Directed by Hilton Edwards • 1953 • United Kingdom

Orson Welles, playing himself, picks up a hitchhiker who recounts a strange story. Actors Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards made this short film during a hiatus from shooting OTHELLO (1952).

Directed by Claude Jutra and Norman McLaren • 1957 • Canada

This 1957 experimental short, codirected by Claude Jutra and Norman McLaren, shows Jutra’s daring and original approach to filmmaking early on in his career.

Directed by John Hubley • 1959 • United States

John and Faith Hubley recorded a conversation between their young sons and set it to animated visuals to create this charming, Academy Award–winning adventure in which two boys set out on a late-night quest to capture a bird.

Directed by Shirley Clarke and Willard Van Dyke • 1960 • United States

Nominated for an Academy Award, this live-action short film by director Shirley Clarke playfully chronicles the construction of the Tishman Building at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Clarke referred to this work as a musi...

Directed by Richard Lester • 1959 • United Kingdom

This film, directed by Richard Lester, was shot over two Sundays in 1959 for a cost of about seventy pounds. Nominated for an Oscar for best live-action short, it features Lester, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Graham Stark, and Bruce Lacey.

Directed by Pierre Etaix and Jean-Claude Carrière • 1962 • France

A young woman waits and waits for her delayed husband to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

Directed by John Hubley • 1962 • United States
Starring Dizzy Gillespie, George Mathews

Dizzy Gillespie and George Mathews improvise a dialogue between two New York City construction workers, illuminating the anxieties of everyday life in the age of nuclear war in this Academy Award winner for b...

Directed by John Hubley and Faith Hubley • 1968 • United States
Starring Emily Hubley, Georgia Hubley

Two little girls explore their views on marriage, death, babies, and love in this gently poignant, Academy Award–nominated idyll suffused with the offhanded wisdom of childhood.

Directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Ellen Giffard • 1974 • United States

Nominated for an Academy Award, CHRISTO'S VALLEY CURTAIN celebrates the Bulgarian-born artist's dramatic hanging of a huge orange curtain between two Colorado mountains. Since the late 1950's, Christo's large-sca...

Directed by Saul J. Turell • 1979 • United States

Saul J. Turell's Academy Award-winning documentary short Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist, narrated by Sidney Poitier, traces his career through his activism and his socially charged performances of his signature song, "Ol' Man River."