Top 50 Greatest Short Films

it's also a bit weird that some of the titles are listed in their original non-English language, and others are translated into English ... or am I the only one that thinks it's weird because my French is so rusty

Chess Fever was brilliant, thank you for that! Chuckled all the way through

Helps that I've become a minor chess tragic myself of late

What's your beef with Le Ballon Rouge? It's so beautiful.

This is an embarrassment of riches. My top three.

La Jetee.
Zero de Conduit
Outer Space

Conduite*

Simón del desierto is one of my favourite films ever, short or long

but Elephant is incredible and deserves votes, it's just very difficult to describe a film like that as a "favourite"

anyway this whole list is way too tonally varied to make a sane comparison between everything on there

Great list. Wrong Kenneth Anger entry tho

Too much Kubelka, not enough Hertzfeldt.

Hertzfeldt is kind of corny

I agree w/ Jed - The Red Balloon is beautiful and charming and deserves a place on any list of great short films.

Has any ILXor ever actually watched The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes? I have it the first Criterion Brakhage collection, but am too much of a wuss to view it.

i like the red balloon too.

meshes in the afternoon got my vote.

Has any ILXor ever actually watched The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes?

probably, as background visuals to some noise set or other

Yantra (James Whitney)

Just watched Outer Space for the first time thanks to this thread and people repping for it. What an absolute triumph of technical achievement! I'd like to know more about this guy's history too... It felt like the explication of a full-on psychotic episode. Also the hinting at the existing celluloid worlds/what we can do to liberate them...amazing.

Not sure what to vote for until I've seen some more of these. Agree with Outic about the Kenneth Anger film...it's still great though!

Sherlock Jr is absolutely not a short film, and voting for it is a massive cheat. But fuck it, I'm voting for Sherlock Jr.... Top ten film ever.

Sherlock Jr is like, 5 reels. Def a feature.

I almost dropped that one, because it would've allowed for the inclusion of #51 on the list, Ménilmontant.

My top dozen:

La Jetée (Chris Marker)
Wavelength (Michael Snow)
Un Chant d'amour (Jean Genet)
Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith)
Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel)
Outer Space (Peter Tscherkassky)
Unsere Afrikareise (Peter Kubelka)
The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (Stan Brakhage)
Rose Hobart (Joseph Cornell)
Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones)
A Movie (Bruce Conner)
Hapax Legomena I: (nostalgia) (Hollis Frampton)

Excited to go through this list! I've only seen about half and what a great couple dozen they are. La Jetee, Tscherkassky and Conner are my faves.
My favorites not on this list are

La Plage (Patrick Bokanowski)
Free Radicals (Len Lye)
The Flicker (Tony Conrad) (is 30 min too long?)
The Hand (Jiri Trnka)
Dimensions of Dialogue (Jan Svankmajer)

Oh, I forgot Light Is Calling (Bill Morrison)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Meshes.. is incredible.

Duck Amuck has one of best last lines in all cinema.

voted Meshes as its the best of the ones here i've seen

agree w others this is missing some better Kenneth Anger films. also i would've liked to see Oskar Fischinger, Harry Smith, John/James Whitney, and Yoko Ono make appearances.

oh shit i skipped over the Quay Brothers. Street of Crocodiles rules.

coulda used some more Jan Svankmajer (i like Historia Naturae)

voted window water baby moving

really, La Jetee, Sherlock Jr, Wavelength, Flaming Creatures, Rose Hobart, Duck Amuck are among my fave films of all time, period.

(and the first 4 aren't shorts)

Yeah, these are all in my very top tier ever:

La Jetée (Chris Marker)
Wavelength (Michael Snow)
Un Chant d'amour (Jean Genet)
Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel)
Outer Space (Peter Tscherkassky)
The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (Stan Brakhage)
Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones)

But it's La Jetee. There is no finer film of any length.

The next 50, btw, for anyone who didn't click the link.

