News

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 10 short films that have been selected to advance in the voting process for the 90th Academy Awards. The 10 short films are vying for a nomination for Best Short Film. The shortlist includes the Pixar film “Lou,” written and directed by Dave Mullins. The short premiered at SXSW earlier this year and was shown in theaters ahead of “Cars 3.”

Read More:2018 Oscar Predictions: Best Animated Feature

One of the year’s highest profile short films is Don Hertzfeldt’s “World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts,” but it was left off the shortlist. IndieWire gave Hertzfeldt’s sequel an A+ review and the film already had a theatrical qualifying run. Hertzfeldt has been nominated for the Best Short Film Oscar twice: “Rejected” in 2000 and “World of Tomorrow” in 2016.

The 10 qualifying short films are listed...

On his Twitter profile, fiercely independent filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt describes himself as a “director of things / 2x oscar loser.” He’s selling himself short on both counts. For starters, “things” is an endearingly modest way of describing some of the most essential short films of the last 20 years, animated or otherwise; from revered early work like “Rejected,” to the trio of vignettes that were ultimately stitched together into a feature-length omnibus called “It’s Such a Beautiful Day,” Hertzfeldt has created a singular universe of stick figures in crisis.

And then there’s the bit about being a two-time “oscar loser,” a distinction that Hertzfeldt earned when “World of Tomorrow” — his first digital project — was a 2015 Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Short Film. It may not have won its creator the chance to give a speech on global television, but it did win him a legion of new fans.

Filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt is an animator who gained internet fame with his wacky and subversive short film “Rejected,” an early viral video back in 2000 way before YouTube was even a thing. His crude, stick figure drawings have come a long way since then, when his 2015 short “World of Tomorrow” won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was eventually nominated for an Oscar. Now he’s made a sequel to that daring, award-winning short, “World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts,” which premiered at last monht’s Fantastic Fest. And today on Twitter,...

It’s one thing to come up with a top 10 list of the best movies in any given year. The best movies of the decade is even harder. But the best movies of a century? Ok, when it comes to the new millennium, that’s just a decade and a half. Still, it’s no easy task to consider the highlights from 16 years of viewing — but that’s part of what makes it such a compelling challenge.

Recently, BBC polled a large group of critics, including IndieWire’s Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich, for their lists of the best achievements of the 21st century. (The full results will run in mid-to-late August.) The results of the poll have yet to run, but as countless participants have begun sharing their results, we felt compelled to weigh in. Of course, lists are highly subjective and almost always omit some major titles, so...

By Patrick Shanley

Managing Editor

While the Oscar’s best animated feature category has only existed since 2001, the award for best animated short has been presented since 1932. This year five short films from all across the globe are competing in the category.

With the exception of Pixar’s Sanjay’s Super Team, which accompanied the studio’s feature length film, The Good Dinosaur last year, most Oscar fans filling out their scorecards likely haven’t seen this year’s competitors for best animated short. Here’s a breakdown of all five films competing and which one may just have the edge.

Prologue: A highly stylized short centered on an intense, and brutally violent, struggle between four warriors, witnessed by a young girl. The short comes from the United Kingdom and was directed by two-time Oscar winner, Richard Williams, who won the best animated short Oscar in 1973 for A Christmas Carol.

ShortsHD, the Only Short Film Channel (www.shorts.tv), working with Magnolia Pictures, will open “The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2016” on over 400 screens across the United States, Canada, Europe and Latin America on Friday January 29, 2016. “The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2016” will showcase the Live Action, Animation and Documentary short film nominees compilation as three separate theatrical events.

This marks the 11th year of the Oscar nominated short films theatrical experience and is the only opportunity for audiences to watch the nominated short films prior to the 88th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, February 28, 2016.

In 2015, the Oscar Nominated Short Films earned over $2.4 million worldwide, nearly doubling from just a few years prior. One of the most diverse categories in Academy consideration, this year’s Oscar® Nominated Short Films feature with projects originating from United States, France, Germany, Palestine, United Kingdom, Kosovo, Austria, Chile, Russia, Liberia, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Canada.

