Watch Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Robert Redford, and a bunch of other actors in these New York Times-produced short films

By Dan Selcke | December 2, 2013 | 9:20pm

Aux Features Film

Watch Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Robert Redford, and a bunch of other actors in these New York Times-produced short films

Every year, the New York Times devotes one of its Sunday magazines to the movie industry. This year, they've gone the extra mile and recruited longtime Speilberg cinematographer Janusz Kaminski to direct 11 short (like, under a minute short) films starring a gaggle of celebrities, from Bradley Cooper to Oprah Winfrey to Chewetel Ejiofor. Each film is built around a single line of dialogue submitted by a roster of well-known screenwriters like Spike Jonze, Richard Linklater, and Seth Rogen. It's a lot of celebrities in one place.

Some of the shorts are presented as twists on different movie genres—Ejiofor stars as a hard-boiled detective, Greta Gerwig lurches around a sound-stage in a scene from a horror movie, etc.—and some are just weird, in an arty way. The whole project has the air of a vanity project about it, but the films are lushly photographed and free to watch, so all is forgiven. Watch a couple of the snappier shorts below, or check out the complete roster on the New York Times YouTube page.