This article examines depictions of animals in films by the contemporary Czech surrealist artist Jan Švankmajer. Švankmajer works in extension of a rich surrealist tradition of questioning anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism. Through intermedial comparisons with his creation of imaginary animals in collage and assemblage, the article argues that Švankmajer’s animation of natural history specimens, pieces of animal flesh, and imaginary animal assemblages unsettle ingrained conceptions of taxonomy and animal agency. Creating new connections across the animal, mineral, and vegetable kingdoms, Švankmajer’s films evoke Timothy Morton’s notion of dark ecology with its assertion that ecological interconnectedness is a decidedly weird phenomenon.