“Films...

My introduction to Don Hertzfeldt wasn't too long ago, though I have since become obsessed with his animated short Rejected, which is devilishly comical in each and every way. He's since done plenty, such as the ever-increasing-in-popularity It's Such a Beautiful Day from a few years ago to recently animating the opening couch gag for an episode of "The Simpsons". Now he delivers his latest short, a nearly 17-minute existential exploration of life, death and everything in-between in World of Tomorrow. With elements taken from his 2013 graphic novel "The End of the World" (how much I'm not entirely sure), World of Tomorrow tells the story of a young girl referred to as Emily Prime (voiced by Hertzfeldt's niece Winona Mae) as she is contacted by a third-generation clone of herself (voiced by Julia Pott) that takes her on a journey into a future filled with memories, sadness and plenty of comedy.

Netflix has a many, many films, shows and documentaries to watch. A lot of them you will know are there - great Netflix Originals like House of Cards, Orange is the New Black and Better Call Saul - but there is even more to discover that you might not think or even know to look for.

Here are some of our favourite Netflix hidden gems:

It's Such a Beautiful Day

Animator Don Hertzfeldt is a Digital Spy favourite, first coming to our attention with the bizarre, irreverent, melancholic and frequently obscene short Rejected. There is something undeniably beautiful behind the strangeness of the characters and scenarios he brings to life.

His first feature film, It's Such a Beautiful Day, spins together his previously released trilogy into a touching black comedy about hapless Bill and his hilarious, humdrum existence.

The Short Game

Chances are, this Netflix Original documentary will offer your...

"World of Tomorrow," Don Hertzfeldt's seventh film to play in competition at Sundance (a festival record), has been awarded the 2015 Short Film Grand Jury Prize, burnishing an already impressive resume that includes the Oscar-nominated animated short "Rejected" (2000). Jurors K.K. Barrett, Alia Shawkat, and Autumn de Wilde chose "World of Tomorrow," in which "a little girl is taken on a mind-bending tour of the distant future," from 60 films in this year's Short Film program, which was culled from more than 8,000 submissions. Recipients will be among the honorees at Saturday's awards ceremony, hosted by Tig Notaro and available to stream live at the festival's website. Check out the full list of winners below, along with Hertzfeldt's special guest appearance as writer, animator, and director of the first two minutes of the season premiere of "The Simpsons." Short Film Grand Jury Prize: "World of Tomorrow" / U.S.A....

The Sundance Institute has announced its short film-making awards with Don Hertzfeldt’s World Of Tomorrow taking the short film grand jury prize.

The Us director and screenwriter took home top honours for his piece about a young girl’s mind-bending journey to the future. Hertzfeldt was nominated for an Academy Award in 2001 for his short film, Rejected.

In other awards announced on January 27, the short film jury award for Us fiction went to Frankie Shaw’s Smilf, while the international fiction award was granted to Atsuko Hirayanagi’s Oh Lucy! from Japan.

Kitty Green’s The Face Of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul took home the award for the non-fiction category and the jury award for animation went to French writer-director Paul Cabon for Storm Hits Jacket.

Cécile Ducrocq’s Back Alley was honoured with the special jury award for acting, while Polish director Paulina Skibińska was awarded the special jury award for visual poetry in her...

Don Hertzfeldt is writing and directing Antarctica.

Snoot Entertainment has optioned the feature-length animation from the Oscar-nominated filmmaker.

The project is billed as a "genre-defying adventure which explores the world's coldest continent".

"Antarctica is an unusual project that's been turning around in my head for a very long time, uncertain how it would get made, and I'm excited to actually have the chance now to take the plunge with [Snoot producers Keith Calder and Jessica Calder] and their brave team," said Hertzfeldt.

"After 20 years of animating alone, this will also mark the first time I'll have the opportunity to work with a talented team of animators, and I'm looking forward to being able to walk into a room of hard-working artists every day and telling them that everything they're doing is wrong."

