Animal Movies & Documentaries

Creature Featured helps you find animal movies and nature documentaries by choosing your favorite animal and seeing all the movies and documentaries which feature it. When it comes to movies and documentaries here at Creature Featured it is all about the animal kingdom. There are approximately 1.2 million animal species on the earth, with many still unknown. Whether via actual documentation, imagination or animation animal movies can be interesting and watchable for the whole family.

Films have featured animals since the beginning of film making, a few of the very first animals to feature in films where dogs and horses. A short black and white film called A Dogs Love featured a dog named Shep. Not long after than in 1917 the first adaption of Black Beauty featured a majestic black horse.

Some animals features in movies have become famous animal actors such as Pal who played Lassie, Buttermilk the horse who played Seabiscuit and Gizmo a snowy owl that played Hedwig in Harry Potter. Some animals have also played multiple roles such as Crystal the capachin monkey. Crystal whom has featured in Both Night at the Museum (2006) and Night at the Museum: The Battle of Smithsonian (2009) as well as playing Donald the monkey in Zookeeper (2011), Dr Risso in Animal Practice (2012) and then playing a drug dealing money in The Hangover Part II (2011).

Being able to feature animal in movies over the years initially relied on using domesticated and trained animals to play the role or in the beginning a more simpler animated drawing. In fact one of the first successful cartoon animations was one produced in 1914 using over 10,000 drawings of a moving dinosaur called Gertie, known as one of the first successful fully animated cartoons.

The silent era of film making featured a number of mischevious cats, including 150 animated cartoons about Felix the cat and a The Debut of Thomas Cat. Cartoons about Felix the cat where produced in black and white but The Debut of Thomas Cat was one of the first colour animated films in the United States.

From motion cartoons came Stop motion production that involved the use of clay models or puppets to create a story. One fantastic sequel of films being Wallace and his dog Grommet. Stop motion takes a lot of work to create as each individual clay model require manual manipulation of the smallest scale between image taken. Between 1985 and 200 over 150 five minute episodes of Pingu a clay animated penguin was created. While this was going on the first fully computer animated feature film was Toy Story and we are mentioning that here because many of Andy's toys in the movie are animals. Such as slinky dog, snake and Mr Shark.

Today it is difficult to tell whether an animal in a movie is real or has been created using CGI. It is a fantastic ability to create all sorts of imaginative creatures and stories as well as creating the habitats and surroundings for the animals in such a way that the viewer is transported to that particular moment. It also means no animals are harmed in the making of movies. Animals that are now extinct we can recreate their appearance of what they looked like. Films such as the Jurassic Park series and Ice Age particular make use of the computer animation ability as nearly all of the animals in these movies are extinct.

If you are looking for a heart warming pet movie then there are many to choose from. It is not surprising that the loveable St Bernard dog Beethoven has eight classic films altogether. Many movies including a real dog actor as part of the film. If you check out the dog section on our website alone there are 50 dog filled movies worth watching for any dog lover. Maybe your more of a cat lover and if so there are also a wide variety of cat films, generally speaking as cats prefer to do their "own thing" the majority of cat movies are computer animated such as Garfield, Keanu and Puss in Boots, each of which you have to admit, these cats are unbelievably cool.

When it comes to making animal documentaries a lot of work is involved, some camera work production can takes years to capture and involves world wide travel to get it. There also may be a specific moment or occurance than only happens once a year or few years and if it is missed on camera then it can be years to capture that moment again. That is the brilliance of wildlife and nature you cannot fully predict it, making every moment that more special and for the camera men and women that capture it such a fantastic job to undertake.

There are a number of particular animal documentary makers and presenters than have shaped how we learn about animals through the camera lens. David Attenborough being one of them. If you have not yet heard of David Attenborough and you love animal movies then I strongly advise you to look up his work, his productions now include numerous production crew and skilled editors that make a masterpiece. Spanning over 40 years on the television screen presenting viewers with all sorts of wonders across the globe, David Attenborough has inspired many of today's ecologists, marine biologists and zoologists.

Some of the best animal movies out there are ones that combine the natural world with a small amount of computerised animation. Such as Charlotte's Web, The Life of Pi and The Jungle Book.

Whatever animal adventure you are after, choose your favourite animal above and search away, we can assure there will be an animal films that you will want to watch over and over!