It’s that magical day again, folks! Yes, it’s the 59th anniversary of the first airing of Star Trek on NBC back in 1966. AND it’s also the day we learn the winners of this year’s Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS…our fourth consecutive year!
One of the things about the Showrunner Awards that makes me the most proud is that the results are determined by members of our community who truly understand what goes into making a successful and impressive Star Trek fan film. For lack of a better term, our judges are “experts,” experienced at the challenges involved in producing quality fan films with limited resources and funds. And it’s for this reason, I sincerely believe, that our results make sense to people.
This year, we had 24 Star Trek fan films entered with a total runtime of nearly ten and a half hours! That’s a LOT of commitment from each of our judges to watch so many fan films, and I truly appreciate their dedication to the task. Sadly, one of our twelve judges for this year, LEE GARTRELL of THE ROMULAN WARS fan series, had to regretfully step aside at the last minute due to a family health emergency. Unfortunately, it was too late to bring in a replacement judge (ballots were due in less than two weeks from the date he contacted me), but we all send our best wishes to Lee and his family for a speedy and positive resolution to this crisis.
In the meantime, here is a list of our remaining judges:
- JOSE CEPEDA – NATURE’S HUNGER
- SAMUEL COCKINGS – TREK SHORTS and TEMPORAL ANOMALY
- JOSHUA IRWIN – THE AVALON UNIVERSE
- JONATHAN LANE – INTERLUDE and AN ABSENT FRIEND
- MARK LARGENT – STALLED TREK
- VANCE MAJOR – CONSTAR
- BRIAN W. PETERSON – THE LOST STARSHIP
- IAN RAMSEY – STAR REKT PARODY MUSIC VIDEOS
- DAN R. REYNOLDS – THE FEDERATION FILES
- BENJAMIN SCHULZ – LORELEY
- RANDY WRENN – DREADNOUGHT DOMINION and other series
Every judge ranked their top five selections in each of 22 categories, with their top choice earning 10 points, second choice earning 7 points, then 5, 3, and 1 points for choices three through five. A judge was not allowed to vote for a fan film they themselves submitted as any of their top three selections.
As often happens with this scoring system, we had a fair number of ties, both 2-way and even a few 3-way—something that I think of as more of a feature than a bug, as it just means more folks get to celebrate wins, and I love to make people happy. There have even been some years, including this one, where a single category had multiple 2-way ties. But this year’s Best Actress category featured what I can only refer to as a “full house”—both a 2-way and a 3-way tie! That’s SIX winners in one category….out of 11 nominees, so it wasn’t just a “participation trophy”).
Overall, I’m very happy with the results this year. We certainly had a juggernaut (FARRAGUT FORWARD won 13 Showrunner Awards) and a few titans (The Federation Files’ MUDD’S MISSION logged 10 awards while Tales from the Neutral Zone’s LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE and These Are the Voyages’ UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS each took home 8 awards, and Loreley’s MONSTER got 7). But overall, 21 out of 24 films earned at least one Showrunner Award, which certainly “spreads the wealth” among most submitters.
Scroll to the bottom of this page for a final tally of how many awards each film received. And you can view all 24 submitted fan films on this YouTube playlist.