Hertzfeldt is best known for his animated shorts Rejected and Everything Will Be Ok.

His latest short, World of Tomorrow, screened on the opening night...

Snoot Entertainment, the production company behind You're Next, The Guest and Charlie Kaufman's upcoming animated film Anomalisa, announced today that they have optioned Don Hertzfeldt's script for Antarctica, an animated, genre-defying adventure which explores the world's coldest continent. The film will also be directed by Hertzfeldt drawing on his signature visual style. Snoot Entertainment's Keith Calder and Jessica Calder will produce along with Hertzfeldt. Hertzfeldt's manager Jeremy Platt will executive-produce and Snoot's Roxanne Benjamin will co-produce.

Hertzfeldt is premiering his new short film World of Tomorrow during the opening night of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. With World of Tomorrow as his seventh short film in competition, he has had more films play in competition at Sundance than any other filmmaker. Other projects Hertzfeldt has helmed include the Academy Award nominated cult favorite Rejected, and Everything Will Be Ok, which was awarded the 2007 Sundance Film Festival Jury Award in Short Filmmaking.

As the premiere of his next short film quickly approaches, Don Hertzfeldt, the independent animator and Oscar-nominated filmmaker of Rejected and It’s Such a Beautiful Day, has unveiled his new feature-length animation, Antarctica. The animated tale will be set in Antarctica, as the title suggests, and as one might expect, feature his signature hand-drawn style, but unlike his previous […]...

Prolific independent animator and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected, It’s Such a Beautiful Day) is teaming up with Keith Calder and Jessica Calder’s Snoot Entertainment to make his next feature-length film, Antarctica. The animated adventure is set on the world’s coldest continent and will be directed by Hertzfeldt from his own script in his signature style, although unlike his previous solo animated projects, this time he’ll be working with a team of animators.

Snoot, the production shingle behind You’re Next, The Guest, and the upcoming Charlie Kaufman animation Anomalisa, optioned the Antarctica script and principals Calder and Calder will produce alongside Hertzfeldt. Hertzfeldt’s manager Jeremy Platt is executive producing and Snoot’s Roxanne Benjamin is co-producer on the project.

Hertzfeldt, known for his emotionally evocative hand-drawn style and multimedia shorts, was up for the Palme d’Or for his 1998 short Billy’s Balloon and...

I first came to know animator Don Hertzfeldt through his Oscar-nominated "Rejected", a collection of animated shorts he created for commercials and television network interstitials for the Family Learning Channel, all of which were, to no surprise, rejected. My favorite of the bunch (which you can watch at the bottom of this post) is the very first one in which a character screams "My spoon is too big!" before he's joined by a talking banana. No, it doesn't make any sense, but that's exactly what I love about it. Now, "The Simpsons" have opened the door to Hertzfeldt to take over their "couch gag" scenario that plays at the beginning of each episode just as they did with Banksy (watch here), Sylvain Chomet and Guillermo del Toro (watch here) recently. To no surprise it is completely batsh*t insane, but I'm largely posting it so you can watch the "My spoon is too big" piece,...

Last night "The Simpsons" returned for their twenty-sixth(!) season. After binging on all things Springfield for weeks on Fxx, fans tuned in to see the original dysfunctional animated family finally meet their spiritual successors from "Family Guy." But the craziest moment happened before the credits were even over. Somehow Homer gets ahold of a time device and things run amok quickly. Eagle-eyed fans of cult animation surely recognized Don Hertzfeldt's signature style is all over this extended LSD nightmare. In case you missed the early aughts' heyday of Hertzfeldt's work, he was an Internet sensation for his surreal "Rejected" series. In the years since, this Oscar-nominated  short has become a cult classic in the vein of "Rocky Horror."...

People often joke about The Simpsons, now in its 26th season, continuing forever — but what if it really did?

