WISE Score
Avg. Tomatometer
A 100-year-old shadow puppet masterpiece that looks cooler than most CGI, even if your kids might ask where the 'skip ad' button is.
100%
100%View →Look, this is a masterpiece, but I'm giving it a realistic score because most modern kids will think it's 'boring' after five minutes of silence.
If you have a kid who likes drawing, crafting, or 'how it's made' videos, they might be mesmerized by the paper-cut animation. It's a great 'palette cleanser' from the high-octane, loud stuff they usually watch. Just don't expect it to be a Friday night blockbuster—it's more like a trip to a very cool, very old museum.
Best for ages 9 and up. While it's safe for younger kids, the silent format and title cards mean they need to be decent readers (and have a solid attention span) to actually enjoy it.
It's a classic fairytale structure with a clear moral compass. The pacing is the opposite of modern 'brain rot'—it's slow, deliberate, and requires actual focus.
This is the peak of silhouette animation. Lotte Reiniger used paper cut-outs and backlighting to create a world that still looks more creative than half of what comes out of big studios today.
Generally safe, but it's a 1926 take on 'The Arabian Nights.' Expect some vintage 'scary' sorcery and the occasional dated cultural trope that was standard for the 1920s.
It's a literal art history lesson in 66 minutes. It exposes kids to silent film, classical music scores, and a completely different way of telling a story without 3D rendering.
Most animation today is a race for the most realistic hair physics or the loudest celebrity voice cast. This film is the opposite. It is essentially a high-end shadow puppet play caught on film. Even though it is a century old, the level of detail in the paper cut-outs is more impressive than most modern CGI because you can feel the physics of the hand-crafted work.
If your kid is the type to spend their weekend with a hot glue gun, or if they are obsessed with how stop-motion films like Coraline are built, this is their Citizen Kane. It’s a masterclass in how to create depth and emotion using nothing but silhouettes and light. It feels less like a "movie" in the modern sense and more like a discovery you’d find in a museum basement.
The biggest hurdle for a modern family isn't the black-and-white aesthetic (the film is actually tinted in various moody colors) or the age—it’s the silence. There is no dialogue. If your kids are used to the breakneck pace and constant quips of modern fantasy-television, the first ten minutes will be a massive lifestyle adjustment.
You have to read the title cards to know what is happening. If your child isn't a confident reader yet, you are going to be narrating the entire 60-minute runtime. However, if you treat it like a "living storybook" rather than a cinematic blockbuster, it works. The score does a lot of the heavy lifting, and the characters move with a fluidity that is shocking for 1926. It never feels like a slog because it clocks in at just over an hour.
We talk a lot about "slow cinema," and this is the gold standard for kids. There are no jump cuts, no flashing lights, and no toy tie-ins. It is a meditative experience.
If you have access to The Criterion Channel or Kanopy through your local library, this is a low-risk, high-reward experiment. Put it on a big screen, turn the lights off, and let the visuals do the talking. Even if they only stay for half of it, they’ll have seen something that looks unlike anything else in their digital diet.
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