| Some highly recommended stop-motion animation available on DVD or VHS, and most of them could be ordered from Amazon, Reel or The Whole Toon Catalog: | ||
| Alchemist
of the Surreal; Scenes From the Surreal (Kino Video, VHS) |
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Each of the VHS collects some of Czech Surrealists Jan Svankmajer's early stop-motion animation shorts. A great chance to enjoy his dark humors and astonishing visual style. |
| The
Brothers Quay Collection (Kino Video, DVD; VHS) |
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Collect most of Brothers Quay's amazing animation shorts, including The Cabaret of Jan Svankmajer, Street of Crocodile, The Epic of Giggamesh, and two MTV for His Name is Alive. An interview of the twin animators is also included (DVD version only). |
| The Puppet Films of Jiri Trnka (Image Entertainment, DVD) |
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A wonderful collection of Trnka's puppet animation short, such as Story of The Bass Cello, A Drop Too Much, The Hand and the great feature, The Emperor's Nightingale. A short documentary about Trnka is also included. |
| Masters of Russian Animation volume 1- 4 (Image Entertainment, DVD) |
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An extraordinary collection which covers the history of Russian animation shorts from 1962 to 1990. Besides the masterpieces of 2D animation, such as Tale of Tales and Battle at Kerzhenets, some amazing puppet animation are also included, such as Nina Shorina's Dream and Alter Ego, Stannislav Sokolov's Big Underground Ball, Ideya Caranina's Cabaret. |
| Alice (Kino Video, DVD; VHS) |
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Jan Svankmajer's fascinating film version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Like his other two feature films, Faust and Conspirators of Pleasure, Alice integrates surrealistic visual effects and unusual animation style with live-action. You will get lost in the magician's wonderland. |
| The Secrete Adventure of Tom Thumb (Manga Entertainment; DVD) |
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British director Dave Borthwick's fantasy feature integrating stop-motion animation with live-action. An interesting example to see how human actors are "animated" like other clay puppets in the movie. |
| The Amazing Puppet Animation of Ladislas Starevich (DVD; VHS) |
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The Russian pioneer of stop-motion animation, Ladislas Starevich, made more than 40 shorts, and eight pieces are collected in the DVD, such as The Cameraman's Revenge, The Mascot, The Tale of the Fox and The Frogs Who Wanted a King |
| Creature Comforts (DVD;VHS) |
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In addition to Chicken Run and Wallace & Grommet, you can find more of Aardmen' great talents, crafts and diversity in this collection of their early clay animation shorts, such as Creature Comforts, Adam, Wat's Pig |
