The NFB is committed to respecting your privacy

We use cookies to ensure that our site works efficiently, as well as for advertising purposes.

If you do not wish to have your information used in this way, you can modify your browser settings before continuing your visit.

Learn more
Skip to content Accessibility

Film Animation (106)

  1. Available in English Options
5 years old
18 years old
  • Alchemists
    Alchemists
    Heidi Blomkvist 1991 11 min
    This short animation is a visual fantasy, a gripping tale that is "larger-than-life" in its themes: life, death and rebirth; creation and destruction; permanence and impermanence, spontaneity and control. Bold swoops of liquid colour surge with variations on Mozart's Requiem to a startling denouement. Alchemists will provoke reflection on creativity, relationships and the environment. Without words.
  • Alter Egos
    Alter Egos
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Laurence Green 2004 52 min
    In this award-winning animation-documentary, we meet two unusual artists. Ryan Larkin was once a brilliant filmmaker who ended up on the streets in Montreal. Chris Landreth is a rising star in animation beginning to experience the kind of adulation Larkin received decades earlier.

    With excerpts from both men's Oscar®-nominated works, this film delves into the tale of Larkin’s descent and the fascinating relationship that developed between the two men. It is a poignant study of artists, addiction and creativity.
  • Animando
    Animando
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Marcos Magalhães 1987 12 min
    Un personnage prend vie sur une table d'animation. L'animateur le dessine et le manipule à l'aide de matériaux différents. Il se met alors à marcher, à sautiller, nous permettant d'apprécier au même moment différentes techniques d'animation. Film sans paroles.
  • All the Rage
    All the Rage
    Alexandra Lemay 2014 1 min
    A mink walks into a fur store. Fantastic Mr. Fox meets The Shining in this stop-motion cautionary tale of what happens when we don’t think enough about what we buy.
  • Animate Everything!
    Animate Everything!
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Scott Kiborn 2010 15 min
    Spaceships soar into space. Dots dance on a page. Rocks and twigs transform into expressive faces. Kids can easily create this kind of magic themselves, and all they require are a few simple tools. Divided into four short, easy-to-understand chapters, Animate Everything introduces basic concepts of animation to a young audience. Explaining visually with colourful images, siblings Lindsay and Will demonstrate how to bring everyday objects to life — and even how to animate people! Animate Everything encourages you to “make your own magic in whatever style you want.”
  • Animated Motion: Part 3
    Animated Motion: Part 3
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Norman McLaren  &  Grant Munro 1977 9 min
    The third in a series of five colour films that offer an introduction to the basic techniques of film animation. McLaren explains and demonstrates different aspects of movement that are essential to the animator’s art. In this case it is the pause and irregular movement.
  • Animated Motion: Part 1
    Animated Motion: Part 1
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Norman McLaren  &  Grant Munro 1976 9 min
    The first part of this series by Norman McLaren deals only with tempo. It starts by showing the disc travelling in one move (1/24 of a second) from A to B, and progressively demonstrates slower and slower tempos.
  • Animated Motion: Part 2
    Animated Motion: Part 2
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Norman McLaren  &  Grant Munro 1976 8 min
    In this short animation film, Norman McLaren presents the first 3 of the 5 categories of motion: constant, accelerated and decelerated. Various types of acceleration and deceleration are demonstrated, and examples are shown of how these types of motion may be applied in regard to gesture, gravity and perspective.
  • The Brainwashers
    The Brainwashers
    Patrick Bouchard 2002 12 min
    In this animated short, two chimney sweepers clear all the memories from their victim's brain in a quest to determine what goes on in a man's head. A chilling film filled with fearsome puppets inhabiting a world of strange objects.
  • Batmilk
    Batmilk
    Brandon Blommaert 2009 1 min
    In this animated short, an oafish ghoul and his soft exposed brain are met with ruin when the brain is unexpectedly killed. Though paralyzed, the ghoul attains a fresh brain and is fed with new life.

