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It's Such a Beautiful Day (film)

2012 animated feature film directed by Don Hertzfeldt

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ19880634 ↗
Source-derived summary

It's Such a Beautiful Day (stylized in lowercase as it's such a beautiful day) is a 2012 American adult animated experimental tragicomedy film written, directed, animated, photographed, produced, and narrated by Don Hertzfeldt. Presented with a stick figure art style, the film follows a man named Bill who grapples with the various symptoms of an unknown terminal illness.

The film employs surreal humour and philosophical musings. It mostly consists of stick figures with stylized real-life footage sometimes appearing in split-screen windows that are photographed through multiple exposures. The film is divided into three chapters, all of which were originally released in theaters as animated short films: Everything Will Be OK (2006), I Am So Proud of You (2008), and It's Such a Beautiful Day (2011). The three short films collectively received over 90 film festival awards upon their original releases, including the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Prize for Everything Will Be OK. In 2012, the three chapters were combined and released as a new feature film.

It's Such a Beautiful Day received critical acclaim, with its experimental storytelling and surrealist elements being singled out for praise. Many listed it as one of the best films of 2012, and it has come to be regarded as one of the greatest animated films of all time.

Plot

Bill is a man whose daily routines, perceptions, and dreams are illustrated through multiple split-screen windows that are narrated by an uncredited Don Hertzfeldt. He often has meetings with his ex-girlfriend, but suffers from an unnamed illness which interferes with his seemingly mundane and uneventful life.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “It's Such a Beautiful Day (film)” as 2012 animated feature film directed by Don Hertzfeldt. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2012, 2006, 2008, 2011—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2012-08-24. The account is most persuasive where It's, Such and Beautiful can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2012 animated feature film directed by Don Hertzfeldt. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19880634. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 2006, 2008 and 2011.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “It's Such a Beautiful Day (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow It's Such a Beautiful Day (film) primary sources, It's Such a Beautiful Day (film) archive and It's research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “It's Such a Beautiful Day (film)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “It's Such a Beautiful Day (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.