Angel's Egg

Angel's Egg (天使のたまご, 1985) is Mamoru Oshii's cult animated film, and you can watch it online on iFILM. It unfolds in a dead city under a sky where the clouds make sound as they move. A small girl wanders the ruins, hiding a large egg beneath her dress and trusting it to no one.

Then a man arrives, a cross-shaped weapon slung across his back. He and the girl drift into a hushed exchange that lasts the whole film: about a bird from a dream, about what waits inside the egg, about faith and whether you should ever crack the shell to find out. Dialogue is sparse. The story moves through water, shadow, ghostly fish and vast machines gliding through the dark. It's a parable each viewer finishes alone.

Oshii made this years before Ghost in the Shell, and the haunting imagery came from artist Yoshitaka Amano, later famous for designing Final Fantasy. Seventy unhurried minutes that sit closer to moving painting than ordinary animation, it's a work film scholars still pick apart decades on. Stream Angel's Egg (1985) online on iFILM.