And with that, my friends, let’s get to the results of the 2025 Showrunner Awards for Star Trek Fan Films released between January 2022 and December 2024. Links to the winning fan films in each category are provided under that category’s winners. Have a watch and see if you agree with our judges’ choices…
BEST ORIGINAL CHARACTER
Click here to watch LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE
Click here to watch FALLING FROM GRACE – PRODIGY RECKONING (Ep 3)
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch LIGHTING THE SPARK – PRODIGY RECKONING (Ep 1)
Click here to watch UNDERCOVER
BEST HAIR & MAKE-UP
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch BOMBER GIRL
Click here to watch PART II: MONSTER
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch BOMBER GIRL
Click here to watch PART II: MONSTER
Click here to watch DESTINY CALLS
Click here to watch MOTHER
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch BOMBER GIRL
Click here to watch UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS
Click here to watch LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE
Click here to watch PART II: MONSTER
Click here to watch MOTHER
Click here to watch DESTINY CALLS
Click here to watch UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS
Click here to watch BOMBER GIRL
Click here to watch LEGACY OF THE NX-01
Click here to watch LIGHTING THE SPARK – PRODIGY RECKONING (Ep 1)
BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS (non-CGI)
Click here to watch MOTHER
Click here to watch GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
Click here to watch TASK FORCE 78: MISSION POSSIBLE
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE
Click here to watch LIGHTING THE SPARK – PRODIGY RECKONING (Ep 1)
Click here to watch PART II: MONSTER
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch PART II: MONSTER
Click here to watch AN ABSENT FRIEND
Click here to watch LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch PART II: MONSTER
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch AN ABSENT FRIEND
Click here to watch MOTHER
Click here to watch PART II: MONSTER
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE
Click here to watch UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS
Click here to watch UNDERCOVER
Click here to watch LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE
Click here to watch GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
Click here to watch BOMBER GIRL
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch FALLING FROM GRACE – PRODIGY RECKONING (Ep 3)
Click here to watch LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch LEGACY OF THE NX-01
Click here to watch BLUENOSE – A CONSTAR CROSSOVER
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch BACK TO YESTERDAY
Click here to watch GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
Click here to watch KILL ALL YOUR FRIENDS
Click here to watch UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS
08:55-09:27 – Dr. McCoy mentions that Scotty doesn’t believe that Kirk is really dead…that instead he just winked out of the space-time continuum and will be back among the living in no time. This “corrects” a discontinuity from the TNG episode “Relics” where Scotty is rescued from the Jenolan‘s transporter and assumes that James Kirk was responsible (even though Scotty was there when Kirk “died”).
My story takes place right before the DS9 episode “The Defiant” and for the last part of my story, I re-created shot-for-shot the VFX of the theft of the Defiant, including a new interior shot of “Thomas Riker”.
13:05 – Cameo by ALF as the tribble hunter.
Click here to watch AN ABSENT FRIEND
Click here to watch LIVING THE DREAM
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS
Click here to watch PRETTY FLY FOR AN A.I.
Click here to watch AN ABSENT FRIEND
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch AN ABSENT FRIEND
Click here to watch MOTHER
Click here to watch UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
Click here to watch CERRITOS LOST
Click here to watch FARRAGUT FORWARD
Click here to watch LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE
Click here to watch MUDD’S MISSION
My congratulations to all of our winners at all levels! Each of you earned the award(s) you won according to a panel of your fellow fan filmmakers. My thanks to everyone who submitted.
And finally, assuming that I haven’t miscounted, here are the total number of awards won by each fan film in descending order…
FARRAGUT FORWARD – 13 awards
MUDD’S MISSION – 10 awards
LA MORTE DE LA GUERRE – 8 awards
UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS – 8 awards
PART II: MONSTER – 7 awards
AN ABSENT FRIEND – 5 awards
BOMBER GIRL – 5 awards
MOTHER – 4 awards
GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST – 3 awards
LIGHTING THE SPARK – PRODIGY RECKONING (Ep 1) – 3 awards
DESTINY CALLS – 2 awards
FALLING FROM GRACE – PRODIGY RECKONING (Ep 3) – 2 awards
LEGACY OF THE NX-01 – 2 awards
UNDERCOVER – 2 awards
BACK TO YESTERDAY – 1 award
BLUENOSE – A CONSTAR CROSSOVER – 1 award
CERRITOS LOST – 1 award
KILL ALL YOUR FRIENDS – 1 award
LIVING THE DREAM – 1 award
PRETTY FLY FOR AN A.I. – 1 award
TASK FORCE 78: MISSION POSSIBLE – 1 award