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1
The Hill Farm (1989)
6.7/10on IMDb
Released
Mark Baker's 1988 film from the National Film and Television School is the oldest here, and the proof that a student film can become a classic. Its flat, childlike drawings follow a country couple and their shepherd through a few odd days of drought, flood, a monstrous bear, hunters and tourists, with the comedy built from patient observation rather than gags.
It won a BAFTA and the Grand Prix at Annecy and was nominated for an Oscar, and Baker later co-created Peppa Pig. At around 18 minutes it is the longest film on the list, so give it a proper sit-down. Mark Baker Films posted a restored version on its YouTube channel in 2021.
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The Building (2005)
6.5/10on IMDb
Released
Le Building, as it is better known, was made in 2005 by five final-year students at Gobelins as an opener for the Annecy festival, and it is still cited as one of the school's best student works. In little more than a minute, a man singing in the shower sets off a chain of slapstick accidents that wrecks his three-story apartment block.
Most of it is drawn by hand, with computer-animated pieces such as the bus and the pizza delivery rider blended in so closely that the joins are hard to spot. It won best undergraduate animation at Ottawa, and two of its directors, Pierre Perifel and Olivier Staphylas, went on to DreamWorks. Gobelins hosts it on its YouTube channel.
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Kiwi! (2006)
7.9/10on IMDb
Released
Dony Permedi's master's thesis at the School of Visual Arts in New York lasts three minutes, has no dialogue and became one of YouTube's early viral hits. A kiwi spends its life nailing trees to a cliff face, for a reason that only becomes clear when it jumps.
The computer animation is simple by current standards, but the idea is perfectly built, and viewers still argue over the final sound. YouTube's first video awards voted it the most adorable video of 2006. Watch the upload on the SVA MFA Computer Arts channel rather than the many copies set to other music.
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Oktapodi (2008)
7.2/10on IMDb
Released
Six Gobelins students made this two-and-a-half-minute chase, and it went all the way to an Oscar nomination for best animated short, a rare feat for a graduation project. Two octopuses in love are separated by a stubborn restaurant cook, and the escape that follows tears through the streets of a Greek seaside town.
The rubbery, elastic animation and the pace of the gags make it the best place to start if you have never watched a student film. Gobelins hosts it on its own YouTube channel.
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Mobile (2010)
6.9/10on IMDb
Released
Verena Fels made this computer-animated comedy with her team at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, and it is the gentlest film on the list. A cow at the edge of society tips the balance of destiny, and the title tells you just how literally the film means it.
It builds a whole small world from one simple physical idea and wrings every gag out of it. It won the 2010 animago award for best young production and the best student film prize at Anima Mundi. The Filmakademie hosts it on its YouTube channel.
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Defective Detective (2011)
6.5/10on IMDb
Released
Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis made this as computer animation students at Ringling College, and it took the bronze medal for animation at the 2011 Student Academy Awards. A washed-up detective's imagination runs wild as he tries to solve the most critical case of his career, and the comedy lives in the gap between what he pictures and what is really going on.
The bold, graphic color design looks more like a studio short than a thesis film. The Academy itself hosts it on the Oscars YouTube channel.
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Sleeping with the Fishes (2013)
7.2/10on IMDb
Released
Yousif Al-Khalifa's hand-drawn graduation film from the National Film and Television School won the BAFTA for British short animation in 2014. Sonja is a lonely fishmonger, more at ease with her fish than with her customers, until a delivery man turns up who looks like a rainbow trout.
It is a small, dry comedy about shyness, and the classical drawing gives its awkward characters a softness that keeps the joke kind. BAFTA hosts it on its own YouTube channel.
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Symphony No. 42 (2014)
7.6/10on IMDb
Released
Réka Bucsi's graduation film from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest is the strangest film here, and one of the most rewatchable: 47 short scenes linked by what it calls the irrational connections between humans and nature.
There is no plot to follow, just one deadpan, surreal idea after another, and the fun lies in spotting how each scene feeds the next. It premiered in competition at the Berlinale and was long-listed for an Oscar. Bucsi hosts it on her own Vimeo page, and Hungary's National Film Institute has it on YouTube.
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Sweet Cocoon (2014)
5.9/10on IMDb
Released
ESMA's 2014 graduation comedy follows a caterpillar trying to complete her metamorphosis in a cocoon that is far too small, while two insects do their earnest best to help.
The squash-and-stretch animation and precisely timed slapstick make it a favorite to show children, and it has a warmth that many technically flashier student films lack. ESMA hosts it on its own YouTube channel, where it has passed ten million views.
