Len Lye Movies

Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film.

This riot of color was a showcase for Lye’s hand-painted and stenciled imagery. Sponsored by Imperial Airways, it incorporates the...

In 1959 the United Nations commissioned Lye to make this one-minute film, “Fountain of Hope,” to publicize United Nations Day (24th...

Surrealism, avant-garde sound montage, and irreverent wit might be the last thing you'd expect from a government-sponsored film about wartime...

While stocking the shelves at work late at night, Mike finds a mysterious tape that calls upon The Peanut Vendor.

A 1941 Ministry of Information propaganda film set to the tune of The Lambeth Walk, a popular song from the musical Me and My Girl.

Short comedic documentary about crops.

For Kaleidoscope, which was sponsored by Churchman Cigarettes, Lye animated stenciled cigarette shapes and is said to have experimented by cutting...

Experimental documentary about recycling.

Documentary about women factory workers.

Life’s Musical Minute, recently re-discovered, is a short promotional film of this kind, based on Gene Krupa’s drum solo from...

Lye edited together “swing” versions of the popular Lambeth Walk (including Django Reinhardt on guitar and Stephane Grapelli on violin),...

A British WWII propaganda short warning citizens that Nazi sympathizers could be listening to their everyday conversations to discover important...

Lye created a series of scratched images in the 1950s – more regular or geometric than his usual style – to accompany Rock...

This was another sample promotional film, which Lye offered to television stations. He scratched some dramatic black-and-white abstract images,...

Lye completed his last great film a few months before his death at the age of 78. The film returned to the black-and-white techniques of Free...

A fictional enactment of the deadly contest between a British soldier and a German sniper hiding in a tree. Kill or Be Killed differs from most army...

Len Lye usually timed his films with great care to match their soundtracks, but for All Souls Carnival, he and composer Henry Brant worked...

Len Lye made Pictures for Percussion as a sample for television stations while living in the United States.