36 Free Oscar Winning Films Available on the Web

in Film | February 26th, 2012

LOS ANGELES - JAN 16: Oscars at the 86th Academy Awards Nominat

How about some hors d’oeu­vres meant to accom­pa­ny the main course, the 2014 Acad­e­my Awards? We scout­ed around the web and found 36 Oscar-win­ning (or nom­i­nat­ed) films from pre­vi­ous years. The list includes many short films, but also some long ones, like Sergei Bon­darchuk’s epic ver­sion of War & Peace. Sit back, enjoy, and let us know if we’re miss­ing any oth­er Oscar win­ners…

Find more films in our col­lec­tion of 700 Free Movies Online.

  • A Herb Alpert & the Tijua­na Brass Dou­ble Fea­ture — Free — A pre­cur­sor to mod­ern music videos, this Oscar-win­ning ani­mat­ed film by John & Faith Hub­ley is set to the music of two pop­u­lar songs record­ed by Herb Alpert. (1966)
  • A Sto­ry of Heal­ing — Free – Won Acad­e­my Award for best Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject. Fol­lows a team of vol­un­teers in Viet­nam. (1997)
  • Churchill’s Island — Free – WWII pro­pa­gan­da film chron­i­cling the defense of Great Britain. Won the very first Acad­e­my Award for Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject. (1941)
  • Der Fuehrer’s Face – Free – Disney’s anti-Nazi pro­pa­gan­da movie fea­tur­ing Don­ald Duck. Won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (1942)
  • Every Child – Free – Eugene Fedorenko’s ani­mat­ed short about an unwant­ed baby cared for by a home­less men. Won 1979 Oscar for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  • Father and Daugh­ter – Free – Michaël Dudok De Wit’s heart­break­ing short won the 2000 Acad­e­my Award for Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (2000)
  • Fla­men­co at 5:15 – Free – Oscar-win­ning short film about a fla­men­co dance class giv­en to senior stu­dents. (1983)
  • Franz Kafka’s It’s a Won­der­ful Life - Free — Direct­ed by Peter Capal­di, the Oscar-win­ning short film shows Kaf­ka, on Christ­mas Eve, strug­gling to come up with the open­ing line for his most famous work, The Meta­mor­pho­sis. (1993)
  • Glass - Free — Direct­ed by Bert Haanstra, this short doc­u­men­tary about the glass indus­try won the Acad­e­my Award for Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject in 1959. (1958)
  • Granny O’Grimm’s Sleep­ing Beau­ty- Free – 6 minute ani­mat­ed black com­e­dy. Short­list­ed for the 2010 Oscar for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (2008)
  • Logo­ra­ma – Free – François Alaux and Herve de Crecy’s 17 minute film, Logo­ra­ma, won the Oscar for Short Film (Ani­mat­ed) in 2009.
  • If You Love This Plan­et – Free – Oscar-win­ning short film on the need for nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment. (1982)
  • I’ll Find a Way – Free – Oscar-win­ning doc­u­men­tary presents Nadia, a 9‑year-old girl with spina bifi­da. (1977)
  • Is It Right to Be Always Right? — Free — Nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles, this Oscar-win­ning film direct­ed by Lee Mishkin is a para­ble that com­ments on divi­sions in the Unit­ed States. (1970)
  • J’attendrai le suiv­ant – Free – A French film nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award for the Best Short Film in 2002.
  • Madame Tut­li-Put­li – Free – Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed ani­mat­ed short film by Mon­tre­al film­mak­ers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczer­bows­ki. (2010)
  • Neigh­bors – Free – Nor­man McLaren ani­mates live actors with tech­niques nor­mal­ly used to put drawings/puppets into motion. Oscar win­ner. (1952)
  • Ryan – Free – Oscar-win­ning ani­mat­ed short from Chris Lan­dreth based on the life of Ryan Larkin, the influ­en­tial Cana­di­an ani­ma­tor. (2004)
  • Spe­cial Deliv­ery – Free – Hilar­i­ous sto­ry won 1978 Oscar for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  • Super­man – Free – Max Fleischer’s short ani­mat­ed movie. Nom­i­nat­ed for the 1942 Acad­e­my Award for Best Short Sub­ject: Car­toons. (1941)
  • The Cathe­dral — Free — “The Cathe­dral” is the title of a sci fi short sto­ry by Jacek Dukaj. It was turned into a short ani­mat­ed movie by Tomasz Bag­ińs­ki and nom­i­nat­ed in 2002 for the Acad­e­my Award for Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (2002)
  • The Crit­ic - Free — Mel Brooks 1963 ani­ma­tion fea­tures an old Yid­dish watch­ing abstract ani­ma­tions. Hilar­i­ous film won Oscar. (1963)
  • The Dan­ish Poet — Free — Ani­mat­ed short film writ­ten, direct­ed, and ani­mat­ed by Torill Kove and nar­rat­ed by Liv Ull­mann, won the Acad­e­my Award in 2006.
  • The Dot and the Line - Free — Chuck Jones’ ani­mat­ed film cel­e­brates geom­e­try and hard work. (1965)
  • The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more — Free — Oscar-win­ning film by Moon­bot Stu­dios pays homage to a bygone era when ele­gant­ly print­ed books inhab­it­ed our world. (2011)
  • The Hole – Free — A 15-minute ani­mat­ed film by John Hub­ley and Faith Hub­ley that won an Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film in 1962. Fea­tures the voice of Dizzy Gille­spie. (1962)
  • The Last Farm – Free – Short Ice­landic film nom­i­nat­ed for Oscar in 2006.
  • The Lunch Date – Free – Adam Davidson’s com­men­tary on race in Amer­i­ca. The short film won an Oscar and a prize at Cannes. (1989)
  • The Man with the The Gold­en Arm – Free — Direct­ed by Otto Pre­minger. Star­ring Frank Sina­tra and Kim Novak. Nom­i­nat­ed for three Acad­e­my Awards. (1955)
  • The Old Man and the Sea – Free – Alek­san­dr Petrov won the Acad­e­my Award for Short Film for this film that fol­lows the plot of Ernest Hemingway’s clas­sic 1952 novel­la. Made of 29,000 images paint­ed on glass. (1999)
  • The Red Bal­loon — Free — A short fan­ta­sy film direct­ed by French film­mak­er Albert Lam­or­isse. Won Acad­e­my Award for Best Orig­i­nal Screen­play and a Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val in 1956.
  • The Sand Cas­tle – Free – Short ani­mat­ed film about the sand­man and the crea­tures he sculpts out of sand. 1977 Oscar-win­ner for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  • Tin Toy – Free – John Las­seter cre­at­ed this Oscar-win­ning short film in 1988 at Pixar. It was the begin­ning of the company’s tran­si­tion into being a pre­mier ani­ma­tion stu­dio.
  • Toot, Whis­tle, Plunk and Boom – Free – Disney’s music edu­ca­tion film. First car­toon released in widescreen Cin­e­maS­cope. Won 1954 Acad­e­my Award for Best Short Sub­ject (Car­toons). (1953)
  • Walk­ing – Free – Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed ani­mat­ed short film by Ryan Larkin. (1969)
  • War & Peace — Free — Sovi­et direc­tor Sergei Bon­darchuk turns Tolstoy’s great nov­el into what Roger Ebert calls “the defin­i­tive epic of all time.” Won Acad­e­my Award – Best For­eign Lan­guage Film in 1969. (1965–1967)
  • Why Man Cre­ates - Free - Saul Bass’ Oscar-win­ning ani­ma­tion on the nature of cre­ativ­i­ty. (1963)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

200 Free Doc­u­men­taries Online

21 Free Hitch­cock Movies Online

Tarkovsky Films Now Free Online

The 10 Great­est Films of All Time Accord­ing to 846 Film Crit­ics

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The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore: Film for Book Lovers Wins Oscar

in Animation, Books, Film | February 26th, 2012

Remem­ber The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more? The short film we fea­tured a month ago? Well, it won an Oscar tonight for best ani­mat­ed short film, and we’re bring­ing it back for one more show­ing, plus adding it to our list of Oscar films avail­able online.

The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more offers a mod­ern trib­ute to an old world. Made with an ani­ma­tion style that blends stop motion with com­put­er ani­ma­tion and tra­di­tion­al hand-draw­ing, the silent film pays homage to a bygone era when ele­gant­ly print­ed books inhab­it­ed our world. The 15-minute short is the first made by Moon­bot Stu­dios, a fledg­ling ani­ma­tion shop in Shreve­port, Louisiana. For their efforts, Moon­bot’s founders (William Joyce, Bran­don Old­en­burg and Lamp­ton Enochs) received an Oscar-nom­i­na­tion this week (Best Ani­mat­ed Short), putting them in com­pe­ti­tion with two oth­er films fea­tured on Open Cul­ture: Sun­day and Wild Life.

We rec­om­mend watch­ing The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more on YouTube, or down­load­ing it for free in HD from iTunes. iPad own­ers will also want to con­sid­er buy­ing the relat­ed app ($4.99) that turns the film into an inter­ac­tive nar­ra­tive expe­ri­ence.