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The Present (2014)
7.5/10on IMDb
Released
Jacob Frey's graduation film from the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg runs just over four minutes and is the one most likely to make you cry. Jake spends his days indoors playing video games until his mom gives him a present, and the reveal that follows is handled with real restraint.
It is based on a comic strip by Fabio Coala, it played at hundreds of festivals, and Frey went on to Walt Disney Animation Studios largely because of the attention it received. The Filmakademie and the film's own channel both host it on YouTube.
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Garden Party (2017)
7.3/10on IMDb
Released
Six students at the French school MoPA made this as their graduation film, and it was nominated for the Oscar for best animated short. Frogs and toads explore a deserted luxury villa, swimming in the murky pool and feasting on caviar and macarons among the rotting leftovers, while the clues to why the owners are gone pile up.
The photoreal amphibians are astonishing, but it is the slow, darkly funny reveal that lifts it beyond a showreel. Short of the Week hosts it on its YouTube channel. The ending involves a dead body, so it is not one for younger children.
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Hybrids (2017)
6.9/10on IMDb
Released
Five MoPA students imagined what happens when marine wildlife has to adapt to the pollution around it, and the answer plays as part nature documentary, part creature feature, with the rules of survival rewritten.
It is the most technically dazzling film here, and the industry noticed: it won the Visual Effects Society award for outstanding visual effects in a student project, and its Grand Jury Prize at Sitges made it eligible for the Oscars. The message is built into the creatures themselves, so the film never needs to lecture. The filmmakers host it on their own YouTube channel.
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In a Heartbeat (2017)
7.6/10on IMDb
Released
Esteban Bravo and Beth David's senior thesis at Ringling College became a worldwide hit: a closeted boy's heart pops out of his chest to chase the boy he has a crush on. It was funded on Kickstarter, where it raised more than four times its $3,000 goal.
It was shortlisted for the Oscar for best animated short and came ninth on YouTube's list of the top trending videos of 2017. The warm, rounded character design and a premise anyone can grasp in seconds explain why it traveled so far. It is on the film's own YouTube channel.
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Best Friend (2018)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
This 2018 Gobelins film won the Annie Award for best student film, and it is the darkest work on the list. In a near future, a lonely man is addicted to a product called Best Friend, which supplies him with perfect virtual friends.
The bright, appealing design is what makes it unsettling, because the film understands exactly how attractive the fantasy looks before it shows the cost. Gobelins hosts it on its YouTube channel, where it has passed 12 million views.
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Off-Piste (2018)
7.2/10on IMDb
Released
Hors Piste, as it is known in French, is a 2018 comedy by four students at the École des Nouvelles Images. The two best rescue workers in the region set off on their latest mission, and despite all their professionalism it does not go as planned.
It is the purest slapstick on the list, built on one escalating disaster after another, and the off-piste setting of its title makes every fall look steeper. It won the BAFTA Student Film Award for animation and an Oscar-qualifying prize at the New York International Children's Film Festival. The school hosts it on its YouTube channel.
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The Fox & the Pigeon (2019)
Released
A team of eleven Sheridan College students in Canada made this, and it won the Annie Award for best student film. A fox lives on the pages of a book and obediently does whatever the narrator reads out, until a pigeon arrives hoping for a taste of his ice cream cone and the two end up fighting for their lives.
The storybook framing gives it a clever structure, playing the characters against the text, and it is one of the best choices here for families. The student team's own channel, OOV Studios, hosts it on YouTube.
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Homebird (2021)
Released
Ewa Smyk's graduation film from the National Film and Television School is the most handmade film on the list: every frame of movement and many background pieces were painted on acetate sheets with marker pens and acrylic gouache.
Struggling to make it in a big city, a young artist retreats into rose-tinted memories of the village she left behind, and the painted texture makes those memories glow like old photographs. At about ten minutes it asks for a little patience, and repays it. The production company Bare Golly Films hosts it on Vimeo.
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The Little Poet (2023)
Released
Justine King made this as her third-year film at CalArts, and it won the Annie Award for best student film. The Little Poet sits sketching in a museum, imagining life inside a painting, and the film follows a little girl and a little boy through brushstroke worlds inspired by Van Gogh, Monet, Miró and Seurat.
It is a love letter to art and to looking closely, and the switch between painters' styles makes it a treat for anyone who enjoys art history as much as animation. It also won the Walter and Gracie Lantz Animation Prize at CalArts' 2023 Character Animation Producers' Show. King hosts it on her own YouTube channel.
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