Film Critics Pick The Best Short Films Ever Made. Every week, the Critic. Wire Survey asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday morning. The answer to the second, What is the best film in theaters right now can be found at the end of this post. This weeks question This past weekend saw the release of  Lights Out, which is based on a horrifying short film. Shorts can have tremendous value, though even the best of them tend to fly under the radar. What is your favorite short film, and why Miriam Bale mimbale, freelance. I count this Resnais film about plastics, La chant de la styrene, and an industrial film by Les Blank about factory farm chickens, Chicken Real, among the best films, and certainly best docs, Ive seen. And the Safdies short Johns Gone is probably my favorite of their movies, if not their best. The most exciting American indie filmmakers I can think of have so far been mostly working in short form Zia Anger, Dustin Guy Defa, Gillian Horvat, and Frances Bodomo. Christopher Campbell thefilmcynic NonficsFilm School Rejects. As one of the people who separates best from favorite, Id like to first note that the best short film ever made is Night and Fog. But Id feel weird saying its my favorite. As if I enjoy it. My favorite, and one I will forever enjoy more than anything else, is Un Chien Andalou. Since I first saw it during my film school orientation week and going on 2. I havent experienced a greater feeling of not knowing what the hell Im watching and also knowing totally what Im watching at the same time. Slicing up eye balls, ha ha ha ho. David Ehrlich davidehrlich, Indiewire. As tempting as it is always is for me to go with Don Hertzfeldts World of Tomorrow regardless of the question, really, Im sticking with Chris Markers 1. La Jtee, if only because it has always been my favorite short, and no matter what I do to change things it will always be my favorite short if youve seen the movie, youll know what I mean. Note that the clip above is just an excerpt. For the full thing, check out Criterions essential edition. Jordan Hoffman Jhoffman, The Guardian. Shorts tend to lend themselves to full throated formalist experimentation a little bit better for me than at feature length. Peter Kubelkas Arnulf Rainer  is cinema in a pure subatomic higher dimensional form and its absolutely perfect. But if it lasted longer than six minutes and forty five seconds Im reminded of Diane Keatons quote from Manhattan I loved it when I was at Radcliffe, but I mean all right So the shorts that stick with me, or at least offer the most value to me, are non traditional narratives that, with a few key exceptions, arent tenable at feature length. Watch The Big Snit Imdb TrueBring Out the GIMP Girls in Merciless Peril November 2012 Archives. Discussion Forum for Extreme Bondage Fantasy Video. DVDs or Web. One month of many years of. The Day the Earth Stood Still need not have taken its title so seriously that the plot stands still along with it. There isnt much here you wont remember from the. Bring Out the GIMP Girls in Merciless Peril may 2010 Archives. Discussion Forum for Extreme Bondage Fantasy Video. DVDs or Web. One month of eight years worth of. BIG-SNIT-8-425x313.jpg' alt='Watch The Big Snit Imdb Lost' title='Watch The Big Snit Imdb Lost' />Movies News Is there an ongoing contest for the worst film of 2017 If there is, The Mummy has just told all other contenders to hold its beer and watch it do the. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie YIFY subtitles. Gods Not Dead 2014 movie YIFY subtitles. If the first Star Wars 1977 hadnt already been rebranded A New Hope, that optimistic title might have applied just as well to Star Wars The Force. This can range from psychedelic head scramblers like Michael Snows Wavelength to the more playful, Mythbusters esque Fischli and Weiss project The Way Things Go. Not all of this is in amber, though Bill Morrison is doing non narrative work as groundbreaking as anyone thats gone before him. I still need to pick one, though, dont ISo I pick Power of Ten by the Eameses as a nice example of all of this, but if and only if you watch it with the sound off while Pink Floyds Echoes is playing over it. Eric Kohn erickohn, Indie. Wire. Before Emily Carmichael landed a gig directing the upcoming Steven Spielberg produced film Powerhouse, she made her mark with a series of short films, but RPG OKC is her crowning accomplishment to date the cutesy tale of an animated fantasy character in a nineties era video game who falls in love with a woman he meets online, only to discover that she lives in a different realm. This deceptively silly framing device builds to surprising high stakes and an emotionally satisfying climax, proving that its not the medium but the message that makes great storytelling soar. Just try watching the above saga and not get drawn into its touching romance, pixels and all. Tomris Laffly Tomi. Laffly, Film Journal International, Film School Rejects. Ill give you two. Ive always loved the 1. The Big Snit. This story of a couple so worked up with a game of scrabble that they dont notice a nuclear war erupting outside perfectly captures the daily battle and adventure of growing old with someone you love so dearly. And Chaplins A Dogs Life never fails to warm my heart with a story of a stray dog that makes his best friendrescuers life better. And spoiler those puppies in the endYes, there are puppies, so now you have to watch it. Amy Nicholson The. Watch Bounty Killer Putlocker. Amy. Nicholson, MTVThunder Road from Jim Cummings on Vimeo. Perfect timing for this question. This Sundance, I was on the short film jury and our Grand Prize winner, Thunder Road, just debuted on Vimeo. Writerdirectorstar Jim Cummings single take tragicomedy about a cop melting down during his mothers funeral had us on the muddy floor. Fellow juror Keegan Michael Key nearly choked laughing. As soon as the screening was over, we ran for the car to look up this Jim guy on IMDb and were like, Who the hell is this dude whos never acted before He pulls off two near impossibles stop and start stream of consciousness dialogue and 2. Maybe Im embarrassing him, but after the ceremony, we heard that Jim pawned his wedding ring to make the film and when he got the call hed made it into Sundance, he thought it was a prank. No prank hes the real deal. Matt Patches misterpatches, ThrillistNo LiesYou could mistake the opening of Mitchell Blocks 1. No Lies for a Snap. Chat stars daily dispatch. A cameraman, rolling 1. Kodak gave it away, follows a primping young woman as she expounds on her plans for the night. Its all casual and carefree until the interviewer digs a little too deep. No Lies Blocks student film is renowned for examining sexual assault victims, and the perception of rape narratives by outsiders, through a frank and shattering lens. The faux vrit style disarms the viewer. The acting remains invisible to end. The cataclysmic memories flood Blocks small New York apartment set without suffocating the point. No Lies leaves no grey area to the definition of victimhood its fiction forged from absolute truth. Tasha Robinson Tasha. Robinson, The Verge. This is the hardest question youve ever asked, and possibly the one most likely to send critics into an Internet spiral of watching and comparing their favorite Pixar shorts, their favorite classic silent shorts, and their favorite big time directors doing early experiments shorts. Im just going with my knee jerk answer, the short thats haunted me since I saw it in an Oscar contender program back in 1. It won that Oscar, as well it should have. Balance is a haunting little stop motion fantasy short by German animators Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein, about five silent men on a mysterious plinth in an empty space, trying to co exist even though they pretty clearly all hate each other. I love everything about this short its minimalist but creepy soundscape, its stark visual design, the way its characters pride and resentment of each other come through in their posture even though they barely have faces. And I love where it goes metaphorically, which couldnt be clearer. Its a study in clarity of story without exposition or even dialogue, and I never get tired of watching it. Q What is the best movie currently playing in theaters A Hunt For The WilderpeopleStay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news Sign up for our Festivals newsletter here.