Best of

The best clips from the last year, archived here for your pleasure.

By David McCandless
Fri 26 October 2007, 6:05pm

Octopus cloaking device
Who needs extraterrestrials when you've got real-life aliens living at the bottom of the ocean?

Zeroes
What if a group of ordinary people developed useless powers? Would they use them to save the world? This spoof of Heroes is note-perfect, right down to the title sequence.

Anti-piracy ad
With people being fined hundreds of thousands of pounds for downloading music and videos illegally from the internet, it's about time a strong message was sent to pirates and thieves who partake in this filthy, illegal, deadly habit.

Darth Vader
The Net is riddled with Star Wars fan films, some even feature-length. But the best, in our honest opinion, is this remix of a minor scene from Return of the Jedi: Darth Vader fooling around.

Japanese Tetris
This was, hands-down, the funniest clip of the year. If you haven't seen it, you're in for a treat. If you have, make sure you clear all objects and liquids from your buccal cavity. Coffee, cakes etc. It's still funny.

Anti-smoking
The country is no doubt a nicer place with the smoking ban in place. But in case you're still hooked on the demon weed, this short anti-smoking ad may just convince you to stop. Or it may just make you laugh.

Children of Men - how they made it
Director Alfonso Cuarón's masterpiece Children of Men pushed so many boundaries of cinema, even though Clive Owen was in it. Most striking about the film, perhaps, was its amazingly complex, amazingly long continuous shots, stage-managed to perfection. If you ever wondered how the production team managed to pull off those shots without any computer trickery, this excellent short doc explains all…

Hello!
It's hard to believe but there was once a time when this Lionel Richie video was considered the height of emotional and dramatic intensity in a pop song. This is the full version with the exquisitely acted narrative sequences added on. The video also raises important ethical issues: should Richie, as a teacher, really be obsessing about one of his handicapped students? Maybe in the 80s, along with taste, sexual harassment didn't really matter.

No-one is that beautiful
While the debate goes on about how the media representation of women affects women's body image, this clip is a powerful leveller. Reassuring and disturbing at the same time.