My 25 Favourite Live Action Short Films

The story of a man forced to explore his memories in the wake of World War III's devastation, told through still images.

A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.

The First part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an eight-year-old living on the breadline with his half-brother and sick grandmother in a poor mining village.

In a repressive boarding school with rigid rules of behavior, four boys decide to rebel against the direction on a celebration day.

A scientist chooses a wealthy man over her two lovers but must heal the earth's core to save humanity.

The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.

Jamie and Tommy are separated by the death of their grandmother; Jamie with another relative and Tommy to a welfare home. Now Jamie is all alone and his life is not at all happy taken over by silence, rejection and violence.

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.

A group of astronomers go on an expedition to the Moon.

A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.

Simon, a deeply religious man living in the 4th century, wants to be nearer to God so he climbs a column. The Devil wants him to come down to Earth and is trying to seduce him.

This is the first movie version of the famous story. Alice dozes in a garden, awakened by a dithering white rabbit in waistcoat with pocket watch. She follows him down a hole and finds herself in a hall of many doors.

The Little Tramp and his dog companion struggle to survive in the inner city.

Two men emerge from the sea onto the beach carrying a large wooden wardrobe with a mirror on its front. After the two men clean up and rejoice being in this new environment, they proceed to enter the nearby town, they carrying the wardrobe wherever they go. They just want to meet people and experience their new surroundings, but are largely shunned or ignored. In some instances, they are shunned even when their presence helps the situation. And in other instances of being shunned, they are beaten. And when they are ignored, the world just keeps going without them, often at the detriment of humankind. Ultimately, the two men, with their wardrobe, make a decision about what to do in light of their experiences.

Theo, Marite, and Franz cannot make any money selling magazines door to door, so they try a little robbery.

Antoine Doinel is 17, lives in a hotel and works in a factory making records; he loves music. He falls in love with a woman he meets at a concert. She sees him as a friend, but her parents love him.

After witnessing an act of unprecedented violence without even flinching, an emotionally numb real-estate agent visits his ailing mother at the hospital, and then, the graveyard. Is there a speck of happiness in this cruel and short life?

A man gets trapped inside a telephone box and nobody is able to free him.

With an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess. On the brink of giving up, she meets the world champion, Capablanca himself, with interesting results.

Unknowingly, a copy shop employee sets off a bizarre series of events with utterly unforeseen consequences.

Two prisoners in complete isolation, separated by the thick brick walls, and desperately in need of human contact, devise a most unusual kind of communication.

A couple is brutally murdered in the working-class district of Paris. Later on, the narrative follows the lives of their two daughters, both in love with a Parisian thug and leading them to separate ways.

A woman enters a restaurant one morning - only to be met with silence instead of people talking.

A father rediscovers his fear of confrontation at the worst possible time.