The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1979) is an animated TV movie you can watch online on iFILM, adapted from C.S. Lewis' novel by director Bill Melendez — who took home an Emmy Award for Best Animated Special for the effort.

Four siblings evacuated from London during the Blitz stumble upon a wardrobe that opens into Narnia. The land is locked in permanent winter by the White Witch, who turns dissenters to stone and keeps the whole country cowed. The youngest of the four, Edmund, falls for her promises of power and sweets and betrays his family in the process. Freeing Narnia will cost more than the children expect, and even the noble lion Aslan is not beyond reach of the old magic.

The hand-drawn animation places this squarely in 1970s television craft — no CGI, no widescreen spectacle. That restraint turns out to be its strength: a stripped-down telling of Lewis' story, closer in feel to the book's quiet menace than the big-budget adaptations that followed decades later. Stream The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1979) online on iFILM.