Norman McLaren Movies

Two ballet dancers perform a dance enhanced with surreal after-image visuals.

Mixes with still images, 1940s. A large collection of McLaren's surrealist illustrations. Silent film.

An animated film drawn entirely in pastels. Various fantastical plant-like things "grow" from the ground, eventually launching five spheres. The...

The Korean alphabet, illustrated with animation, spoken, and accompanied by music.

Shows the production of the London telephone directory.

Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of...

This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited...

Perhaps the only film whose content is totally based on the musical form known as canon. The first sequence is a simple demonstration of the canon...

This 1967 footage shows McLaren at a computer with Evelyn Lambart, Rene Pardo and two other technicians, followed by the animation test some call...

An attempt to animate an abstract Charlie Chaplin-esque figure.

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors....

Made during WWII

An animated film in which colored shapes dance to calliope music. The visuals were drawn by Norman McLaren directly upon the film with pen and ink....

This animated short co-animated by René Jodoin and Norman McLaren was produced for inclusion in the Let's All Sing Together sing-along series....

Alexandre Alexeïeff illustrated the song "Et moi je m'enfouiyais" (En passant) using the pinscreen technique. Norman McLaren illustrated "C'est...

The Eye Hears, the Ear Sees is a 1970 documentary exploring the career of Norman McLaren, a Scots-Canadian animator known for his pioneering work in...

A gay fantasia of patterned sound in which Norman McLaren salutes the West Indies, painting the spirit of fiesta on film to the lively beat of an...

An animation film, made without the use of a camera, in which "boogie" played by Albert Ammons and "doodle" drawn by Norman McLaren combine to make a...

It's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks...

Unfinished animated film, 1940s. Silent film.