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10 Shorts You Must See

Some of these films can be found by searching through the web, at Amazon, on YouTube and other file sharing sites. Others are more difficult to find and may be sourced through film museums, film clubs or even the local library. If you track them down, let us know how and where. 

1. Ballet Méchanique (1924): Dadaist film by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy, with cinematography by Man Ray, showing abstract shapes moving hypnotcally to the music of George Antheil.
2. Un Chien Andalou (1929): Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí collaborated on this surreal masterpiece where a woman's eyeball is sliced with a razor, priests and dead donkeys are strapped to a piano and live ants pour from the palm of a woman's hand.
3. Á Propos de Nice (1930): Jean Vigo's legendary travelogue takes us along the Riviera revealing the rich and poor living their separate lives together.
4. The Mascot (1934): Wladyslaw Starewicz's macabre bal masque features Satan and a multitude of gruesome creatures made from household items. Sometimes titled The Devil's Ball.
5. Duck and Cover (1951): Uncredited, wickedly parodied civil defence training film showing children how to protect themselves from nuclear attack by diving under school desks.
6. The Red Balloon (1956): Albert Lamorrise's award-winning film is a childhood story about innocence found and lost, and lessons learned.
7. La Jetée (1962): Chris Marker's puzzling study of time, memory and imagination, a premise that inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.
8. The Hold Up (1972): Abel Ferrara's short film about three men who plan to hold up a gas station after being laid off work shows the early promise of Driller Killer and Bad Lieutenant.
9. Tale of Tales (1979): This awe-inspiring film by the Russian Yuriy Norshteyn was selected by an international jury as the best animated film of all time at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiad of Animation.
10. Little Terrorist (2004): Ashvin Kumar's Oscar-nominated film tells the story of Jamal, a 10-year-old Muslim cricketer who by accident crosses the landmine strewn border between Pakistan and India. Returned in safety by a Hindu Brahmin, the film brilliantly captures the absurdity of divisions and borders everywhere.