Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine (1968) is the animated Beatles fantasy you can watch online on iFILM. The musical paradise of Pepperland falls to the Blue Meanies, sour little tyrants who drain the land of color, sound and music itself, freezing its people into stone.

One survivor, the Lord Admiral, slips away in a yellow submarine and sails to Liverpool to recruit four unlikely heroes: John, Paul, George and Ringo. What follows is a psychedelic voyage through seas of time, holes and monsters, with each leg built around a Beatles track, from the ache of "Eleanor Rigby" to the swirl of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." The band lends its songs throughout and turns up in the flesh for the closing scene.

Art director Heinz Edelmann invented the acid-bright look that defined late-sixties design and still gets borrowed by animators today. This is less a concert reel than a full visual manifesto of its moment. For Beatles devotees and anyone who likes hand-drawn imagination with none of the Disney polish, it is essential. Stream Yellow Submarine (1968) online on iFILM.