Original title: En pleine forme
Directed by Pierre Étaix, Feeling Good is a short film that was originally intended to be a sequence within his documentary feature Land of Milk and Honey. However, its distinct narrative style and focused slapstick energy led to it being released as a standalone short. It serves as a sharp, comedic critique of the “back to nature” movement and the commercialisation of leisure.
Original title: Heureux anniversaire
Directed by Pierre Étaix and co-written by Jean-Claude Carrière, Happy Anniversary is an Academy Award-winning short film that serves as a masterclass in comic escalation. While it clocks in at only 12 minutes, it is packed with the precise, rhythmic visual gags that became Étaix’s signature.
Directed by Pierre Étaix and Jean-Claude Carrière, Rupture is a brilliant short film that marks the first collaboration between these two icons of French cinema. Though it runs only about 11 minutes, it is a masterclass in visual storytelling and a precursor to the deadpan, surreal style they would perfect in their later feature-length works.
Directed by avant-garde filmmaker Su Friedrich, Damned If You Don’t is a landmark work of the New Queer Cinema movement. This experimental, black-and-white featurette is a subversive and poetic exploration of female desire, blending narrative, documentary, and found-footage techniques to challenge the rigid structures of religious life.
Man in the Frame (Russian: Chelovek v ramke) is a groundbreaking Soviet animated short that serves as a biting social satire of bureaucracy and social climbing. Directed by the influential Fyodor Khitruk, the film is celebrated for its avant-garde visual style and its surprisingly candid critique of life within a rigid administrative system.
Mountain of Dinosaurs (Russian: Gora dinozavrov) is a hauntingly beautiful and somber Soviet animated short produced by the Soyuzmultfilm studio. Using a unique, expressive art style, the film follows the life cycles of dinosaurs who travel to a sun-drenched mountain to lay their eggs.
Released during the height of World War II, this Technicolor musical comedy is the second pairing of the iconic duo Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. It serves as a frantic, high-energy parody of the 1942 biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy.
To Duck or Not to Duck is a classic “Merrie Melodies” animated short from Warner Bros., notable for being the first time Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd squared off under the direction of animation legend Chuck Jones.
Released during the golden age of animation, Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor is a landmark 1936 “Technicolor Special.” Produced by Fleischer Studios, it was the first of three Popeye “Color Features,” boasting a longer runtime and higher production values than the standard black-and-white shorts of the era.
In this 1932 classic, Stan and Ollie play two sailors on shore leave who find themselves in a world of trouble the moment they step off their ship. Seeking a room for the night, they check into a dilapidated hotel run by the menacing, short-tempered Mugsy Long.
In this classic pre-Code short film, comedy’s most iconic duo, Laurel and Hardy, find themselves in a literal run for their lives. After being pursued by the police for vagrancy, Stan and Ollie duck into a seemingly vacant, luxurious mansion to hide.