Tops in the Big Top

The Hunger Artist(en)

Set in a city both past and present, on a deserted street where only the distant sounds of life blow by. The Hunger Artist stands alone, locked in his cage. Once famous and adored by the crowds, he now performs alone.

Circus Drawings(en)

Sketches of a Spanish circus made by Richard Williams in 1953 come to life. Williams began the project at the age of 20 and finished it when he was 77. It premiered at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in 2010.

Boo Kind to Animals(en)

Casper the Friendly Ghost helps Spunky the Donkey find a useful job.

Tweety's Circus(en)

Sylvester Cat pays a visit to a closed-to-business circus and finds Tweety Bird in one of the cages. Tweety escapes and a mad chase ensues. Meanwhile, Sylvester must flee from an uncaged lion he angered earlier.

A Bug's Life(en)

On behalf of "oppressed bugs everywhere," an inventive ant named Flik hires a troupe of warrior bugs to defend his bustling colony from a horde of freeloading grasshoppers led by the evil-minded Hopper.

Dumbo(en)

Dumbo is a baby elephant born with over-sized ears and a supreme lack of confidence. But thanks to his even more diminutive buddy Timothy the Mouse, the pint-sized pachyderm learns to surmount all obstacles.

Pippi Longstocking(en)

Pippi Longstocking is an extraordinary little girl who lives alone in her house, while her father sails the seven seas. Pippi's irrepressibly fun nature makes her easy to befriend, as neighbors Tommy and Annika find, but can also earn ire, especially from social worker Mrs. Prysselius.

Red's Dream(en)

Life as the sole sale item in the clearance corner of Eben's Bikes can get lonely. So Red, a unicycle, dreams up a clown owner and his own juggling act that steals the show. But all too soon, the applause turns into the sound of rainfall, as reality rushes back. Red must resign himself to sitting in the corner and await his fate.

Free Jimmy(no)

Four stoners, five vegans, three mobsters, four hunters and a million reasons to free one junkie elephant.

Velbloudí nápady(cs)

Magda(en)

A first love is corrupted as a man recalls his affair with a beautiful circus contortionist in this stop-motion animation of wooden mannequins.

Big Top Bunny(en)

Bugs Bunny is hired to perform in Colonel Korny's Circus alongside Bruno the Magnificent, the Slobokian Acrobatic Bear, but Bruno doesn't want to share the limelight.

Sombres Héros(fr)

Fun and Fancy Free(en)

Jiminy Cricket hosts two Disney animated shorts: Bongo about a circus bear escaping to the wild, and Mickey and the Beanstalk, a take on the famous fairy tale.

Wooden Athelete(en)

Stripped-back wooden dolls put on the greatest show on Earth via the marvel of stop motion.

The Merry Circus(cs)

Trnka brings to life a surrealist circus of tightrope-walking fish, musical monkeys, balancing bears, and high-flying acrobatics in this whimsical feat of cutout animation made in collaboration with leading Czech painters of the era.

Spare the Rod(en)

Donald's nephews are always playing instead of doing their chores. Donald is going to punish them, but the "voice of child psychology" convinces him to play along instead. This works well when they chop the wood to burn him at the stake. Meanwhile, however, a trio of Pygmy cannibals that escaped from the circus are out to do the very same thing to Donald with a cauldron of water.

Mickey's Circus(en)

Mickey is ringmaster of a circus for orphans. Donald has a trained sea lion act, and does a bit of juggling himself. Mostly, though, he fights with a baby sea lion who keeps stealing both the fish and the show. Donald then finds himself and Mickey in an unrehearsed high wire act, which kicks into high gear when one of the orphans electrifies the wire. They end by doing a high dive into the seals' tank.

Artist at work(en)

Two egg-shaped clown performers try out new ways to impress audiences.

Pinocchio: A True Story(ru)

Young Pinocchio runs away from his genius creator Jepetto. Accompanied by his horse Tibalt, he aims to see the world while joining the traveling circus ran by hustler Modjafocco.