Awesome Fan Films

Even the most anticipated movies can sometimes miss the mark. Can fans fix what the filmmakers got wrong? Pyramid Peak delved into the world of fan editing and talked with HAL 9000, one of the most dedicated and prolific fan editors ever. Fan edits can improve bad movies, and sometimes remix them into a whole new artistic vision. (Thanks, Rob!)

This short Star Wars fan film from Jon Rist and Ian Buchan adds a new story about an underutilized but beloved character – the Gonk droid. As a battle plays out between Jedi and Sith, the droid makes a move that could change everything. Filmed entirely with practical effects, miniatures, and puppets, and no CGI. This isn’t canon, but it should be.

(PG-13) 175 animators took scenes from a South Park episode and recreated them in their own styles. The 22-minute film is a testament to individuality, creativity, and persistence, as it took six years to bring all of the scenes to life. South Park Reanimated is based on the finalé of Season 11, in which the fourth-grade girls create a list ranking each boy’s looks.

“Your task is simply to… survive!” The two-faced Decepticon Starscream is assigned to a solo mission. Thinking that it’s another attempt by Megatron to foil the Autobots, he quickly reverts to his high and mighty rhetoric. But will he be brought back down to earth and eat his words? 87render and their friends got together to create this great homage to Transformers.

(PG-13) “I leave one of you alive, so you can warn your sons about those fairy tales.” Director and co-writer Godefroy Ryckewaert shares this labor of love that he created with fellow volunteers. Logan the Wolf reimagines Wolverine and the rise of mutants in the Viking Age. The fight scenes rival the best that Hollywood has to offer, sheesh.

(PG-13: Gore/Language) This AI-generated fan film by Mean Orange Cat pays tribute to Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi classic, Alien. Like the original, a spaceship’s crew investigates a mysterious signal, exposing them to a horrific and deadly species. They did a great job capturing the film’s spirit while adding a fun new spin with the animals. (Thanks, Rob!)

(PG-13: Language) Six years in the making, the latest anime short from Paul “OtaKing” Johnson, creator of TIE Fighter and Game Master: R-TYPE, is a must-watch for fans of Alien. It follows the story of a lone crew member aboard a mining ship who stumbles onto a terrifying hive of Xenomorphs. Co-directed by Claudia Montealegre with sound by Scary Good Studio.

Freelance 3D artist XieBoLi spent a year and a half creating this 3D animated montage of some of the climactic and intense scenes from Attack on Titan. They made everything from scratch, from the character models to the environment. It may be achingly short, but they did a great job at transferring the anime and manga into 3D.

It’s been over 50 years since Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon. To celebrate the occasion, drummer Nick Mason asked fans to create their own animated music videos for each song on the classic prog rock album. This playlist is gradually revealing all ten winners plus behind-the-scenes interviews with the artists.

The Dark Knight takes on the Dark Lord of the Sith in a quest to release his Justice League teammate from an Imperial prison cell. Batinthesun’s live-action fan film pulls out all the stops as Batman dons a lightsaber and other Wayne Enterprises gadgets on a quest to take down Darth Vader.

Now that Steamboat Willie is in the public domain, it didn’t take long for a bunch of horror interpretations to start popping up. This upcoming fan film from Fewture Studios has plans to scare audiences with a creepy abandoned version of Willie’s steamboat with what we can only imagine is a murderous Mickey Mouse.

It’s doubtful we’ll ever get another sequel to the Back to the Future films. But this fan-made trailer for BTTF Part IV makes us want one. Smasher put together this imaginative teaser trailer using footage of Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox as Doc and Marty zoom even further into the future on a grand new adventure.

Antonis and Stavros Fylladitis and a team of dedicated DC Comics fans created this CGI short inspired by Alex Ross’ incredible Kingdom Come Superman. Created with Unreal Engine 5, the film drops us into a world where chaos has won, and even the greatest superheroes have lost their way. Can Superman rise from the darkness?

With the help of AI image generation tech, Corridor created this short fan film in the style of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The crossover imagines that The Avengers (and a whole lot of Spider-Men variants) found their way into the Spider-Verse as a result of the events of Doctor Strange’s actions. Go behind the scenes here.

Now that Better Call Saul has wrapped, we’re probably done with the Breaking Bad universe. Animation Therapy paid tribute to Vince Gilligan and his team’s amazing 14-year run of some of the best television ever with a beautiful CGI short film that commemorates some of the series’ iconic props and locations.

AFK follows up on its humorous fan film The Battlefield with another Star Wars-inspired short made with Unreal Engine 5. The Walker focuses on a platoon of snowtroopers who must endure a long and boring ride to Echo Base on Hoth in the cargo hold of a slow-moving AT-AT.