Short
see all genres ›Short films are exactly what their name implies: they're shorter than a feature! They can be as brief as a handful of seconds or they can approach as much as a half-hour (or more). Genres like silent comedy and avant-garde film thrive in the short format.
Discover Short Films
Genres / Short
SUB-GENRES · Actuality · Documentary · Ephemera · Narrative · Non-Narrative · Performance · Trick
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145 W. 21
One of photographer/filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt's earliest 16mm films, 145 W. 21 plays very much like an amateur movie, albeit one featuring an especially notable cast (Burckhardt pals Paul Bowles, Aaron Copland, Edwin Denby and Virgil Thomson, among others). A romantic pair leaves their flat for a desultory burlesque show and...Start your free trial to watch
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Above Below
Cam Archer's hypnotic short film takes form as a letter into the void. A middle-aged woman reads a note to a lost friend while slowed home movies of an adolescent boy flash across the screen. With movements blurred and the picture flaring with light, the image seems to register the uncertain memory of one left behind. "Have...Start your free trial to watch -
Accomplice
An artist-criminal far from home asks his assistant to pirate a rare videotape before the German Post Office Authorities come to confiscate it. Featuring Jordana Maurer and an ersatz appearance by Jean-Luc Godard along with the voices of DJ Mendel, Professor David Poeppel and David Bordwell.Start your free trial to watch -
Acholiland
Northern Uganda, 1999. War has raged for thirteen years. Thousands are killed, millions are displaced and everyone is starving. Set in the heart of this turmoil, four UN workers must embark on a frantic food delivery to a mass of desperate villagers. But when the militia strike and the situation explodes, these men will face...Start your free trial to watch
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Acid Redux
When commissioned to make a Futurist-inspired film for the New York Biennial, George Kuchar responded in his characteristic way with this madcap vignette. Knocked out in a weekend (filmed Friday and edited Saturday), ACID REDUX was shot with his Electrographic Sinema class at the San Francisco Art Institute and features his...Start your free trial to watch -
The Acrobatic Fly
The challenge of the very slow lens required by F. Percy Smith for macro-photography, coupled with the insensitive film stock of the day, meant that so much light was required for exposure that the poor flies quickly succumbed to the heat. As Smith had glued their wings so that they could not fly away,...Start your free trial to watch
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Across the Border
ACROSS THE BORDER is a collage of found footage and documentary images, radio Spanish/English tracks and commentary by Philippe Bourgois, a Stanford Anthropologist trapped in an offensive by the United States-backed Salvadoran Military forces. The film’s position against U.S. intervention in the third...Start your free trial to watch
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The Actor's Children
The first Thanhouser release about the disappearance of an actor's children, their thrilling adventure and how they return to their parents. Remarkably for a movie studio’s first release, THE ACTOR'S CHILDREN is well up to the state of the art for early 1910. Intertitles announce, in a few words, what will...Start your free trial to watch -
Adagio
Subtitled “Eros in Psyche” and set to a composition by Tomaso Albinoni, Lawrence Jordan’s rapturous live action short contemplates two nude figures in California idyll. They remain physically separated but Jordan’s spellbinding cutting and tactile camerawork suggest a loosening of inhibition. Parisian fountains and classical...Start your free trial to watch
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The Adventure of the Hasty Elopement
The ninth installment in the twelve episode OCTAVIUS AMATEUR DETECTIVE series (of which THE ADVENTURES OF THE WRONG SANTA CLAUS is or perhaps is not a part). Octavius is a bumbler who "never fails" to solve the crime due to an endless array of good luck and coincidence. He goes in search of local car...Start your free trial to watch -
The Adventure of the Wrong Santa Claus
Amateur detective Octavius agrees to portray Santa Claus for his friends. Unfortunately, a burglar appears and puts on a Claus costume of his own. Two is one too many. The other St. Nick gets away with the loot and its up to Octavius to track down the culprit.Start your free trial to watch -
The Adventures of Dollie
D.W. Griffith's cinematic debut was already laced with dramatic irony, dynamic staging and deft parallel editing. The film opens with mother and daughter enjoying a summer day by the water. A gypsy merchant disrupts their idyll, first offering items for sale and then trying to make off with the woman's...Start your free trial to watch




