Director: Eadweard Muybridge
Stars: N/A
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: USA
Muybridge first photographed the human figure in motion on March 4th 1879. However, he did not focus on the human body until his contract at Pennsylvania University began in May 1884, resulting in two volumes of work dedicated to photographs of human subjects. Muybridge’s test footage included cinematic glimpses of naked men and women in motion.
Director: Émile Reynaud
Stars: Georges Méliès
Genre: Animation, Short, Silent
Country: France
The film consists of a series of animations on a beach containing two beach huts and a diving board.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès
Genre: Fantasy, Short, Silent
Country: France
A man has an encounter with several spooky apparitions in a castle that is evidently owned by the Devil.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès
Genre: Fantasy, Short, Silent
Country: France
A magician produces a living portrait of himself.
Director: George Albert Smith
Stars: Laura Bayley, Tom Green
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Short, Silent
Country: UK
A romantic couple are transformed into skeletons via X-Rays. The film combines two very recent innovations: Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of X-rays in 1895, and Georges Méliès’ accidental realisation of the special-effects potential of the jump-cut in 1896.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès
Genre: Fantasy, Short, Silent
Country: France
A weary traveler stops at an inn along the way to get a good night’s sleep, but his rest is interrupted by odd happenings when he gets to his room–beds vanishing and re-appearing, candles exploding, pants flying through the air and his shoes walking away by themselves.
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
Stars: N/A
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: USA
Individual photographs of a cat trotting then changing to a gallop shown in quick succession.
Director: William K.L. Dickson, William Heise
Stars: Annie Oakley
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: USA
Annie Oakley was probably the most famous marksman/woman in the world when this short clip was produced in Edison’s Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey.
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
Stars: N/A
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: USA
Individual photographs of the running of a buffalo shot in rapid succession.
Director: Étienne-Jules Marey
Stars: Jehanne d’Alcy, Georges Méliès
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: France
Shot of the flight of a fly.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Jehanne d’Alcy, Georges Méliès
Genre: Fantasy, Short, Silent
Country: France
A devil wearing bat-like wings and brandishing a trident dances around a giant pot, conjuring forth flame from his trident to lit a fire beneath the pot. After the devil works the fire with bellows, an angelic woman emerges from the pot.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: N/A
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Fantasy, Short, Silent
Country: France
A priest is officiating at a convent, when suddenly he is transformed into the devil, who frightens away the nuns and turns the place into a outlet of Pandemonium.
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
Stars: N/A
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: USA
Two women shake hands and kiss. The first ever moving image of a kiss was not filmed, but instead consists of individual photographs shot by Eadweard Muybridge in rapid succession, making a moving picture when using Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès, Jehanne d’Alcy
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Short, Silent
Country: France
The film tells the story of an encounter with the Devil and various attendant phantoms. It is intended to evoke amusement and wonder from its audiences, rather than fear.
Director: Émile Reynaud
Stars: François Clerc Benoît Duval
Genre: Animation, Short, Silent
Country: France
A pre-cinematograph colour animation of the monkey playing his violin.
Director: Louis Lumière
Stars: N/A
Genre: Documentary, Comedy, Short, Silent
Country: France
Wintertime in Lyon. About a dozen people, men and women, are having a snowball fight in the middle of a tree-lined street.
Director: William K.L. Dickson, William Heise
Stars: Juan A. Caicedo
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: USA
King of the slack wire. His daring feats of balancing as he performs his thrilling feats in midair show that he is perfectly at home.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Short, Silent
Country: France
One of the greatest of black art pictures. The conjurer appears before the audience, with his head in its proper place. He then removes his head, and throwing it in the air, it appears on the table opposite another head, and both detached heads sing in unison.
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
Stars: N/A
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: USA
Eadweard Muybridge photographs a capybara in motion.
Director: Étienne-Jules Marey
Stars: N/A
Genre: Documentary, Short, Silent
Country: France
Directed by Étienne-Jules Marey, a French scientist, this is believed to be the first cat ever filmed in cinematic history. Jules Marey created the chronophotographic gun in 1882, a device which looked like a short barrelled shotgun with a magazine on top. It was capable of taking twelve consecutive frames a second. He used this to study various animals, the most famous study in what was called Marey’s ‘animated zoo’, was the one involving a cat which was dropped from a height of a few feet in order to see if it always landed on its feet.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès, Jehanne d’Alcy
Genre: Mystery, Short, Silent
Country: France
Georges Méliès makes a woman disappear, then reappear.
Director: George Albert Smith
Stars: Laura Bayley, George Albert Smith
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Short, Silent
Country: UK
A humorous subject intended to be run as a part of a railroad scene during the period in which the train is passing through a tunnel.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès, Barral, Bleuette Bernon, Carmelli
Genre: Romance, Family, Drama, Fantasy, Short, Silent
Country: France
A fairy godmother magically turns Cinderella’s rags to a beautiful dress, and a pumpkin into a coach. Cinderella goes to the ball, where she meets the Prince – but will she remember to leave before the magic runs out? Méliès based the art direction on engravings by Gustave Doré. First known example of a fairy-tale adapted to film, and the first film to use dissolves to go from one scene to another.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès
Genre: Short, Drama, Silent
Country: France
The first movie ever censored for political reasons. The title refers to the then contemporaneous Dreyfus affair in which a Jewish military officer was falsely convicted of treason, and it was alleged that he was framed due to anti-semitism.
Director: Louis Lumière
Stars: N/A
Genre: Short, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: France
An astronomer falls asleep and has a strange dream involving a fairy queen and the Moon.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Jehanne d’Alcy, Georges Méliès
Genre: Short, Comedy, Fantasy
Country: France
An astronomer falls asleep and has a strange dream involving a fairy queen and the Moon.
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
Stars: Gilbert Domm, Sallie Gardner
Genre: Documentary, Short
Country: USA
The clip shows a jockey, Domm, riding a horse, Sally Gardner. The clip is not filmed but instead consists of 24 individual photographs shot in rapid succession, making a moving picture when using a zoopraxiscope.
Director: Georges Méliès
Stars: Georges Méliès
Genre: Short, Comedy
Country: France
Much to our amazement, an elegant and masterful illusionist detaches his own head effortlessly from his shoulders for a once-in-a-lifetime performance.