdays — both are preoccupied with what happens to a family when something ruptures — though the tonal and formal approaches couldn't be more different. Rotten Tomatoes' coverage of The Birthday Party (2026) reflects a wider critical interest this year in domestic stories with a dark undertow, a context that makes Our Birthdays feel timely rather than incidental. No box office figures apply to a streaming short of this kind, and formal awards recognition, if any, hasn't been confirmed at time of writing.
Why Our Birthdays works as a meditation on lingering loss
What's striking is how much the film accomplishes without announcing itself. There's a moment — the kind that's hard to describe without flattening it — where a home video clip and a present-day shot seem to answer each other across time, and you realize the film has been building toward that rhyme for its entire runtime. That's the structural intelligence at work here: nothing is decorative.
The decision to use home video as both evidence and argument is the film's smartest move. Home videos are already haunted objects — they preserve a version of people that no longer exists, in a time that can't be returned to. When a documentary uses that material to examine grief directly, it's working with footage that carries its own emotional charge before a single editorial choice is made. Our Birthdays doesn't exploit that charge so much as it respects it, letting the images speak at their own pace.
Grief documentaries can tip into sentimentality fast. This one doesn't, and I think the reason is restraint — specifically, the restraint of not explaining too much. The film trusts its audience to feel the weight of a recurring birthday ritual or a familiar kitchen without being told what to feel. That trust is rare. Movie OTT's editorial team flagged this title as one worth watching for exactly that quality: it's the kind of short that rewards attention without demanding it.
The 22-minute runtime also forces a discipline that longer films can avoid. Every cut matters. Every silence is chosen. The result is something closer to a prose poem than a conventional documentary — structured, yes, but also genuinely felt.
Where to stream Our Birthdays online
Our Birthdays is currently available on major OTT services, making it accessible to a wide audience without the friction of a theatrical or festival-only release. For the most current and accurate list of which platforms are carrying the film right now — since streaming rights shift more often than anyone likes — the Where-to-Watch widget at the top of this page on Movie OTT is your best first stop.
Movieott.com aggregates streaming availability across platforms in real time, which is genuinely useful for a title like this one, where a 22-minute runtime means it could appear as part of a curated short-film collection or as a standalone title depending on the service. If you're searching directly within a platform's interface, try the title exactly as listed: Our Birthdays. Short documentaries sometimes get buried under algorithm-driven recommendations, so a direct search saves time.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Where can I watch Our Birthdays?
Our Birthdays is available on major OTT streaming services. The Where-to-Watch widget on this Movie OTT page lists every platform currently carrying the film, updated in real time so you're not chasing outdated information.
Q: How long is Our Birthdays?
The film runs 22 minutes, placing it in the short documentary category. That's a complete experience in a single sitting — no episodes, no sequel setup, just one contained and carefully constructed piece.
Q: Is Our Birthdays based on a true story?
The film is classified as a documentary, which means it draws from real life rather than fiction. Whether the family depicted is the filmmaker's own or a subject family isn't confirmed in available materials, but the use of home video footage suggests a genuine personal archive is involved.
Q: Who directed Our Birthdays?
Directorial credits for Our Birthdays haven't been widely circulated in advance trade coverage at the time of this writing. That's not unusual for short documentary work, which often reaches audiences through platform releases before full credits are indexed in major databases.
Q: Is Our Birthdays suitable for all ages?
The film deals with grief and loss in a quiet, non-graphic way, and there's no confirmed MPAA rating for a short documentary of this nature. It's the kind of film that older children could watch with a parent, though the emotional subject matter — lingering grief, the weight of memory — is likely to land more fully with adult viewers.
Final thoughts on Our Birthdays
Our Birthdays is not a film that shouts. Twenty-two minutes. A Belgian family. Home videos that refuse to stay in the past. That's the whole package, and it's enough. If you're drawn to documentary work that treats grief as something textured rather than tidy, this is worth your time. It won't leave you with answers, but it might leave you sitting with the right questions — which, honestly, is what the best short films do. Check the streaming availability above and give it a single, uninterrupted watch.
