Aesop's Fables

The Little Prince

1974

After a pilot is forced to make an emergency landing in the Sahara Desert, he befriends a young prince from outer space; the friendship conjures up stories of journeys through the solar system for the stranded aviator.

The Little Fox

1981

A tale about a little fox Vuk from the novel of the famous Hungarian writer István Fekete.

The Reflection

2023

A dog finds a bone. Based on the fable, "The Dog and Its Reflection" by Aesop.

On Angel Wings

2014

One cold Christmas night, an old shepherd recounts the magical story of how he came to be the first visitor to the new born Christ child - ahead of the other shepherds, and in complete secret. Based on the book by Michael Morpurgo.

My Little Goat

2018

A mother goat rescues her kids from the belly of a wolf, but where is her eldest son Toruku?

Rabbit Ears - The Fool and the Flying Ship

1991

Long ago in Russia, a proclamation went out through all the land that whosoever could build a flying ship would win the hand of the Tsar's daughter. But when a country bumpkin and his oddball crew of extraordinary friends show up to claim her, the dumbfounded Tsar quickly has second thoughts.

The Grasshopper and the Ants

1934

As in the classic fable, the grasshopper plays his fiddle and lives for the moment, while the industrious ants squirrel away massive amounts of food for the winter. With his song, he's able to convince at least one small ant until the queen arrives and scares him back to work. The queen warns the grasshopper of the trouble he'll be in, come winter. Winter comes, and the grasshopper, near starvation, stumbles across the ants, who are having a full-on feast in their snug little tree. They take him in and warm him up. The queen tells him only those who work can eat so he must play for them. Written by Jon Reeves

The Daydreamer

1966

A young Hans Christian Andersen goes in search of knowledge in the Garden of Paradise in order to make his studies easier. Each time he falls asleep, he experiences in his dreams the different characters he would later write about in fairy tales including The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, and The Emperor's New Clothes.

The Old Crocodile

2005

Suffering from a severe case of acute rheumatism, an ancient crocodile is no longer able to take care of himself, let alone hunt to stay alive. One day, in despair, really famished and at the end of his tether, the elderly member of the Nile's peaceful crocodile community resorts to a despicable act of pure cannibalism--a merciless deed that would banish him forever from his beloved place. And then, as the outcast swims in the wide open sea, he befriends a 12-legged octopus. But has the old glutton renounced his former self, or could this be the beginning of a real friendship?

Thumbelina

1978

A tiny girl, only as long as a man's thumb, is born to a childless woman, abducted by frogs who want her to marry their son, but escaping instead (with the help of a bumblebee) to find a real prince without having to kiss the frog first.

L'horizon de Bene

2016

The Cock Crows at Midnight

1964

Chinese puppet fable.

A Donkey Got a Bit Sulky

1983

In this animated musical short, a traveling donkey becomes upset at minor inconveniences, each of which his chipper young master is only too happy to accommodate.

Aesop's Fables

1971

A collection of the classic morality tales narrated by Bill Cosby as "Aesop" that have been passed down from family to family for thousands of years. Every story has a lesson.

Two

1965

This short film shows an encounter, through a series of games, between a street child from the shantytowns and a child of a rich family, stationed at his window. The film has no dialogue and the action moves through the attempts at one-upmanship evident in their successive display of their toys. Their rivalry (a kite shot down by a toy rifle, for example) concludes with the opposition between the world of noise (the toys inside the house) and that of music (the street child's flute). Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.