A number of experimental films were made in the United States during the 1920s and ’30s, but the movement gained important new impetus with the emergence of Maya Deren, a former dancer who made her first film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), with Alexander Hammid. Deren’s films and writings influenced the development of post-World War II American avant-garde filmmaking with an emphasis on inner psychology, dream states, and exploration of the self idn poker. Stan Brakhage was another key figure of this movement, often called New American Cinema, the films of which could be made inexpensively through the wider availability of 16-mm and 8-mm cameras and film stock.

The New American Cinema expanded during the 1960s to reflect the cultural transformations of the era, more explicitly taking on such themes as feminism, gay and Lesbian sexuality, and multicultural ethnicity. It reached its peak in the decade 1965–75, when the Pop artist Andy Warhol, among others, made experimental films that were exhibited commercially in theatres. In the 1970s one wing of the movement focused on the formal and structural aspects of film, while political concerns led others to shift more toward a hybrid style combining narrative fiction and documentary elements.

Animation has always played a significant role in experimental filmmaking. In the past, the process involved filming a series of still drawings or objects so that, when projected, an illusion of movement was created. With the development of computer technology, many animated films have been made from computer-generated images (CGI, also known simply as computer animation). Through the popularity of animated cartoons, the techniques of animation have typically played a larger part in commercial cinema than other aspects of avant-garde filmmaking.

Animation in fact developed in early cinema in a commercial context through the works of such animators as Émile Cohl in France, Winsor McCay in the United States, and Wladyslaw Aleksandrowicz Starewicz in Russia, the latter animating insect figures idn poker login in narrative fiction tales. In Germany after World War I the artists Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling utilized the animation tables at the big UFA studio to make several of the first abstract animation films.

While animation continued to interest experimental filmmakers over the following decades, the animated cartoon short became a fixture of exhibition programming, and cartoon characters Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Popeye the Sailor, Woody Woodpecker, and many more became legendary figures in popular culture. In the 1930s the Hollywood animation studios began to produce feature-length films, with Walt Disney leading the way with such classics as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

Commercial motion-picture animation slumped in the 1960s as cartoons for children migrated to television, Hollywood studios cut back, and theatres no longer included cartoon shorts as part of their exhibition program judi casino online. In the 1980s, however, the Walt Disney Company and other producers began to revive the animated feature.

An early success, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), combined animation and live action and drew on nostalgia for Hollywood’s classic cartoons. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991) became the first animated feature to be nominated for a best-picture Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Lion King (1994), also from Disney, became one of the most popular films in motion-picture history in terms of all-time box-office receipts.