Darren Aronofsky made 4 Short Films before breaking into features with Pi. Two of them - Supermarket Sweet (1991) and Protozoa (1993) - are only available to students at the places where they were made. The other two can be found online.
Fortune Cookie (1991)
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From a story by Hubert Selby Jr. (Requiem for a Dream), this tale of a salesman looking for some good luck and finding it in a way that leads to tragedy has many of the director's trademarks. Though shot on VHS, it's an occasional visual frenzy, heavy with edits as the salesman's life is one big downward tumble. The ambiguous ending indicates that there's more going on than what's just on the surface story, but unlike his features, I'm not really sure what he's getting at.
No Time (1994)
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A series of largely unfunny sketches by a comedy troupe. There's an interesting one in the middle where a couple on a date each learn that their partner has a glass eye and the woman aggressively takes possession of both eyes. The tone of that one is mean funny, which is probably why it works so comfortably for Aronofsky. Overall though, I have to think he was doing some friends a favor and not invested in the project.