While some might believe that Walt Disney had the first feature-length animated film with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, the Disney film is the fourth animated feature-length film, and was two decades late for first place. The first two animated feature-length films were directed by an Italian in Argentia in 1917 and 1918, though all prints of those films are presumed lost or destroyed. The third animated full-length feature, Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed), came out the same year that the first two were lost to fire. This third animated film was a silhouette animation made by a German artist named Lotte Reiniger. The original negatives are considered lost, but a supposedly first-generation positive (from the camera negative) remains and the film has been restored from this stock (full film with limited subtitles, 5 minute preview with English subtitles and the full film viewable with Veoh plug-in). More information and videos inside. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Oct 27, 2009 - 15 comments

Three frames. And then three frames again. And repeat. [more inside]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jun 14, 2009 - 39 comments

The National Film Board of Canada's 5th annual online short film competition "Internet votes will decide the best film, and the winner will be announced at Cannes on May 21." NFB previously. [via Drawn!]
posted by mediareport on May 14, 2009 - 6 comments

The Oscar-nominated "Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello" is an "adventurous tale of a navigator’s journey to save his ailing wife set in a beautiful world of Victorian science-fiction" and one the many fine film shorts and videos available to watch at shortof theweek.com - a site dedicated to "finding those few [video] gems amongst the enormous heap of garbage they're buried in..." [more inside]
posted by taz on Mar 9, 2009 - 7 comments

Branded in the 80's: Peel Here From the obvious to the obscure to the downright frightening, Peel Here documents the collectible stickers of the 80's and related ephemera.
posted by 1f2frfbf on Jun 26, 2008 - 42 comments

Visual in jokes from Pixar Animation.
posted by oneirodynia on Dec 11, 2007 - 39 comments

The 10 best animated movies for (traumatizing) kids.
posted by mr_crash_davis on Sep 30, 2007 - 125 comments

Forget the film, watch the titles is a collection of high quality streaming video versions of graphically well-designed title sequences from a number of movies, both famous & less well known, with the only prerequisite being amazing design. My favorite from the collection is this one, which is very similar to my favorite title sequence ever. For rabid Title Sequence enthusiasts with 20 minutes to spare, these YouTube clips contained edits of the top 25 best title sequences ever, (as chosen by the guy who put the clips together).
posted by jonson on Jun 24, 2007 - 47 comments

Cloned Disney cels: page 1 [Russian, bad English], page 2 [Russian, bad English]
posted by thirteenkiller on Apr 10, 2007 - 25 comments

Mr. CityMen is a series of five evocative animation/live action Quicktime shorts by Eric Lerner, including Mr. Deja Vu, Mr. Fortune, Mr. Afraid of Anything But Heights, Mr. Sunken and my fave, Mr. Dreamer, bouncing around the beautiful urban decay.
posted by mediareport on Nov 26, 2006 - 13 comments

Teaser trailer for the 2007 Ninja Turtles computer-animated film. [more inside, dude]
posted by zennie on Jul 26, 2006 - 59 comments

Sometimes movies don't finish the way we'd like. Short, off-beat, animated re-imaginings of selected movie endings, in torrent and .wmv format. The archives are yet young, but might be worth keeping an eye on for future chuckles.
posted by Gator on Jan 25, 2006 - 11 comments

Working Title Animation of Steven Hill's 3186 movie title screens. (via Waxy via B3ta)
posted by fungible on May 6, 2005 - 9 comments

Chicken Little is Disney's first feature length 3d animated movie (without Pixar). Mark Dindal, director of Cat's Don't Dance and Emporer's New Groove, is at the helm. Is there a chance that the sky won't hit them in the face?
posted by Hands of Manos on Dec 8, 2004 - 43 comments

Since 1994 Claymovie has been producing clay animation movies with kids, adults, teachers, and professionals. Here are some random clips of some of the funnier, unpredictable, unexpected and outrageous moments. Watch the videos and see...you have to click [download movies], then go nuts. The really outrageous ones are at the bottom...try Something in the Taters.
posted by chinese_fashion on Oct 12, 2004 - 4 comments

Oh My Stars-N-Garters! In addition to the Aardman Animations Wallace and Gromit films online here (previously MeFi-ed here), you can also view the Oscar and Academy Award winner Creature Comforts online! One of my all-time fave films. Joy!
posted by Shane on Sep 30, 2004 - 12 comments

This wonderful life
posted by magullo on May 9, 2004 - 37 comments

The Exorcist in 30 seconds with bunnies. Happy almost Flash Friday.
posted by adrober on Mar 25, 2004 - 6 comments

Pixar Dumps Disney: "It is impossible to know how bad this is for Disney." On the other hand: Disney can begin creating sequels to all of Pixar's films, something it could not do under its current arrangement and is almost certain to exploit. On the third hand: One film executive suggested that Mr. Jobs could now be considered a candidate to run Disney if indeed Mr. Eisner ever left.
posted by alms on Jan 29, 2004 - 26 comments

The Incredibles is what you get when you give Iron Giant director Brad Bird the keys to the Pixar machine.
posted by coudal on Jun 5, 2003 - 25 comments

