Animal Farm

Animal Farm (1999) is the television version of George Orwell's novella you can watch online on iFILM. The animals on drunken Mr. Jones's farm rise up, drive their owner off the land, and set about running the place by rules of their own.

At first it's all fairness — shared labor, shared harvest, and the slogan "four legs good, two legs bad." Then the pigs quietly take charge, and the new order turns out crueler than the old one ever was. The talking animals come from Jim Henson's Creature Shop, voiced by a remarkable lineup: Patrick Stewart, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Kelsey Grammer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Pete Postlethwaite.

Orwell wrote a fable about a revolution that devours its own children, and director John Stephenson carries that bitter edge onto the screen, blending live action with animatronics. It looks like a barnyard tale; it bites like a political pamphlet. Stream Animal Farm (1999) online on iFILM.