Jan Švankmajer Movies

In this animated version of Edgar Allan Poe's story, a traveller arrives at the Usher mansion to find that the sibling inhabitants are living under a...

Two puppets, Punch and Judy, do battle to the death over the custody of a live guinea pig.

In 1897, in a castle near the town of Werewolfville in the Carpithians, a slightly deranged Professor Orfanik experiments with his new inventions...

A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to...

Two magicians, Mr.Schwarzwald and Mr.Edgar, try to outdo each other in performing elaborate magic tricks, leading to a violent ending.

A non-narrative voyage round Sedlec Ossuary, which has been constructed from over 50,000 human skeletons (victims of the Black Death).

The Dung Beetle is late, the Parasite is asleep and Mrs Larva is more interested in her knitting than the director’s instructions. It’s...

In this early stop-motion film by Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer, a device consisting of a clock, a pendulum, a faucet and a bucket enacts a series...

A man sits down to watch a football match, which seems to consist of the players being violently mutilated in various inventive ways. The players...

A man, apparently on the run, takes shelter in a dilapidated house. Every day, he drills a hole through a wall and looks into one of the rooms, each...

In one of Jan Svankmajer's many mind-blowing, deliberately weird short films, a picnic consists of a suit sunbathing, a phonograph playing records, a...

The last moments of a creature made out of fruits and vegetables.

Eugene, an aging man, leads a double life – one real, the other in his dreams. He goes to see a psychoanalyst, who tries to interpret the...

A man is trapped in a sinister flat where nothing seems to obey the laws of nature.

A little girl goes down to the basement cellar to fetch some potatoes, and finds all her hidden fears about the cellar depicted in animated form.

The age-old story of Don Juan, played by giant puppets.

A look at the legendary Czech sound designer and his profession. Editor and documentary filmmaker Adéla Špaljová has her father...

The original 54-minute documentary, as broadcast by Channel Four on 20 June 1984, after which the animated links by the Quay Brothers were recompiled...