Related The Simpsons Post Mortem: Ep Explains [Spoiler]‘s ‘Surprising’ Death

The couch gag on Sunday’s season premiere explored that very notion, and the results were surprisingly mind-blowing. Directed by Don Hertzfeldt — the award-winning animator/filmmaker behind such fare as the Oscar-nominated 2000 short Rejected, which presented a commentary on corporate advertising — the two-minute sequence propelled The Simpsons far into the future. More specifically, it brought them to Septembar 36.4, 10,535 for a look at episode 164.775.7.

The result was unsettling, brilliant and, at times,...

Shout all you want that The Simpsons hasn't been good for the past years; either way, you can't deny that the show's recent spate of elaborate, extended couch gags has led to some dazzling, audaciously creative stuff. This is especially true when The Simpsons turns over its opening to famous animators and filmmakers like Michal Socha, Guillermo del Toro—and, most recently, indie idol Don Hertzfeldt, beloved for absurdist fare like the Oscar-nominated short film Rejected. (Contrary to semi-popular belief, he has nothing to do with those lookalike Pop Tart commercials from 2011; as the F.A.Q. section of his website states,...

“The Simpsons” kicked off season 26 on Sunday with the suggestion that the show will run far into the future. Also read: ‘Family Guy'-'Simpsons’ Crossover Is Everything Fans of Both Shows Love The standard couch gag, which opens every episode, featured Homer going back in time to his first animated incarnation, before joining his family thousands, if not millions of years in the future. The result is, well, weird. See video: ‘The Simpsons’ Groundskeeper Willie Wants Scotland to Finally Break Free Don Hertzfeldt, an animator best known for his Oscar-nominated short “Rejected” and 2012 feature-length film “It's Such a Beautiful Day,...

The Simpsons' 26th season premiere may have had fans debating about which character would die, but they were completely taken aback by the show's couch gag.

Acclaimed animator Don Hertzfeldt created the episode's intro, taking viewers into a bizarre and somewhat haunting future world.

The abstract and surreal couch gag transports Homer to the deep future 'sun-date' of Septembar 36.4, 10,535, with rather dark and chilling results.

It reminds us a little bit of the 'Worker and Parasite' cartoon that Krusty was thoroughly confused by in 'Krusty Gets Kancelled'.

Last night (September 28) also saw a recurring character die in the season premiere, while Family Guy aired a special hour-long crossover episode in Springfield.

Hertzfeldt's other works include It's Such a Beautiful Day, The Meaning of Life, and the Academy-Award nominated Rejected. Watch the latter below:...

On Friday, I wrote about the season premiere of "The Simpsons," and the "Family Guy" premiere in which Peter and his family wind up in Springfield hanging out with Homer and company. For those who tuned in to either or both tonight, what did you think? Did the love-fest of Fxx's Every "Simpsons" Ever marathon inspire any long-absent "Simpsons" fans to check out "Clown in the Dumps"? Did either storyline in that episode — the death in the A-story, or Lisa's fear for Homer's mortality in the B-story — amuse and/or touch you? Will you miss the deceased character, or are they too minor to mourn? And how did you feel the couch gag — directed by Don Hertzfeldt, whose "Rejected" short is on YouTube — worked as a commentary on the notion that the series is just going to keep running forever, to diminishing returns? And I'm curious how both "Simpsons" and...

[Spoiler Alert: Do not read until you have watched Sunday night's episode of The Simpsons, titled “Clown in the Dumps.”] Say a prayer — Jewish, preferably—for Rabbi Hyman Krustofski, who passed away Sunday night on the season premiere of The Simpsons. The stern, principled father of Krusty the Clown (voiced by Jackie Mason, who won an Emmy in 1992 for the role), expired while telling his down-and-out son who was in the throes of a comedy career crisis, "If you want to know my honest opinion of you, you've always been... eh." The poignant father-child story, which prompted Lisa to fret that Homer would be next to go, ended a yearlong mystery over which character would meet his/her demise. EW...

