The Tortoise and the Hare

The Tortoise and the Hare (1935) is a Walt Disney animated short you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Wilfred Jackson and released on January 5, 1935. The story is Aesop's: a hare who cannot imagine losing stops to show off, and the tortoise just keeps walking.

What makes this nine-minute film more than a fable retelling is the speed and elasticity of the animation — the hare moves in a blur while the tortoise plods with steady, almost stubborn calm. It picked up the Academy Award for Best Animated Short of 1934, and animation historians credit the cocky hare as one of the character sketches that fed into early Bugs Bunny. Short, funny, and the lesson still lands. Stream The Tortoise and the Hare (1935) online on iFILM.