The Adventures of Prince Achmed

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (German: Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) is a 1926 German animated fairytale film, written and directed by Lotte Reiniger. Since two earlier Quirino Cristiani films are lost, it is the oldest surviving animated feature film. The plot is based on elements from several One Thousand and One Nights stories, such as "Aladdin," "Ahmed and Paribanou", and "The Ebony Horse".

Prince Achmed features a silhouette animation technique that Reiniger invented by manipulating cardboard cutouts and thin sheets of lead under a camera, similar to Wayang shadow puppets. The original prints featured color tinting. Reiniger also used the first form of a multiplane camera in making the film, one of the most important devices in pre-digital animation. Several famous avant-garde animators worked on Prince Achmed, among them Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch, and Carl Koch.