His delightful blend of dot-eyed stickmen and dizzying existentialism – showcased in 2012's It's Such a Beautiful Day – makes Hertzfeldt an unstoppable force in stop-motion cinema

Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch trailer

We take Gromit's eyebrows for granted. The trusty pooch of dithering inventor Wallace projects a vast spectrum of emotions via that small wad of clay that sits above his eyeballs. Manipulating that segment of the model just a millimetre too far in either direction could be the difference between intense elation and unalloyed gloom. In exactly the same way, the sublime output of Austin-based stop-motion animator Don Hertzfeldt projects the complex psychologies of his characters through minute enhancements of facial features. Yet he hasn't given himself much creative wriggle room, as the stars of his movies are all near-featureless stickmen with dots for eyes and a single line for a mouth.

Take Bill, for example, the...

★★★★★ Two simply-drawn stick men approach each other on a field of white and share an awkward encounter as they pass. One of them, Bill, inexplicably stumbles through simple sentences and conflates words before they depart, never to see one another again. This was one of the character's initial appearances in animator Don Hertzfeldt's comic strip Temporary Anaesthetics, and reoccurs in his debut feature. The scene succinctly introduces the film's protagonist and also the surreal comic tone present throughout much of the outstanding It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012) - a compilation of the director's triptych of awards-laden shorts.

The story follows the unassuming Bill - recognisable purely by his hat - through an ongoing battle with escalating mental illness. This initially manifests itself as confusion and the odd moment of memory loss but in the proceeding three chapters transforms into pronounced amnesia, elaborate and disturbing hallucinations and physical debilitation. These...

One of animation’s purest qualities is the correlation between effort and result, so pure that even attempts to obscure the former allow the latter to be recognized and appreciated. It should perhaps be no surprise that one of the finest writer/animators of the last fifteen years, Don Hertzfeldt, has built an increasingly impressive body of work from stick figures and “crude” ink-and-paper drawings, a celebration of the material and physical challenges of hand-made animation. His first feature, It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012), is currently in limited release and affirms Hertzfeldt as a true virtuoso, constructing an emotional narrative of existential meditation from swaths of banal occurrences, nightmarish hallucinations and devastatingly funny memories.

Those familiar with Hertzfeldt’s previous work like film festival darling Billy’s Balloon (1998) and the Oscar-nominated Rejected (2000) will recognize certain central themes at the core of his work—dark absurdity, relentless Zen-like repetition, sterile...

Don Hertzfeldt is at the end of one journey and the beginning of another. The indie animator, perhaps best known for his brilliant 2000 short "Rejected," has been steadily churning out spectacularly eccentric animations for years, working on his own using a 2-D process largely of his own making. He doesn't even know how to sell out; his work bears little resemblance to anything mainstream. At the same time, the last decade of Hertzfeldt's cartoons shows his growth. While "Rejected" features little more than stick figures on a billowing piece of paper and occasional flashes of color, his more recent efforts erupt with marvelous special effects and explosive imagery. But he's still just a one-man band. Hertzfeldt came to the Sundance Film Festival this year to screen his latest short, "It's a Beautiful Day." Concluding a trilogy that began with 2006's "Everything Will Be Ok" and continued with 2008's "I Am So.

Don Hertzfeldt is a sick genius, I really don’t know any other way to put it. His short film, Rejected, made quite the splash back in 2000 and took the film festival circuit by storm, catapulting him into the spotlight. Since then, he has had a steady flow of work, including his crazy animated Pop Tart commercials.

Read more on Don Hertzfeldt’s Wisdom Teeth finally makes its way online…...

If you have a high tolerance for stick-figure violence, Wisdom Teeth is today's must-watch video. The latest short from Oscar-Nominated animator Don Hertzfeldt (of Rejected fame) premiered at Sundance and is now part of a Showtime program called Short Stories. Despite Hertzfeldt's excellent track record, I'll admit I had a tough time getting psyched to watch even a slapstick cartoon about dental surgery because well, sometimes the dentist really is that scary. But rest assured, the animator's unmatched knack for comic absurdity makes it completely worthwhile and the ridiculous ending will have you in...stitches. I'm sorry.

Here's a hilarious gut busting animated short directed by Don Hertzfeldt called Wisdom Teeth. Hertzfeldt is known for making whacked out fun and violent stick figure type animated short films. 

