Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928)

The Short Films of David Lynch (2002) is a DVD collection of the early student and commissioned film work of American filmmaker David Lynch. As such, the collection does not include Lynch's later short work, which are listed in the filmography. The films are listed in chronological order, with brief descriptions of each film. The DVD contains introductions by Lynch to each film, which can be viewed individually or in sequence. # 1 Six Figures Getting Sick (Six Times) # 2 The Alphabet # 3 The Grandmother # 4 The Amputee # 5 The Cowboy and the Frenchman # 6 Premonitions Following an Evil Deed

Wallace rents out Gromit's former bedroom to a penguin, who takes up an interest in the techno pants created by Wallace. However, Gromit later learns that the penguin is a wanted criminal.

Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.

A folk horror movie about a woman who follows her boyfriend into the woods for a romantic surprise only to find something far more sinister. Inspired by thousands of witness accounts documenting the ongoing phenomenon of a certain species of shape-shifting creature in the forests of North America.

Mia recounts her most intimate confessions, uncensored, in her first approach to a totally new world of domination and submission.

Everyone knows that the stork delivers babies, but where do the storks get the babies from? The answer lies up in the stratosphere, where cloud people sculpt babies from clouds and bring them to life. Gus, a lonely and insecure grey cloud, is a master at creating "dangerous" babies. Crocodiles, porcupines, rams and more - Gus's beloved creations are works of art, but more than a handful for his loyal delivery stork partner, Peck. As Gus's creations become more and more rambunctious, Peck's job gets harder and harder. How will Peck manage to handle both his hazardous cargo and his friend's fiery temperament?

400 years into the future, disease has wiped out the majority of the world's population, except one walled city, Bregna, ruled by a congress of scientists. When Æon Flux, the top operative in the underground 'Monican' rebellion, is sent on a mission to kill a government leader, she uncovers a world of secrets.

Originally a collection of clips from the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series, Death was created as a precursor to the re-worked ending of the series. Rebirth was intended as that re-worked ending, but after production overruns Rebirth became only the first half of the first part of The End of Evangelion, with some minor differences.

When the eternally optimistic Poppy, queen of the Trolls, learns that the Bergens no longer have any holidays on their calendar, she enlists the help of Branch and the rest of the gang on a delightfully quirky mission to fix something that the Bergens don't think is broken.

Bitter and hateful, the Grinch is irritated at the thought of a nearby village having a happy time celebrating Christmas. Disguised as Santa Claus, with his dog made to look like a reindeer, he decides to raid the village to steal all the Christmas things.

Deadpool sees an opportunity to save the day, but it doesn't go entirely as planned.

A kid begs to stay home while his older sister runs to the store. After she leaves, he wishes he would have gone because he doesn’t feel comfortable being at home in the dark as strange things start to happen...

It's been ten years since the dragons moved to the Hidden World, and even though Toothless doesn't live in New Berk anymore, Hiccup continues the holiday traditions he once shared with his best friend. But the Vikings of New Berk were beginning to forget about their friendship with dragons. Hiccup, Astrid, and Gobber know just what to do to keep the dragons in the villagers' hearts. And across the sea, the dragons have a plan of their own...

A very old woman wants to have dinner with her friends. As they are all dead, the butler has to play the role of every guest.

Margo, Edith, and Agnes spot an ice cream truck. The three of them go after the truck but Agnes falls as she attempts to pedal to the truck. The Minions, seeing her so upset by this, decide to build her a unicorn-themed motorcycle. Agnes goes for a little ride around town.

A Minion, seeing many owners walk their dogs, wants a puppy of his own. He tries to leash a ladybug but fails. Luckily, a UFO that sweeps away the ladybug somehow agrees to become a Puppy.

The residents of Hotel Transylvania find their world turned upside-down when youngster Dennis gets a surprise monster-sized pet.

When 17-year-old Makoto Konno gains the ability to, quite literally, "leap" backwards through time, she immediately sets about improving her grades and preventing personal mishaps. However, she soon realises that changing the past isn't as simple as it seems, and eventually, will have to rely on her new powers to shape the future of herself and her friends.

A heroic version of Lex Luthor from an alternate universe appears to recruit the Justice League to help save his Earth from the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the League. What ensues is the ultimate battle of good versus evil in a war that threatens both planets and, through a devious plan launched by Batman's counterpart Owlman, puts the balance of all existence in peril.

Motion Painting No. 1 is a 1947 experimental short animated film in which film artist Oskar Fischinger put images in motion to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, BWV 1048. It is a film of a painting (oil on acrylic glass); Fischinger filmed each brushstroke over the course of 9 months. In 1997, this film was selected for inclusion in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Two Penny Magic (Zweigroschenzauber) starting off with a little magic trick. It then presents an array of images from swimmers, bicyclers, murderers, airplanes in flight, boxers, lovers, runners, becoming in the end a collection of images in a magazine.