What is the AniMatrix? A direct-to-video release of 9 animated shorts (comic book style, pure CGI, etc) by 7 directors looks at possible visions of the world pre-Matrix. Looks like it could be an interesting collection.
posted by mathowie on Sep 5, 2002 - 27 comments

Ray Harryhausen brought wonder to my childhood, with the painstaking process of stop-motion animation. In these days of CGI special effects, perhaps a look back to the days of the Hydra and the wondrous skeleton army would not be amiss. There was a real humanity to Harryhausen's creations, as detailed on this nice site. Perhaps even more interesting are the films that never were, like his Baron Munchausen, The Tortoise and the Hare and his vision of War of the Worlds. Also, criticism of Harryhausen. Last link: a chat with Harryhausen.
posted by Kafkaesque on Aug 11, 2002 - 26 comments

It's the plot, stupid. USA Today runs their usual insightful commentary about the upcoming release of Lilo and Stitch. It obsesses over the absence of CGI graphics pointing to Atlantis as evidence for the failure of traditional animation to draw box office. Funny me, I thought that Atlantis bombed because of a plot better left in 50s serial format, a cast of sterotypes rather than characters, and no sense of humor beyind dirty French jokes repeated over and over again. And is huge success of Pixar due to their pioneering animation, or their brilliant comic talent? What causes FX myopia anyway? Granted I can understand why fanboys obsess over the wrong things in a movie. Do the studios set it up by trying to hype each new summer release as the next big technical development (while the artistic development gets trumped by Waking Life and Insomnia?)
posted by KirkJobSluder on Jun 18, 2002 - 7 comments

Rustboy , a short film about a Pinocchio/Frankenstein-esque robot child almost a year in the making thus far, has up until recently been illustrator Brian Taylor's personal side project. He's been keeping a diary of the process on his site and posting movie clips, storyboard sketches, and descriptions of how he achieves various effects the whole time. Followers of the site recently got the good news that Taylor has received funding to work on Rustboy full-time beginning in April. I've bookmarked it so I can check in every so often and say, "MAN, I wish I could do that!"
posted by apollonia6 on Mar 24, 2002 - 22 comments

From Marco Polo Jr. vs. the Red Dragon to Fat Albert Meets Dan Cupid, the Big Cartoon Database has the skinny on a mindboggling 33,563 animated features, featurettes and series.
posted by disarray on Feb 5, 2002 - 11 comments

After the success of the first free online animated series Angry Kid, triple Oscar winning Aardman Animations announces 12 new Wallace & Gromit short films, delivered exclusively via CD/Web. (Also announced, the title of new W&G feature film and game)
posted by MintSauce on Jan 28, 2002 - 2 comments

FLASH - O - RAMA!!! The Flashforward Flash film festival finalasts. Hours of fun....
posted by BGM on Jun 17, 2001 - 6 comments

Disney steals a plot from anime once again, and here is the proof.
posted by Spanktacular on Jun 15, 2001 - 16 comments

Voices In My Head... Call me crazy, but I think casting "celebrity voices" in animated flix is counter-intuitive. Think back to the classic Disney movies - "Pinocchio" and "101 Dalmations" come to mind - and the fact that they regularly used professional voice-actors, not a cast of celebrities-du-jour. With the new trend in animated movies, I find myself picturing the celebrity doing the voice, not the animated character of the story. Quick - what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the movie "Aladdin?" Robin Williams as the Genie, I'd wager. Your thoughts on this weighty matter?
posted by davidmsc on May 18, 2001 - 36 comments

Great article on "Shrek" & computer animation by Stephanie Zacharek at Salon.com. I don't deny that the form has possibilities, but I've been getting really impatient waiting for the day the guys at the Pixar/Dreamworks sweatshops realize that the really exciting moments in art only come when you leave some gaps for the viewers to close themselves.
posted by misterzoo on May 18, 2001 - 15 comments

Mad Cow. Now the bovines are talking back.
posted by netbros on Apr 13, 2001 - 9 comments

Tetsuo! Kaneda! Akira on DVD!
posted by ritualdevice on Jan 29, 2001 - 6 comments

Titan A.E.'s crappy animation lends itself to this experiment.
posted by highindustrial on Jun 7, 2000 - 14 comments

This article describes what is purportedly the world's first "100% motion capture animated feature" -- and in none too glowing terms, I might add.
posted by highindustrial on May 4, 2000 - 0 comments

Darn Canadians are going to get Reboot! first. Looks like we'll both be waiting for this one, premiumpolar. Darn Canadians and their darn YTV anyway! Grrr...
posted by mrmorgan on Apr 10, 2000 - 0 comments

Clerks: The Animated Series is coming to ABC in May (here's a preview in quicktime format). How far will ABC let slacking, smoking, cursing vandals go? Are they gunning for SouthPark? I can't imagine a watered-down version of Clerks being very funny at all, the whole point of Clerks the movie was the absurdity of the dialogue and jokes. Don't get me wrong, I used to be an über Kevin Smith fan, but I just can't imagine enjoying a kid-friendly version of the New Jersey universe.
posted by mathowie on Mar 7, 2000 - 9 comments