Film History

  • the birth of still photography

    the development of the first commercially-viable daguerreotype by French painter and inventor Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre.
  • "First Movie Machine"

    The Praxinoscope, a descendant of the zoetrope device, was invented by Charles Emile Reynaud in 1877
  • The Horse in Motion

    Eadweard Muybridge successfully conducted a chronophotography using multiple series of cameras to record a horse's gallops.
  • chronophotography

    In 1882, Marey, often claimed to be the 'inventor of cinema,' constructed a camera (or "photographic gun") that could take multiple (12) photographs per second of moving animals or humans - called chronophotography
  • Kinetograph was made

    Dickson, in November 1890,invented a motor-powered camera that could photograph motion pictures and called it a Kinetograph.
  • Black Maria built

    America's first movie studio was built by February 1, 1893, at a cost of $637.67.
  • Carmencita was filmed

    Carmencita was filmed in the Black Maria studio and was the first woman to appear in front of a US motion picture.
  • first kinetoscope parlor

    On April 14, 1894, the Holland Brothers opened the first Kinetoscope Parlor
  • projected a film motion picture

    inventor Charles Francis Jenkins became the first person to project a filmed motion picture onto a screen for an audience in Richmond, Indiana, using his projector termed the Phantoscope.
  • First known film with live recording sound

    The first known (and only surviving) film with live-recorded sound made to test the Kinetophone was the 17-second Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894-1895).
  • Young Griffo v. Battling Charles Barnett

    The first movie to be shown to a paying audience was filmed may 4, 1895 with an Eidoloscope Camera.
  • The first American movie company

    William K.L. Dickson left Edison to form his own company in 1895, called the American Mutoscope Company, the first and the oldest movie company in America
  • The Kiss

    first film ever made of a couple kissing in cinematic history
  • Fox Film Corporation founded

    Fox Film Corporation/Foundation was founded in 1912 by NY nickelodeon owner William Fox
  • First millionaire star

    1916 Mary Pickford was the first star to become a millionaire
  • Warner Bros. Pictures

    Warner Bros. Pictures, incorporated in 1923 by Polish brothers Jack, Harry, Albert, and Sam
  • largest grossing silent film

    The largest grossing silent film up to its time was King Vidor's WWI tale - an epic, anti-war film and romance story from MGM The Big Parade (1925)
  • longest talkie

    the longest Hollywood talkie released up to that time, MGM's The Great Ziegfeld (1936), at 2 hours, 59 minutes
  • snow white

    In 1937, the Disney-produced Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was the first feature-length animated film
  • Gone withe the Wind

    The top-grossing Gone With the Wind (1939) was the most expensive film of the decade at $4.25 million.