    Produced as part of the 5th edition of the NFB’s Hothouse apprenticeship.
  • Balakrishna
    Balakrishna
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Colin MacKenzie  &  Aparna Kapur 2019 15 min
    When an extraordinary new resident – Balakrishna, an Indian elephant – arrived in the town of East River, Nova Scotia, in 1967, no one was more in awe of the creature than young Winton Cook, who became inseparable from his mammoth new friend. Using painterly animation, photographs and home-movie treasures, Balakrishna transmits the wistfulness of childhood memories, while evoking themes of friendship and loss, and issues of immigration and elephant conservation.
  • Bus Story
    Bus Story
    Tali 2014 10 min
    This funny short animation was written and created by Tali (At Home with Mrs. Hen) and is inspired by the filmmaker’s misadventures as a school bus driver in the Eastern Townships. Our protagonist dreams of becoming a bus driver in order to cruise down quiet country lanes and connect with nature, her young charges and their parents. But her idyllic view of her new job is sorely tested after she meets her surly boss, named Killer, and discovers that winding roads can prove treacherous in winter, especially with a faulty clutch. Through her cheeky humour and oblique look at the reality of people living in the Quebec countryside, Tali delivers a film that is unique, witty and touching.
  • The Basketball Game
    The Basketball Game
    Hart Snider 2011 5 min
    This animated short tells the story of an epic basketball game between kids attending Jewish camp and students of a notorious local Holocaust denier. Nine-year-old Hart is attending Jewish summer camp for the first time. He is both curious and afraid. What awaits him on the basketball court?
  • Blinkity Blank
    Blinkity Blank
    Norman McLaren 1955 5 min
    This experimental short film by Norman McLaren is a playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye, McLaren engraves pictures on blank film creating vivid, percussive effects.
  • cNote
    cNote
    Christopher Hinton 2004 6 min
    In this animated short, filmmaker Chris Hinton and composer Michael Oesterle leap back and forth between picture and sound. The dynamic movement of Hinton's visual art dances in syncopation with the bold musical strokes of an original modern classical composition. Without words.
  • CMYK
    CMYK
    Marv Newland 2011 7 min
    This short animation is a dizzying celebration of sound, colour and movement. Here, multitudes of CMYK symbols, pulled off flaps of cereal boxes and other common printed materials, have been isolated and assembled. Freed from their workaday origins, these objects become moving artwork. Coloured dots pulsate, crosshairs roll and primary shapes dance. The result: an unrestrained riot of colour and energy.
  • Christmas Cracker
    Christmas Cracker
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Norman McLaren Jeff Hale , … 1963 8 min
    This short animation consists of three segments that take a playful look at Christmas: a rendition of "Jingle Bells" in which paper cut-out figures dance, a dime-store rodeo of tin toys, and a story of decorating the perfect Christmas tree.
  • Constellation
    Constellation
    Patrick Doan 2012 6 min
    Combining the music of Chopin with digital animation, this short film artfully defines pianist Janina Fialkowska’s imprint in the world of classical music and beyond. Particles of light choreograph themselves to reveal otherworldly beauty, channelling the pianist’s explosive performance.

    Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2012 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.
  • Creative Process: Norman McLaren
    Creative Process: Norman McLaren
    Donald McWilliams 1990 1 h 56 min
    This feature length documentary is a journey into Norman McLaren’s process of artistic creation. A cinematic genius who made films without cameras and music without instruments, McLaren produced 60 films in a stunning range of styles and techniques, collecting over 200 international awards and world recognition. Drawing on McLaren's private film vaults, a gold mine of experimental footage and uncompleted films, this film explores McLaren's methods, including his celebrated "pixillation" technique.
  • Charles and François
    Charles and François
    Co Hoedeman 1988 15 min
    A touching story of the friendship between a grandfather and his grandson, this is a film about aging and death. Award-winning animator Co Hoedeman combines 3-D and cut-out animation techniques to create a very dramatic and moving film. The story follows Charles and François through the different stages of their lives. With time, they become closer, common experiences having diminished the difference in age. By the end of the film, time appears to stand still; both are over one hundred years old and they are almost indistinguishable.
  • Drux Flux
    Drux Flux
    Theodore Ushev 2008 4 min
    Part figurative, part abstract, Drux Flux is an animated short comprised of fast-flowing images showing modern people crushed by industry. Inspired by One-Dimensional Man, by philosopher Herbert Marcuse, the filmmaker deconstructs industrial scenes and their terrifying geometry to show the inhumanity of progress.
  • Dreams Come True: A Sheldon Cohen Retrospective
    Dreams Come True: A Sheldon Cohen Retrospective
    Sheldon Cohen 2005 15 min
    Author Roch Carrier hosts this documentary retrospective of the work of animation director Sheldon Cohen. Carrier offers anecdotes and insight about Cohen's movies, created over the past 30 years at the National Film Board of Canada. Lively animation sequences created by Greg Houston as well as Cohen's illustrations offer lively visual counterpoint. There is emphasis on the art of making animation from children's books as Cohen's films are based on the works of celebrated authors from across Canada including: Roch Carrier's The Sweater; Wilma Riley's Pies; Dayal Kaur Khalsa's Snow Cat (adapted by author Tim Wynne-Jones) and Khalsa's I Want a Dog. Excerpts of these films are included in the documentary.
  • Deyzangeroo
    Deyzangeroo
    Ehsan Gharib 2017 4 min
    “Deyzangeroo” is a ritual performed in the Iranian port city of Bushehr. Influenced by the city’s colonial rule by the British and Portuguese, and the African slaves that followed, it is imbued with the terror and magic of the lunar eclipse. The ritual is believed to ward off evil spirits and take back the moon. It works every time. Directed by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Ehsan Gharib, this animated short features hand-painted animation, time-lapse photography, trick photography using mirrors, and the haunting music of virtuoso percussionist Habib Meftah Boushehri.
  • Engine 371
    Engine 371
    Kevin Langdale 2007 9 min
    This animated short looks at the building of Canada's transcontinental railroad with wit and whimsy. Engine 371 illustrates the struggle humans have with nature and how this fundamental tension united a country. A film without words.
  • Every Dog's Guide to the Playground
    Every Dog's Guide to the Playground
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Les Drew 1991 10 min
    In this animated film our hero, Wally the Safety Dog, continues to suffer a host of injuries as he instructs his master in the rules of playground safety. This is the second film in which Wally provides a proper example to young adults, parents, and caregivers in the area of child safety.
  • The End of Pinky
    The End of Pinky
    Claire Blanchet 2013 8 min
    This short animation adapted from a short story by Heather O’Neill, who also narrates the film, follows three fallen angels seeking companionship in Montreal’s red-light district. The survivor of traumatic childhood experiences, Johnny is a handsome thief who finds himself drawn to Mia’s fragile beauty. Both have a soft spot for Johnny’s best friend and partner in crime, Pinky. But when one of Pinky’s endearing quirks sets off a tragicomic chain of events, Johnny plots his revenge with methodical detachment. Peopled with characters living on the margins of society, this film casts light on the frailty of human relationships. The film features hand-drawn pencil and pastel animation rendered in stereoscopic 3D.
  • Fair Phyllis
    Fair Phyllis
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Beth Portman 2003 9 min
    Fair Phyllis affirms to all women 'You're not alone!' in the craziness of busy, multi-tasking lives--what with the demands of career, the kids or just trying to get a moment alone with your man. This short animated film delights in celebrating the resiliency and resourcefulness of the female sex. Set in an 18th century pastoral countryside, Fair Phyllis the shepherdess struggles with her chaotic woolly world. Will she find balance or crack under the shear stress of it all?
  • Forming Game
    Forming Game
    Malcolm Sutherland 2008 5 min
    This animated short from Malcolm Sutherland is an engaging dance of shapes and sounds. The "game" is played by opening the box, unfolding the board and placing shapes on it that you manipulate with your hands. There are no winners or losers in this game; the fun is in the creative way the forms unfold. Features a score by Luigi Alleman and music by Ravi Shankar.
  • Flutter
    Flutter
    Howie Shia 2006 6 min
    In this short animation, a young boy takes a flying leap away from normal, waves goodbye to his classmates, and disappears into the cityscape and beyond. At the same time, a young girl is inspired to reinvent her space with art.
  • The Founding of the Co-operatives
    The Founding of the Co-operatives
    Colin Low 1967 21 min
    A record of the founding meeting of the Fogo Island Ship Building and Producer Co-operative.