This hand-painted and elaborately step-printed work begins with a flourish of reds and yellows and purples in palpable fruit-like shapes interspersed by darkness, then becomes lit lightning-like by sharp multiply-colored twigs-of shape, all resolving into shapes of decay.

Trade Tattoo went even further than Rainbow Dance in its manipulation of the Gasparcolor process. The original black and white footage consisted of outtakes from GPO Film Unit documentaries such as Night Mail. Lye transformed this footage in what has been described as the most intricate job of film printing and color grading ever attempted. Animated words and patterns combine with the live-action footage to create images as complex and multi-layered as a Cubist painting. Music was provided by the Cuban Lecuona Band. With its dynamic rhythms, the film seeks (in Lye’s words) to convey “a romanticism about the work of the everyday in all walks of life."

An illustration of a traditional French Canadian song in the form of progressing cutouts and still pictures.

An experimental short film of images and music made by Norman McLaren.

Multiple thrusts and then retractions of oranges, reds, blues, and the flickering, almost black, textural dissolves suggesting an amalgam approaching script.

Robert Breer animation from 1969. 16mm, color, silent, using spray paint & stencils.

With the screen split asymmetrically, one part in positive, the other negative, the film documents the evolution of simple celled organic forms into chains of cells then more complex images from tribal cultures and contemporary modernist concepts. The images react, interpenetrate, perhaps attack, absorb and separate, until a final symbiosis (or redemption?) is achieved.

Dark, fast-paced symmetry in mixed weave of tones moving from oranges & yellows to blue-greens, then retreating (dissolves of zooming away) to both rounded and soft-edged shapes shot with black.

A short film where circus performers entertain children.

Director Joseph Cornell evokes the nostalgia of childhood by filming a children's party.

“This is a hand-painted film whose emotionally referential shapes and colors are interwoven with words (in English) from the first Hymn to the Night by the late 18th century mystic poet Friedrich Philipp von Hardenberg, whose pen name was Novalis. The pieces of text which I've used are as follows: ‘the universally gladdening light … As inmost soul … it is breathed by stars … by stone … by suckling plant … multiform beast … and by (you). I turn aside to Holy Night … I seek to blend with ashes. Night opens in us … infinite eyes … blessed love.’” -SB

A collage of two-dimensional images of vegetation, each appearing only for a moment, sometimes as a single image, more often with other bits of stem, leaf, bud, or petal. Often we see only the outline of objects against a black background. Black and green are occasionally joined by fragments of orange or of white and blue. The objects in the frame don't move but they are quickly replaced by another collage, giving the feel of rapid motion. Each collage is crisp, its lines etched against the background of black and later of white. Whitman anyone, or Hieronymus Bosch? Although there is no soundtrack, the rapidity of changing images and colors suggests a riot.

A meadow, a lake, the silhouette of a hill, trees. 21 days of the same view in Saarland. 21 days with five different cut-outs in a mask before the camera, which finally reveals a complete panorama. The landscape changes with the advancing seasons and becomes slowly delirious in its technical alienation.

A day at the carnival — sensational tent shows where miracles can be seen for the price of admission, boisterous noise of crowds and barkers, shrill and gaudy circus music, the violence of the street ten-fold. This is the substance of Everything Turns, Richter’s first sound film. At its premier at Baden-Baden Richter got into a fight with two Nazi officials who disliked the film's ‘modernism.’ Yet in 1936 it was awarded first prize for artistic merit by the Nazis, with Richter’s name suppressed from the credits. He had long since left Germany.

Pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès performs his cine-magic act.

With a similar dreamy mood like its predecessor "Take the 5:10 to Dreamland" (1976) this clip starts with a boy getting into his bed. The camera zooms in into the boy's mind and a slow, sad waltz (i.e."Valse Triste") accompanies images of a locomotive, a miner, the globe, the sky, a sheep heard, etc. Disparate elements, but if one concentrates only at the movement of the figures, one can perceive a commotion, slowly livening up: The starting wheels of the heavy locomotive, the tired miner pushing the heavy cart of coal bricks, the globe smoothly turning around and around, the clouds imperceptibly floating in the sky, the sheep idly moving in the herd, etc. We reach the first climax when a mannequin opens her coat like a flower. The second big crescendo spurts out from a "water hose", after watching schoolgirls doing gymnastics for quite a while. A sad, but nostalgic aftertaste lingers in the end when funeral cars drive away through a flooded area…

A short, diaristic film; A series of impressions, animations and playful vignettes in color and B&W. Early/ Outtake footage of Menken's Lights can be seen here, as well as camera techniques she'd expand upon in later films.

A tilted figure, consisting largely of right angles at the beginning, grows by accretion, with the addition of short straight lines and curves which sprout from the existing design. The figure vanishes and the process begins again with a new pattern, each cycle lasting one or two seconds. The complete figures are drawn in a vaguely Art Deco style and could be said to resemble any number of things, an ear, a harp, panpipes, a grand piano with trombones, and so on, only highly stylized. The tone is playful and hypnotic.