His newest film recently screened at Fantastic Fest, and the video had me craking up!

Nigel gives in to his friend's innocent request.

Wisdom Teeth is an unnecessary new five minute cartoon that Don drew in between more important things.

I hope you enjoy the video! I've also included one of his previously released films called Rejected Cartoons.

Most know Don Hertzfeldt for his bizarre and surreal animated short film, Rejected. An Academy Award nominated, highly recognized animator, Hertzfeldt has developed what I would submit is more than just a cult following since breaking onto the animation scene in early 2000. Today’s Sunday Shorts offering is a glimpse back at the work Hertzfeldt created as a Uc Santa Barbara film student that prefaced his bursting into the public consciousness with the likes of talking bananas and dancing clouds with bleeding…er…yeah. Ah L’Amour (1995) Written, animated, edited by: Don Hertzfeldt While the artistic execution has certainly improved with time, this is definitely a Hertzfeldt offering. The off-kilter humor that hakes made the rest of his work so entertaining and worth revisiting is already beginning to show even as an eighteen year old student producing a class project — which this particular short film was. You can find out more about Don and his work at...

by Kim Adelman (October 30, 2008) Don Hertzfeldt is hitting the road. Having won the 2007 Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Award in Short Filmmaking for his epic short film "Everything will be ok," the 32-year-old animator of such instant-classic shorts as "Rejected," "The Meaning of Life," and "Billy's Balloon" is spending October and November 2008 touring North America in a rare series of one-night-only screenings to premiere his longest piece ever, the 22-minute "I am so proud of you." With ten more cities on his schedule, Hertzfeldt updates indieWIRE on his touring experiences to date.

Great news for the late comers! An Evening with Don Hertzfelt at the Alamo South Lamar just became one long night- another show's been added!

Cult animator and Academy Award nominee Don Hertzfeldt (The Meaning Of Life, Rejected, Billy's Balloon) joins us at the Alamo for a rare one-night-only event: A selection of Don's classic animated shorts return to the big screen, culminating in the exclusive regional premiere of his newest film, I Am So Proud Of You. His longest piece to date, I Am So Proud Of You is the eagerly anticipated second chapter to Everything Will Be Ok, Winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Jury Award in Short Filmmaking and named by many critics as one of the "best films of 2007". The screening will be immediately followed by a live on-stage interview and audience chat with Don Hertzfeldt.

Like all of Hertzfeldt's films, I Am So Proud Of You...

By Alison Willmore

The Oscar category of animated short film doesn't tend to get a lot of attention, but in 2001 it was host to one of the most unlikely and awesome nominations in recent Academy Award history. Alongside a tasteful watercolor-based work about a father and daughter and a stop-motion drama set in plague-era Europe was Don Hertzfeldt's "Rejected," a profane, hilarious and brilliantly absurd short filled with non sequitur-spouting stick figures and fluffy creatures bleeding from lower orifices, one that imagined an animator driven mad by his hopeless attempts to please corporate sponsors. The film didn't win, but did fuel a devoted fan base that's followed Hertzfeldt in his staunchly independent career of crafting totally distinctive animated shorts that have grown in ambition and sophistication even as he's continued to hand-draw his work and avoid computer influence. His last title, "Everything Will Be Ok," won the short film...

We are excited to bring out one of our favorite animators, and favorite filmmakers in general - Don Hertzfeldt to the Alamo South Lamar for one night only Saturday October 11th.

Don will be bringing out a selection of Don's classic animated shorts, culminating in the exclusive regional premiere of his newest film, I Am So Proud Of You. His longest piece to date, I am so proud of you is the eagerly anticipated second chapter to Everything Will Be Ok, Winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Jury Award in Short Filmmaking and named by many critics as one of the "best films of 2007". The screening will be immediately followed by a live on-stage interview and audience chat with Don Hertzfeldt.

Like all of Hertzfeldt's films, I Am So Proud Of You was single-handedly animated and photographed by hand without the use of computers. It was shot entirely on an antique 35mm animation stand,...