For more ani­mat­ed bib­lio­phil­ia, don’t miss:

Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Bib­lio­philes

Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

Going West: A Stop Motion Nov­el

Books Come to Life in Clas­sic Car­toons from 1930s and 1940s

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Dhani Harrison Presents The George Harrison Guitar App for the iPad

in iPad, Music | February 26th, 2012

About a month back, we fea­tured George Har­rison’s long lost gui­tar solo on “Here Comes the Sun,” and you went gaga for it. Lit­tle did we know that George Har­rison’s son, Dhani, was just about ready to unveil a new iPad app called The Gui­tar Col­lec­tion: George Har­ri­son. It runs $9.99, and it’s only avail­able on the iPad, which hard­ly makes it an instance of Open Cul­ture. But we love The Bea­t­les around here, and the app does some­thing fair­ly spe­cial. It gives you a high-tech intro­duc­tion to sev­en George Har­ri­son gui­tars, using 360° images, sound files, videos, and lots of text and fac­toids. The video above offers a quick tour of the app. In the video below, Dhani Har­ri­son explains how the the app came togeth­er on the Conan O’Brien Show. Thanks for the heads up Liz.

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Jim Henson Pilots The Muppet Show with Adult Episode, “Sex and Violence” (1975)

in Comedy, Television | February 24th, 2012

In the ear­ly 1970s, Jim Hen­son was wor­ried that the Mup­pets were becom­ing type­cast as chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment. So in Decem­ber of 1974 he pro­duced a pilot episode for The Mup­pet Show and gave it a name that was about as far away from Sesame Street as you could get: “Sex and Vio­lence.”

The half-hour pilot was first broad­cast on ABC in March of 1975. It’s a fast-mov­ing series of vignettes, fea­tur­ing a mot­ley cast of characters–many of whom would become famil­iar in lat­er years–appearing and reap­pear­ing through­out. Sam the Eagle, Sgt. Floyd Pep­per, The Swedish Chef, Statler and Wal­dorf, and a wrestler named The San Fran­cis­co Earth­quake all make an appear­ance. At one point, Ker­mit the Frog propo­si­tions a female with the line, “I might be able to get you a job on an edu­ca­tion­al show for kids.” The sto­ry, to the extent there is one, cen­ters around prepa­ra­tions for a “Sev­en Dead­ly Sins Pageant.” Alas, the pageant nev­er quite gets off the ground. As Sam the Eagle sage­ly asks: “Do we real­ly want to get into a ‘dead­ly sins’ sit­u­a­tion?”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pup­pet Mak­ing with Jim Hen­son: A Primer

Jim Henson’s Zany 1963 Robot Film Uncov­ered by AT&T: Watch Online

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Inspirations: A Short Film Celebrating the Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher

in Art, Film, Math | February 24th, 2012

Almost two years ago, Span­ish film­mak­er Cristóbal Vila shot an exquis­ite lit­tle film, Nature by Num­bers, which cap­tured the ways in which math­e­mat­i­cal con­cepts (Fibonac­ci Sequence, Gold­en Num­ber, etc.) reveal them­selves in nature. And the short then clocked a good 2.1 mil­lion views on YouTube alone.

This week, Vila returns with a new film called Inspi­ra­tions. In this case, the inspi­ra­tion is M.C. Esch­er (1898–1972), the Dutch artist who explored a wide range of math­e­mat­i­cal ideas with his wood­cuts, lith­o­graphs, and mez­zot­ints. Although Esch­er had no for­mal train­ing in math­e­mat­ics beyond sec­ondary school, many math­e­mati­cians count­ed them­selves as admir­ers of his work. (Vis­it this online gallery to get bet­ter acquaint­ed with Escher’s art, and be sure to click on the thumb­nails to enlarge the images). As Vila explains, Inspi­ra­tions tries to imag­ine Escher’s work­place, “what things would sur­round an artist like him, so deeply inter­est­ed in sci­ence in gen­er­al and math­e­mat­ics in par­tic­u­lar.” It’s a three min­utes of unbri­dled imag­i­na­tion.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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“The Periodic Table Table” — All The Elements in Hand-Carved Wood

in Science | February 24th, 2012

In 2011, Theo Gray (co-founder of Wol­fram Research, Pop­u­lar Sci­ence colum­nist, and ele­ment col­lec­tor) won the ACS Grady Stack Award for Inter­pret­ing Chem­istry for the Pub­lic. And here you can see why. In this clip, Gray intro­duces you to his DIY mas­ter­piece — the world’s first “peri­od­ic table table.” Yes, we’re talk­ing about a hand-carved wood­en table that brings to life the Peri­od­ic Table, and lets you play with the ele­ments. The project began back in 2002, and now, a decade lat­er, Gray puts it on dis­play in a video pro­duced by the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Chem­istry on YouTube: “Peri­od­ic Table of Videos” Wins SPORE Prize

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Jefferson Airplane Plays on a New York Rooftop; Jean-Luc Godard Captures It (1968)

in Film, Music | February 24th, 2012

Just when you think you’ve seen every­thing Jean-Luc Godard has ever shot, some­thing like this sur­faces. If you’re only now con­sid­er­ing tuck­ing into the feast that is Godard­’s fil­mog­ra­phy, don’t let his abun­dance of uncol­lect­ed odds, ends, clips, and shorts intim­i­date you. Not only do they promise a lit­tle thrill down the road when you’ve already digest­ed his major works, but they offer quick bursts at any time of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary cin­e­mat­ic zest with which the film­mak­er took on the world. With the man alive and work­ing, I should per­haps say “the rev­o­lu­tion­ary cin­e­mat­ic zest with which the film­mak­er takes on the world,” but that gets into one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing con­ver­sa­tions that swirls around him: has Godard still got it?

