Essential Polish Animation Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Essential Polish Animation Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 19, 2025

It may be a sign of provincialism or even a bizarre form of jingoism that the film industries of various "smaller" nations tend not to get the same level of interest than productions emanating from, say, Hollywood or Pinewood. That "elitist" attitude may pervade animated efforts even more than live action features, and my hunch is a lot of the at times absolutely fascinating artists aggregated by Radiance Films for this two disc overview of Polish animation from the 1950s on will be as new to many people as they frankly were to me. There is an understandably huge gamut of styles, approaches and content offered across the 27 shorts assembled here, but taken together they easily prove what a powerhouse Poland has been for decades in this often overlooked nook and/or cranny of cinema.

Disc One offers the following shorts split into two groups:

Pioneers covers animators flourishing after the death of Stalin:

• Banner of Youth


• Love Requited


• The Changing of the Guard


• New Janko the Musician

The Golden Age concentrates on the 1960s:

• A Little Western


• Labyrinth


• Playthings


• The Chair


• The Red and the Black


• Everything is a Number


• Horse


• Cages


• The Stairs

Disc Two offers the following shorts split into two groups:

The Silver Age moves on to the 1970s:

• The Son


• Journey


• Roll Call


• Road


• Banquet


• Barrier


• A Hard-Core Engaged Film. Non Camera


• Reflections

End of an Era offers 1980s efforts:

• Tango


• Solo in a Fallow Field


• The Source


• Chips


• A Gentle Woman


• Parade

Essential Polish Animation Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Essential Polish Animation is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in a variety of aspect ratios, though with most hovering around Academy Ratio. Radiance sent check discs for purposes of this review, and so I'm not privy to any verbiage about the transfers in an insert booklet, and there frankly isn't much information on their website about the provenance of the transfers. There is such a huge array of styles and filming techniques utilized here, including everything from "traditional" animation to stop motion to what really amounts to series of stills, and so there are absolutely understandable variances in appearances when assessing these transfers. On the whole, though, all of them offer really beautifully organic looking presentations, with the ones in color often offering really sumptuous suffusion. Some of the black and white material, specifically shorts made up of still photographs and the like, may frankly not fare quite as well in either detail or contrast. Grain is also understandably somewhat variable between the shorts, but really encounters no issues. There are certainly random signs of age related wear and tear on display at times.

Essential Polish Animation Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Essential Polish Animation features LPCM 2.0 Mono tracks that are ostensibly in Polish, though with an understanding that many of these shorts have next to no actual dialogue. Instead, a number of them have inventive scores and whimsical sound effects, all of which are rendered without any issues. Optional English subtitles are available.

Essential Polish Animation Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Animated Poland (HD; 59:29) is a fantastic overview by Michael Brooke, and might be a good place to start for the uninitiated.


• Commentaries by Daniel Bird include Banner of Youth and Love Requited.


• Commentaries by Michael Brooke include Banner of Youth, Love Requited, The Changing of the Guard, The Chair, Cages and The Stairs.

Disc Two

• Commentaries by Ela Bittencourt include Banquet, Barrier, Reflections, The Source and Chips.


• Commentaries by Kambole Campbell include Journey and Tango.

Radiance sent check discs for purposes of this review, but their website mentions their typical retinue of packaging extras.

Essential Polish Animation Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're sick of the so-called "Disneyfication" of everything from Times Square to the general ambience of American animation in particular, this two disc set may be a really refreshing palette cleanser of sorts. Technical merits are solid and the Brooke piece in particular is outstanding. Recommended.