THE BEST Stop Motion

Hampton Rutland made this lighthearted time-lapse video about how he built the walls of his new workshop using reclaimed wood. The build starts at 2:10, then something even better starts to happen at 3:30.

Things escalate when a man catches a pair of thieves red-handed. Winner of Tropfest Australia 24, Spencer Susser and Daniel Campos’ comedy short film has a ho-hum story, but it makes up for it with a fun implementation of stop-motion.

Writer/director/animator Justin Nixon and team’s dystopian stop-motion short tells the story of a family of robots whose tragedy and desire for resolution leads them to the discovery of the dark secret behind the blind devotion of their fellow citizens.

Animator Eran Amir created a series of 3D printed baby figurines then traveled through a variety of environments with the baby models on a rig, painstakingly snapping one photo at a time to create a seemingly around-the-world baby marathon. Making of video here.

“When you grow stronger the world grows more dangerous.” Our latest look at Laika’s Japanese adventure shows both its dark and lighthearted sequences. Stars George Takei, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Fiennes, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

In this series of all too short clips from Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s Anomalisa, we go inside some of the tricks of the trade the film’s animators used to bring their tiny stop-motion world to life. Now we want to see how they made every little detail.

Stop-motion animator Harry Chaskin presents the somber tale of a washed-up movie monster as he reminisces about days gone by. You’d think that after the studio tells him he’s done, he’d at least crush, crumble, and chomp on their building for old time’s sake.

A factory worker has a happy, if plain life. But the daily grind gets to him, and one day, he snaps. Will he choose certain survival, or take a risk and find something new? Find out in Aaron Fisher’s modernist LEGO stop-motion film.

(PG-13: Language) Vice’s documentary on Phil Tippett, the stop-motion animator who helped create creatures for Star Wars, Jurassic Park and many other films. Today his studio mainly uses CGI, but his latest film, Mad God, is a stop-motion affair.

(PG-13) Gary the stormtrooper takes his daughter to work, Anakin goes to his happy place, Pruneface dreams of having more screen time and more in this look back at the funniest Robot Chicken: Star Wars scenes.

From LAIKA, the studio behind Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls, comes another promising stop-motion movie. Kubo and the Two Strings is about a boy who goes on a quest to retrieve the armor of his father, who was the greatest samurai who ever lived.

A brief look at the making of the critically acclaimed stop-motion film Anomalisa. The crew made 1,261 faces and 1,000 props for the film. The final cut has 118,089 frames of handmade animation, and ended up taking three years to make.

(Gore) Captain America fends off the Red Skull and his army of Nazi zombies. And then it gets much worse. YouTuber forrestfire101’s short film is one of the most complex and well-shot LEGO stop-motion animations you’ll ever see.

We can’t fathom the amount of work it took Frank Howarth to shoot this stop-motion video of a lawn chair crafting itself without a single carpenter. If it looks familiar, that’s because Frank’s bookcase and table saw posses the same magical properties. (Thanks Victor!)

(PG-13 Language) Belgian director Chris Ullens‘ video for Kill the Noise’s hardcore EDM anthem Kill It 4 the Kids is a harsh criticism of consumerism, masquerading as claymation. Watch as the resident lemmings of Happyville welcome a new fast food joint to their town.

A woman who’s sick of being single tries out speed dating. But her desperation may have led her to a symposium of stereotypical jerks and freaks in Meghann Artes’ slapstick stop-motion short film.

Aug(de)mented Reality creator Hombe McSteez tries to stop his voracious alligator drawing from devouring the US in the short film he made for Pop-Up Magazine. Our takeaway here is that Hombre is the Flash.

A magical looking stop-motion animated film, written by enigmatic auteur Charlie Kaufman who co-directed the film with Duke Johnson, described as “a film about a man crippled by the mundanity of his life.” You may remember it from its Kickstarter campaign.

The latest stop-motion animation from counter656 features an epic battle between Dragon Ball Z’s pumped-up SHF Broly against a Super Saiyan Goku and some robots from Gundam. None of them stand a chance against his massive muscles and spiky yellow hair.

Jonathan Hodgson traces the patterns and stories woven into a rug – and perhaps the energy of a playful pet chasing something on the living room floor – with this simple but fun video, backed by the rhythms of musicians Randy Nimri and Fares Abbasi.

(PG-13: Language) The creators of Robot Chicken teamed up with Brian Cranston for this Crackle original. Cranston plays Titanium Rex, an aging superhero leading the apathetic and dense members of The League of Freedom. The first three episodes are already online.

PermaGrin Films’ tribute to childhood is one of the most complex stop-motion/time-lapse videos ever. It was filmed over the course of one-and-a-half years and in various locations. We’re not fans of the Pure Imagination remix they used, but we can’t argue with the result.

James Stewart and Nev Bezaire’s wonderfully creepy and well executed stop-motion short follows a young girl who finds herself trapped inside the walls of her home, after being kidnapped by a group of evil foxes. Want more? It’s being made into a feature film.

Passover may be long since gone, but this stitched, stop-motion animation of Passover folk song Chad Gadya by Nina Paley and Theodore Gray was just too impressive to pass over. Buy the matzoh cover animation cells here.

(PG-13) This comedy from the animators behind Robot Chicken is what South Park might be like if it were made from clay instead of paper. Voiced by Nick Swardon, T.J. Miller, Rob Riggle, Mila Kunis, Bob Odenkirk, Danny McBride, and more.

Pete “Petey Boy” Simon created this whimsical stop-motion animation, in which his friend Tom Offer-Westort’s facial hair grows longer and longer as he makes his way through a magical book. Support Pete’s videos on Patreon.