Synopsis
A pioneer of visual music and electronic art, Mary Ellen Bute produced over a dozen short abstract animations between the 1930s and the 1950s. Set to classical music by the likes of Bach, Saint-Saëns, and Shoshtakovich, and replete with rapidly mutating geometries, Bute’s filmmaking is at once formally rigorous and energetically high-spirited, like a marriage of high modernism and Merrie Melodies. In the late 1940s, Lewis Jacobs observed that Bute’s films were “composed upon mathematical formulae depicting in ever-changing lights and shadows, growing lines and forms, deepening colors and tones, the tumbling, racing impressions evoked by the musical accompaniment.” Bute herself wrote that she sought to “bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding along with the thematic development and rhythmic cadences of music.”
You might also like

Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.
Destino

In this anime visual album, a mysterious driver heads deep into a postapocalyptic hellscape toward a ferocious showdown with two monstrous opponents.
Sturgill Simpson Presents Sound & Fury

In this powerful abstract film with a soundtrack of African drum music, Lye scratched "white ziggle-zag-splutter scratches" on to black leader, using a variety of tools from saw teeth to arrow heads. The first version of the film won a major award at the International Experimental Film Festival Held in Brussels in 1958 in association with the World's Fair. Stan Brakhage described the film as "an almost unbelievably immense masterpiece".
Free Radicals

During a chicken picnic, Yellow Guy gets upset after Green Bird kills a butterfly. Yellow Guy then meets a butterfly that takes him on a journey to discover his concept of love.
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 3

In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.
Begone Dull Care

All alone, Yellow Guy tries to stop a lamp from teaching him about dreams. While Red Guy finds out the truth about the puppets' existence.
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 6

Step back into the imaginative and frankly terrifying world of Becky & Joe with Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. In this episode: Some things change over Time.
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 2

Mickey, Minnie, Horace Horsecollar, and Clarabelle Cow go on a musical wagon ride until Peg-Leg Pete tries to run them off the road.
Get a Horse!

A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Hounddog

Musical instruments are the stars of a romantic fable set in the Land of Symphony and the Isle of Jazz, two islands separated by the Sea of Discord. The violin princess and the saxophone prince fall in love, but must meet secretly in order to avoid the wrath of their parents, the Symphony queen and the Jazz king. The queen finds the boy saxophone on her island, attempting to woo her daughter. She has him locked in the metronome, but the young lover manages to send a note - in fact, several musical notes on sheet music - that conveys the message that he has been imprisoned. The Isle of Jazz declares war by blasting musical notes across the sea. The only thing that can bring peace and harmony to the Sea of Discord is love.
Music Land

The people of Hamelin, overrun with rats, offer a bag of gold to anyone who can get rid of the rats. A piper offers to do the job, and successfully lures the rats into a mirage of cheese, which disappears. The citizens, disappointed that all he did was play a tune, offer only pocket change. The piper, angered, plays a new tune that has all the children of the city follow him, even the new twins the stork is preparing to deliver.
The Pied Piper

In a short musical film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Thom Yorke of Radiohead stars in a mind-bending visual piece. Best played loud.
Anima

The story of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, and the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.
Cadillac Records

Mater finds a small UFO called Mator and they have a night out. Later, when Mator is captured by military forces, Mater sneaks up and saves him with the help of Lightning McQueen and the UFO's mother.
Unidentified Flying Mater

Upon learning that he is from New York City, a wide-eyed boy, who is half human and half alligator, decides to leave his sheltered life in the swamp and search for his long lost father. A musical adventure.
Arlo the Alligator Boy

After her boyfriend ends their relationship, the dreamself of a heartbroken woman floats through the air over an industrial wasteland singing ballads of love.
Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted

Mal emerges from the shadows of a mystical forest onto a dark coastline where she crosses paths with Dizzy.
Under the Sea: A Descendants Story

Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.
The House

Deni Maroon, a musician and dock worker is determined to pull off a music festival against the interests of the local factory owner.
Guava Island

This fantastical movie inspired by the music of Michael Jackson features imaginative interpretations of hit tracks from the iconic 1987 album “Bad”.