Stairs
Runtime: 13 minutes | Director: Riley Donigan | Cast: Betsey Brown, Will Duncan, Will Janowitz | Year: 2026 | Genre: Comedy | Where to watch: Check Movie OTT's streaming tracker for current availability
The actual premise — and why it's funnier than you'd think
Stairs is a 2026 short film about a woman named Ally who develops an addiction to throwing herself down staircases. That's it. That's the whole setup. But here's the thing — the film doesn't treat it as a joke to wink at. Riley Donigan, the writer and director, commits completely to the idea that a bizarre, self-destructive compulsion can reorganize someone's entire life with the same quiet inevitability as any other addiction. The comedy doesn't come from laughing at Ally; it comes from recognizing the horrible internal logic of how obsession works, no matter how strange the object of that obsession is.
Betsey Brown's performance is the engine that makes this work. She doesn't play it for laughs. She plays it as a person whose life is actually unraveling. That restraint — that refusal to acknowledge the absurdity — is what transforms a one-line concept into something that actually lingers after the credits roll.
How a 13-minute short made it through the festival circuit
Donigan premiered Stairs at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival as part of the Short Film Program, which isn't a casual credit. Sundance's short program is one of the most competitive in the world. From there, it screened at SXSW, building momentum as a festival-circuit title before moving to streaming platforms.
The production company behind it, Analoga, seems to specialize in projects with a deliberate tactile quality — the kind of work that doesn't look rushed or overly digital. In a YouTube interview about the project, Donigan emphasized that this is character-driven filmmaking above all else, with physicality at the absolute center of the storytelling.
Will Duncan and Will Janowitz appear in supporting roles, anchoring the film to a sense of normalcy that Ally drifts further away from as the film progresses. That gap between their performances and hers is where the real comedy lives — not in the premise itself, but in the structural widening distance between Ally's logic and everyone else's.
What makes this different from a sketch-comedy premise
I keep coming back to how the film handles escalation. Each new staircase incident isn't played as a bigger joke than the last. It's quieter, more matter-of-fact. That's a real directorial choice, and frankly, it's the right one.
Most filmmakers would punch up the weirdness with each beat — make it bigger, louder, more ridiculous. Donigan doesn't. The restraint is what makes you feel the weight of what Ally's doing, both literally and emotionally. You're not being invited to laugh at someone destroying their life. You're being forced to watch it happen, which is a different (and more uncomfortable) experience altogether.
If you've got any appreciation for deadpan character work — the kind of thing Yorgos Lanthimos does, where bizarre situations are treated with complete seriousness — this'll click for you. If you need comedy that announces itself, you'll probably bounce off it. But that's kind of the point.
Where to find it + what the platforms show
Stairs is currently available on major OTT platforms. The easiest way to track it down is through Movie OTT's where-to-watch widget, which updates in real time and covers availability across services in your region. Short films can be tricky because they often appear as part of festival collections or curated program bundles rather than as standalone titles with prominent listings.
When you're searching, don't just browse the main feed on a given platform — search by title directly. That'll cut through the noise faster. Movie OTT's aggregation approach actually saves time here, since you can see all the options at once instead of checking services individually.
The actual watch-or-skip calculation
13 minutes. That's the ask. Not two hours. Not even a full episode of anything. If you've got patience for absurdist comedy that doesn't signal its own punchlines, Stairs is worth every one of those minutes. It's the kind of short that works best when you go in knowing as little as possible.
The premise is the hook, yes. But the execution — Brown's commitment to treating this as real, Donigan's refusal to underline the joke — that's what actually makes it work. Most people won't click with it. But for the right viewer, you'll find yourself describing it to someone else the next day, which is about the highest compliment you can give a short film.
Start here. Then see what else is in that festival program bundle.