Everything Will Be Ok

Everything Will Be OK is a 2006 animated short film by Don Hertzfeldt. It is the first chapter of a three-part story about a man named Bill. Hertzfeldt released the second film in the series, titled I Am So Proud of You, in 2008. The final chapter, "It's Such a Beautiful Day," was released in 2011. The entire three-part story was then edited together and released as a seamless feature film in 2012, also titled It's Such a Beautiful Day. Everything Will Be OK won the 2007 Sundance Film Festival Jury Award in Short Filmmaking, a prize rarely bestowed on an animated film. To date it has won 40 awards, including the Grand Jury Award for Best Film at the London International Animation Festival and the Lawrence Kasdan Award for Narrative Film from the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Despite the film's short running length, Variety film critic Robert Koehler named Everything Will Be OK one of the "Best Films of 2007". The film was extremely well received by critics, describing it as "essential viewing" and, "simply one of the finest shorts produced over the past few years, be it animated or not." The Boston Globe called the film a "masterpiece" with the Boston Phoenix declaring Hertzfeldt a "genius." The short film was a cover story on the Chicago Reader, receiving four stars from critic J.R. Jones. Outside of theaters, the movie was released as a limited edition DVD "single" in 2007, exclusively from Hertzfeldt's website. The DVD featured an extensive archival area of deleted scenes, Don's production notes, sketches, and layouts, as well as a hidden Easter egg that plays an alternate, narration-free version of the film to highlight the sound design. The movie was subsequently released on the "Don Hertzfeldt Volume Two" DVD anthology in 2012.