Bill Morrison Movies

The true history of a collection of some 500 films dating from 1910s to 1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a...

A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.

Shapeshifting between stardom and anonymity, an unhinged musician navigates a hyperreal combination of live action and animation daydreams in a...

The ill-fated coal mining communities in North East England are the subject of this inspired documentary by multi-media artist Bill Morrison. Their...

On March 17, 1930, a crowd assembled outside Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary in hopes of witnessing Al Capone's release from prison....

Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland, July 9, 2016. The surprising discovery of a canister —containing four reels of The Village Detective...

A response in music and film to the conflict that launched a century of war, and a celebration of the power of art to keep us sane and offer us...

An early Bill Morrison short, in this work he traverses an urban landscape utilizing high contrast black and white footage. The bustling nature of...

In 1899, a photographer at American Mutoscope & Biograph mounted his camera on the front of a trolley traveling over the Brooklyn Bridge. The three...

Black-and-white film projections by Bill Morrison, using archival footage of frigid Arctic scenes.

Drawing from a passage from the Rosh Hashana Service, “Who shall live, who shall die… who by water, who by fire,” this short film...

Chicago, 2018. A man is killed by police on the street. Through a composite montage of images from surveillance and security footage as well as...

Using the discarded, deteriorating remnants from seven silent film titles, filmmaker Bill Morrison braids a story of intertwining love triangles that...

This found-footage piece is based on an early study of the effects of cocaine by the filmmaker’s great-grandfather Carl Koller and Sigmund...

Made by re-editing a deteriorated nitrate print of The Bells (1926), starring Lionel Barrymore and Boris Karloff, this work shows the fragility of...

Spark of Being, a close adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein, explores the thematic interchangeability of three of the...

Film by Bill Morrison. Music by Julia Wolfe. Libretto by Deborah Artman.

A scene from The Bells (1926) is optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon's 7 minute composition. A meditation on the fleeting nature of life...

A film by Bill Morrison.

Alan is a musician who leaves a busted-up band for New York, and a new musical voyage. He tries to stay focused and fends off all manner of...