Extinction of the Dinosaurs
1976 · 3m · Canada
Directed by Paul Bochner
Genres: animation, documentary, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, dark
A sudden climate shift triggered by a stellar explosion wipes out the dinosaurs that roamed Earth sixty-five million years ago. The brief animation illustrates the catastrophe and its aftermath.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 3-minute NFB doc-animation about dinosaur extinction should be rote science content—instead Bochner treats cosmic annihilation with the formal weight of a death of gods, which is either pretentious or genius, and I respect the gamble either way.
Bochner's 1976 film sits at a precise intersection of scientific illustration and existential cinema, where the contemplative tone elevates what could be textbook material into something closer to a visual elegy; the restraint is everything.
The real move here is letting 3 minutes breathe—most filmmakers would rush through extinction, but Bochner trusts the aftermath, the silence after the catastrophe, which is the one choice that makes it memorable instead of educational.