The Meaning of Life (animated film)

The Meaning of Life is a 35mm animated short film, written and directed by Don Hertzfeldt in 2005. The twelve-minute film is the end result of almost four years of production and tens of thousands of drawings, single-handedly animated and photographed by Hertzfeldt.

Like all of Hertzfeldt's films, The Meaning of Life was photographed entirely in-camera, without the use of computers, post-production compositing, or digital tools. The special effects were created via multiple exposures, optical light effects, and trick photography. Though working with an antique camera, Hertzfeldt often had to invent new techniques to capture his visuals.

In the film, the evolution of the human race is traced from prehistory (mankind as blob forms), through today (mankind as teeming crowds of selfish, fighting, or lost individuals), to hundreds of millions of years into the future as our species evolves into countless new forms; all of them still behaving the same way. The film concludes in the extreme future, with two creatures (apparently an adult and child subspecies of future human), having a conversation about the meaning of life on a colorful shore.