51	Ménilmontant	Kirsanoff, Dimitri
52	Way Things Go, The	Fischli, Peter & David Weiss
53	Tire die	Birri, Fernando
54	Puissance de la parole	Godard, Jean-Luc
55	Blight	Smith, John
56	Blow Job	Warhol, Andy
57	Corner in Wheat, A	Griffith, D.W.
58	Free Radicals	Lye, Len
59	Great Train Robbery, The	Porter, Edwin S.
60	Statues Also Die	Resnais, Alain & Chris Marker
61	Report	Conner, Bruce
62	Dimensions of Dialogue	Svankmajer, Jan
63	Hold Me While I'm Naked	Kuchar, George
64	Reassemblage	Trinh T. Minh-ha
65	Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story	Haynes, Todd
66	Morte rouge, La	Erice, Victor
67	Rainbow Dance	Lye, Len
68	Anticipation of the Night	Brakhage, Stan
69	End, The	Maclaine, Christopher
70	At Land	Deren, Maya
71	Toute la mémoire du monde	Resnais, Alain
72	15/67: TV	Kren, Kurt
73	Music Box, The	Parrott, James
74	Cops	Keaton, Buster/Eddie Cline
75	Hotel des Invalides	Franju, Georges
76	A Valparaiso	Ivens, Joris
77	Afrique 50	Vautier, René
78	Musketeers of Pig Alley, The	Griffith, D.W.
79	All My Life	Baillie, Bruce
80	Trade Tattoo	Lye, Len
81	Balle traversant une bulle de savon	Bull, Lucien
82	Ten Minutes Older	Frank, Herz
83	Borom sarret	Sembene, Ousmane
84	What's Opera, Doc?	Jones, Chuck
85	Misere au Borinage	Ivens, Joris & Henri Storck
86	Girl Chewing Gum, The	Smith, John
87	Invocation of My Demon Brother	Anger, Kenneth
88	Ballet mécanique	Léger, Fernand
89	Weather Diary 3	Kuchar, George
90	Spare Time	Jennings, Humphrey
91	Ruskin	Beavers, Robert
92	Mass for the Dakota Sioux	Baillie, Bruce
93	Human Remains	Rosenblatt, Jay
94	Rapsodia satanica	Oxilia, Nino
95	Outer and Inner Space	Warhol, Andy
96	Seashell and the Clergyman, The	Dulac, Germaine
97	Melomane, Le	Méliès, Georges
98	Powers of Ten	Eames, Charles & Ray Eames
99	Standard Gauge	Fisher, Morgan
100	Hapax Legomena II: Poetic Justice	Frampton, Hollis

Duck Amuck has def supplanted What's Opera Doc as the Looney Tune of choice.

Neighbors.

I tag anything of La Jetee's length (28m?) up to 59 minutes "medium length" on Letterboxd. Anything 40-60 is really a "short feature."

Keaton, Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy could easily have 20 of the 100 greatest shorts, to say nothing of Ton o' Fun aka The Three Fatties

Anything 40-60 is really a "short feature."

Fat Man on a Beach is an important omission then, imo.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Haha, three red balloons.

How horrible that people think The Red Balloon is better than Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story!!!

Superstar is not a short

also, it's hard to see if you don't watch online bootlegs

It's on the list! ... My copy is a dub from a rental video cassette. ... way less illicitly obtained than some of the other items in my collection

i missed this. love a few of these, but would've likely voted Wavelength.

Haha, three red balloons.

Has any ILXor ever actually watched The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes? I have it the first Criterion Brakhage collection, but am too much of a wuss to view it.

― Bernie Lugg (Ward Fowler), Monday, July 3, 2017 8:17 AM (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

exactly once, after a few beers. found myself numb to the death/body shock fairly quickly. striking but obviously not something i'm itching to run back to.

I saw it in college (there was an experimental film class that let anyone in for the screenings), and it left its mark on me, I think in a good way. Hard to explain but I would say I thought about human bodies differently afterwards. **Trigger warning** One image has stuck with me; when they run a scalpel down the person's chest and the skin peels back, exposing yellow fat rather than the red "guts" I was expecting. Also the sawing for brain removal.