Some say yes, that his lat­est pic­ture Film Social­isme presents the log­i­cal con­tin­u­a­tion of all Godard has ever rep­re­sent­ed; some say no, that the Godard to watch remains the scrap­py star of the 1960s’ French New Wave. In his study Every­thing is Cin­e­ma: The Work­ing Life of Jean-Luc Godard, New York­er film blog­ger Richard Brody some­how makes both claims.

In the chap­ter “Rev­o­lu­tion (1968–1972)” he describes Godard­’s impro­vised method of shoot­ing a 1968 Jef­fer­son Air­plane con­cert:

He took over from the spe­cial­ists and oper­at­ed the cam­era from the win­dow of Lea­cock-Pen­nebak­er’s office on West Forty-fifth street, shoot­ing the band on the roof of the Schuyler Hotel across the street. (Pen­nebak­er recalled him to be an ama­teur­ish cam­era­man who could not avoid the begin­ner’s pit­fall of fre­quent zoom­ing in and out.) The per­for­mance took place with­out a per­mit, at stan­dard rock vol­ume: as singer Grace Slick lat­er wrote, “We did it, decid­ing that the cost of get­ting out of jail would be less than hir­ing a pub­li­cist…”

Ama­teur­ish or not, a piece of the footage has sur­faced on YouTube. Lis­ten to the Air­plane per­form “The House at Pooneil Cor­ners,” watch Godard­’s dra­mat­ic swings of focus and zoom as he attempts to con­vey the spec­ta­cle of the band and the spec­ta­cle of count­less sur­prised Man­hat­tan­ites at once, and think for your­self about this pecu­liar inter­sec­tion of two bold lines in the era’s alter­na­tive zeit­geist. As Jef­fer­son Air­plane co-founder Paul Kant­ner said in a 1986 inter­view, “Just for a while there, maybe for about 25 min­utes in 1967, every­thing was per­fect.” But these sev­en min­utes in Novem­ber 1968, from open­ing shouts to inevitable arrest, don’t seem so dull them­selves.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lis­ten to Grace Slick’s Hair-Rais­ing Vocals in the Iso­lat­ed Track for “White Rab­bit” (1967)

A Young Jean-Luc Godard Picks the 10 BestAmer­i­can Films Ever Made (1963)

How Jean-Luc Godard Lib­er­at­ed Cin­e­ma: A Video Essay on How the Great­est Rule-Break­er in Film Made His Name

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Harvard Thinks Big 2012: 8 All-Star Professors. 8 Big Ideas.

in Harvard, TED Talks | February 23rd, 2012

Ear­li­er this month, Har­vard stu­dents made their way to the Sanders The­atre for the 2012 edi­tion of Har­vard Thinks Big. It’s a TED-style event which gets pitched like this: “8 all-star pro­fes­sors. 8 big ideas. All ten min­utes each.” You get the gist.

This year’s ver­sion had as much sub­stance, though per­haps not quite the same siz­zle, as the 2011 ver­sion, which fea­tured talks by Steven Pinker, Lawrence Lessig, Daniel Gilbert and Elaine Scar­ry. Above, we have one talk from the lat­est Har­vard Thinks Big. It fea­tures Daniel Lieber­man, the renowned biol­o­gist (per­haps you know his work on bare­foot run­ning?) talk­ing about how evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gy explains why obe­si­ty is on the rise in the Unit­ed States.

Oth­er speak­ers at the event includ­ed Doug Melton, Eleanor Duck­worth, Nicholas Chris­takis, Kaia Stern, Don­hee Ham, Stephen Green­blatt, and Jill Lep­ore. The lec­tures can be watched via YouTube (fol­low the pre­vi­ous links) or via iTunes. Regret­tably the talks by Green­blatt, Ham and Lep­ore haven’t made it to the web, at least not yet. When they do, we’ll men­tion it on our Twit­ter stream, where we post lots of oth­er cul­tur­al good­ies.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es with the Open Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive

Har­vard Thinks Green: Big Ideas from 6 All-Star Envi­ron­ment Profs

Why is the U.S. F’ed Up? 8 Lec­tures from Occu­py Har­vard Teach-In Pro­vide Answers

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