Netflix released the first trailer for “Marty, Life Is Short” on Friday May 1, 2026. The documentary premieres on the streaming platform on May 12.
It is directed by Lawrence Kasdan, the filmmaker behind The Big Chill and Body Heat and the writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard through Imagine Documentaries.
It features interviews with Steve Martin, Eugene Levy, Tom Hanks, John Mulaney and the late Catherine O’Hara, who appears posthumously in one of her final on-screen appearances.
Martin Short is 76 years old. The documentary arrives at the worst possible moment in a life that has contained more than its share of worst moments.
In January 2026, he lost his longtime friend and collaborator Catherine O’Hara to death at age 71.
In February 2026, he lost his daughter Katherine Hartley Short at age 40. The trailer for his Netflix documentary dropped fewer than 100 days after that second loss.
And yet the film is, in Short’s own telling, about more than grief. It is about what grief teaches a person to do with the time between the red lights.
Martin Short’s Life Of Tragedy
The documentary does not begin with fame. It begins with a family. Martin Short grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the youngest of five siblings, in a house he has described as full of humor and warmth. That foundation is what he credits for surviving what came next.
He was 12 years old when his older brother David was killed in a car accident. He was 17 when his mother died of cancer.
Within two years of that, his father died from a stroke. By the time he was approximately 19 or 20 years old, Short had buried his brother and both his parents.
He described that period in the documentary trailer with the specific kind of dark humor that only someone who has been through it actually earns. “We had speed dial to the funeral parlor,” he says.
Then, almost immediately, “But there were laughs during those years. That’s the point.”
That is the thesis of his life and it is the thesis of the documentary. Loss is real. Grief is real. The red lights come without warning and without explanation.
“In life, sometimes you hit a green light,” he says in the trailer. “And sometimes, for no reason, it’s red.” The humor is not a denial of the grief. It is what he built on top of it to keep going.
In his 2012 interview with The Guardian, Short reflected on how the losses of his childhood had shaped his relationship with comedy. “I think the reason all that didn’t throw me sideways was because I had such a solid foundation,” he said. “There was tremendous humor in the house growing up. A lot of laughing.”
He was describing a loss that would have permanently altered most people. He was explaining why it didn’t alter him, or more precisely, why it altered him in the direction of more rather than less.
Nancy Dolman And The Family He Built
Martin Short and Nancy Dolman were together for 36 years. They were married for 30. They adopted three children together, Katherine, Oliver and Henry.
By every account of people who knew them, the marriage was the relationship that grounded the performer whose professional life was defined by constant motion and relentless energy.
“We were together for 36 years, but I would have been divorced five times if I hadn’t found the right person,” Short told The Guardian in 2012.
Dolman died of ovarian cancer in 2010 at age 58. Short has spoken in interviews in the years since about the specific discipline that grief required of him, keeping performing, keeping showing up, continuing to do the thing that had always been how he processed difficulty.
The documentary trailer includes archival footage of Katherine and her siblings as young children, dancing with their father. “Being a dad, it’s as genuine as his breath,” comedian Andrea Martin says in the film.
The Two Losses He Carried Into Making HIs Latest Film
The trailer was released on May 1, 2026. The documentary premieres May 12.
Between those two dates and the beginning of 2026, Martin Short has been through something that no amount of prior experience with grief fully prepares a person for.
In January 2026, Catherine O’Hara died at age 71. O’Hara and Short first met in the Toronto comedy scene decades ago.
They worked together on SCTV, the Canadian sketch comedy show that launched both of their careers and became one of the most beloved programs in Canadian television history, and across multiple subsequent projects over five decades.
She had filmed her interview for the documentary before her death. She appears in the final cut speaking about Short and their friendship, in what the filmmakers have confirmed is one of her final on-screen appearances.
Audiences who watch the documentary will see O’Hara speak about Short knowing she did not survive to see the film released.
Then, in February 2026, came the news that Short’s family had dreaded. Katherine Hartley Short died by suicide.
She was 40 years old. Short’s representative confirmed the news to Page Six on February 24. “It is with profound grief that we confirm the passing of Katherine Hartley Short. The Short family is devastated by this loss, and asks for privacy at this time. Katherine was beloved by all and will be remembered for the light and joy she brought into the world.”
Short was nominated for acting awards in the weeks that followed. He did not attend the ceremonies.
What’s In Short’s New Documentary?
“Marty, Life Is Short” is described by Netflix as the definitive documentary on Martin Short, built from beautiful and intimate never-before-seen archive material, interviews with friends and collaborators, and Short himself speaking at length about his life.
Eugene Levy, Short’s SCTV colleague and one of the most respected comedic actors in Canadian history, appears in the film. “In this business, in the world of comedy, there’s nobody faster, there’s nobody smarter, and there’s nobody funnier,” Levy says in the trailer.
Steve Martin, Short’s co-star on Only Murders in the Building and one of his closest professional friendships, is featured extensively. Tom Hanks appears.
John Mulaney speaks. O’Hara’s posthumous interview appears. Never-before-seen home movies feature Short with his family.
Short’s alter ego Jiminy Glick, the pompous, magnificently uninformed celebrity interviewer he has deployed throughout his career as a comedic instrument, also appears.
In the trailer, Glick is told they are making a documentary about Martin Short. “Yeah, well, they’re making a documentary on everyone,” Glick says. “Literally, every human being that existed.”
The joke does two things simultaneously. it is funny on the surface and it is Short using comedy to deflect from the weight of what it actually means to have your life examined on film at 76 after the year he has had.
The film is directed by Lawrence Kasdan, whose film career encompasses The Big Chill, Body Heat, Wyatt Earp, and the writing credits on Raiders of the Lost Ark and several Star Wars films.
He is an unusual choice for a comedy documentary, an auteur filmmaker known for serious dramatic work, and that choice suggests the film is aimed at something more substantial than a career tribute reel.
Who Is Martin Short?
Short was born in Hamilton, Ontario, on March 26, 1950. He came to prominence through SCTV and then Saturday Night Live, where he appeared for the 1984-1985 season.
His recurring characters, Ed Grimley, the eccentric dreamer whose hair and disposition were equally improbable; Jiminy Glick; and Jack Bratton, became part of the vocabulary of American comedy.
He has won Tony Awards on Broadway and been nominated for Emmys. His film credits include Three Amigos, Father of the Bride, Innerspace and Mars Attacks.
Currently he appears alongside Steve Martin and Selena Gomez in Only Murders in the Building on Hulu, one of the most acclaimed comedy series of recent years.
He is a performer who has never stopped performing. Through the deaths of his brother, his parents, his wife and now his daughter.
Through the death of one of his closest friends. The documentary’s title, “Marty, Life Is Short,” is a pun on his name.
It is also the simplest possible statement of what 76 years of living through loss has taught him.
“In life, sometimes you hit a green light. And sometimes, for no reason, it’s red.”
“Marty, Life Is Short” premieres on Netflix on May 12, 2026.
