Loie Fuller – Serpentine Dance (1905)
Perhaps the earliest psychedelic film. American dancer Loie Fuller performing the serpentine dance in this silent colored film.
Emile Cohl - Fantasmagorie (1908)
Surreal early 20th century animation has growing organs, disappearing bodies and many more fantastic, hallucinatory elements.
Emile Cohl - The Hasher’s Delirium (1910)
A 1910 animation portraying the strange effects of hashish.
Kodak Kodachrome Film Test (1922)
It used to be just taking somebody’s image in colored motion video was psychedelic. Some very early colored cinema moments by Kodak.
Marcel Duchamp - Anemic Cinema (1926)
Weird Psychedelic effects in this 1926 film by French dada master Marcel Duchamp.
Felix the Cat - DINES and PINES (1927)
Felix the cats begins hallucinating after eating strange food from the garbage.
Felix the Cat - Woos Whoopee (1928)
Felix gets high again and goes on some wild adventures.
Mike C. Betty Boop - Silly Scandals (1931)
Bimbo gets hypnotized into a weird psychedelic state.
Footlight Parade (1933) – Human Waterfall
Incredible mandala style choreography in this scene from Busby Berkeley’s Footlight Parade (1933).
Willie Whopper in Stratos Fear (1933/1934)
Willie Whopper flies on Nitrous Oxide in the doctor’s office.
Betty Boop Cartoon Banned For Drug Use (1934)
Betty Boop gets high on laughing gas, and ends up getting the entire city high, in this 1934 banned cartoon.
Balloon Land – UB IWERKS (1935)
The Pincushion man comes to attack Balloon Land.
Busby Berkeley Collage
A mesmerizing collage from Busby Berkeley’s 1930s films.
Fantasia (1940)
Dancing mushrooms and fairies in Disney’s movie.
Dumbo Pink Elephants on Parade (1941)
Elephant size hallucinations, from Disney’s Dumbo film.
The Lady In The Tutti Frutti Hat – Busby Berkeley (1943)
Busby Berkeley does it again with psychedelic choreography from film The Gang’s All Here.
Dreams That Money Can Buy - Marcel Duchamp and John Cage (1947)
From the 1947 feature film by surrealist artist and dada film-theorist Hans Richter, featuring many artists including Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst.