George Orwell’s Animal Farm: Watch the Film Online

George Orwell’s anti-total­i­tar­i­an novel­la, Ani­mal Farm, almost nev­er saw the light of day. The man­u­script bare­ly sur­vived the Nazi bomb­ing of Lon­don dur­ing World War II, and then T.S. Eliot (an impor­tant edi­tor at Faber & Faber) and oth­er pub­lish­ers reject­ed the book, part­ly for polit­i­cal rea­sons. Even­tu­al­ly Ani­mal Farm came out in print in 1945 (down­load it via our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions) and the now-famous text became an ani­mat­ed film in 1954.

Pro­duced by Halas and Batch­e­lor (and fund­ed by the CIA, although the ani­ma­tors did­n’t know it), Ani­mal Farm was the first British ani­mat­ed fea­ture released world­wide, and the ani­ma­tion style — dubbed “Dis­ney-turned-seri­ous” — received crit­i­cal praise. The film runs 80 min­utes, and you can watch it above or here.

Orwell’s 1984 appears in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions. Plus you’ll find the movie list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.