10 Movies With Ant-Sized Characters You Have To See

In Dr. Cyclops, a mad scientist invents a formula which he uses to shrink people down against their will, a premise that would become extremely common in these movies. In this case, he invites a bunch of scientists to check out his experiments, but then suddenly locks them up and they wake up 12 inches tall.

One of the earliest shrinking films, this has all the familiar scenes you'll see in later films, such as characters climbing up stairs like it’s a massive effort or confronting a now giant animal. In this case it’s a black cat running towards them as they hide behind a bunch of cactuses, but luckily the dog comes in and scares him away. The movie continues to make great use of visual gags throughout, with characters holding a giant pair of scissors or reading a book and then lying on it like a bed.

Albert Dekker is great as the villain, Dr. Thorkel, frequently interacting with his tiny victims and taking great joy in everything he’s learning from them. He seems like just a really curious scientist who simply doesn’t care about the human toll his experiments are taking. This is a fun one which looks shockingly good for 1940, and it’s actually the very first American sci-fi film made in Technicolor, so it’s important for a number of reasons.