Animal Farm

Animal Farm (1954) is a hand-drawn drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by John Halas and Joy Batchelor from George Orwell's famous novella. The livestock on a run-down farm rise up against their drunken owner and decide to run things themselves. At first everything is shared and fair.

The animals drive out Farmer Jones and declare every creature equal. Then the pigs take charge, and a boar named Napoleon turns the dream of freedom into a new tyranny one quiet step at a time. The painted slogans get rewritten overnight, the loyal carthorse Boxer works himself to ruin, and the rules shrink to a single mocking line. Maurice Denham voiced nearly every animal alone, dozens of parts for one actor.

This was Britain's first feature-length animated film, made as a grown-up fable rather than a children's cartoon. The ending softens the book a little, yet none of the bitterness is lost. It's a bleak, still-relevant piece about a revolution devoured by its own leaders. Stream Animal Farm (1954) online on iFILM.