Flea Sings

Nicholas Ray plays himself, acting as mentor, friend, and artistic inspiration to his students at Binghamton. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.

Featuring the swinging sounds of the all-woman band The International Sweethearts of Rhythm and a young Ruby Dee, the 1946 musical showcases tenderness in romance and community through a series of musical numbers. The loosely connected plot follows film producers hoping to cast a stand-out actress for their next film. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2008.

Narsingh, a North Indian taxi driver, attempts to reinvent his life by visiting his native place, but instead gets embroiled in a local Marwari businessman's smuggling and human trafficking business.

The cartoon is one of the Marshall Plan's most popular films. A clash between a shoemaker and a hat maker illustrates the contrasts between protectionism and free trade. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2003.

A family saga in which three of a Bavarian widow's sons go to war for Germany and the fourth goes to America, Germany's eventual opponent. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with L'Imaginne Ritrovato and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 1999.

Fascinating underwater documentary filmed with hand-held cameras by frogmen and mostly filmed in deep-water seas from within a special designed batiscaff, by the Cousteau family of sea explorers. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

Inspirational documentary short film featuring Hollywood stars promoting the sales of War Bonds through songs and skits. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

The filmed depiction of a program where convicts tell troubled kids about the horrors of prison life. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

An experimental short film by John Whitney Sr. which combines animated shapes and colors; Computer graphics as dynamic, swirling art. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

Experimental short subject preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, in 1998.

Images of two women, two men, and a gray cat form a montage of rapid bits of movement. A woman is in a bedroom, another wears an apron: they work with their hands, occasionally looking up. A man enters a room, a woman smiles. He sits, another man sits and smokes. The cat stretches. There are close-ups of each. The light is dim; a filter accentuates red. A bare foot stands on a satin sheet. A woman disrobes. She pets the cat. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

On a winter's day, a woman stretches near a window then sits in a bathtub of water. She's happy. Her lover is nearby; there are close ups of her face, her pregnant belly, and his hands caressing her. She gives birth: we see the crowning of the baby's head, then the birth itself; we watch a pair of hands tie off and cut the umbilical cord. With the help of the attending hands, the mother expels the placenta. The infant, a baby girl, nurses. We return from time to time to the bath scene. By the end, dad's excited; mother and daughter rest.

After the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid change in the images. Two figures emerge from this jungle of color: the first, a shirtless man, appears twice, coming into focus, then disappearing behind the bursts and patterns of color, then reappearing; the second figure appears later, in the right foreground. This figure suggests someone older, someone of substance. The myth? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Directors Werner Herzog and Errol Morris make a bet which results in Herzog living up to his promise that he would eat his shoe if Errol Morris ever completed the film Gates of Heaven.

Gus Van Sant, dissatisfied professionally, counts five ways to end his life. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

The short film was made from material shot for a Levi’s commercial on which Gus Van Sant was given complete freedom. Van Sant delivered the ad, and separately made his own short film; one that feels complete in and unto itself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

A bourgeois Cuban family of aristocratic origin locks itself into its mansion when the Cuban Revolution comes to power, waiting for the new regime to be overthrown. As time passes, they regress to older and older systems of political order, from capitalism to feudalism to "primitive savagery."

A stranger (Leo Willis) turns out to be a revenue agent and Texas' brother, Tom, turns him out. But when a gang of moonshiners captures the stranger, Texas takes matters into her own hands. There is a climactic shootout between the moonshiners and the "revenoo" agents, during which Texas is wounded. When the smoke settles, the agent proposes to his guardian angel and she accepts. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

Experimental short film preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.

Experimental short film preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.