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Moving images were produced on revolving drums and disks with independent invention by Simon von Stampfer (Stroboscope) in Austria, Joseph Plateau (Phenakistoscope) in Belgium and William Horner (zoetrope) in Britain.
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Thomas Edison and W.K. Dickson develop the Kinetoscope, a peep-show device in which film is moved past a light.
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The first commercial exhibition of film took place on April 14, 1894 at the first Kinetoscope parlor ever built.
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Two French brothers, Louis and August Lumiere patent a combination movie camera and projector. In Paris, they present the first commercial exhibition of projected motion pictures. Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic, pictures to a paying audience of more that one person.
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Edison showed his improved Vitascope projector and it was the first commercially successful projector in the U.S.
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Cooper Hewitt mercury lamps make it practical to shoot films indoors without sunlight.
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The first animated cartoon is produced.
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There are about 9,000 movie theaters in the United States. The typical film is only a single reel long, ten- twelve minutes in length, and the actors were anonymous
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Warner Bros. is established
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Western Electric and Warner Bros. agree to develop a system for movies with sound
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The motion picture industries adopts the Production Code, a set of guidelines that describes what is acceptable in movies.
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The success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs allowed Disney to make more animated features like Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942).
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The Cold War era translated into a type of near-paranoia manifested in themes such as invading armies of evil aliens, (Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The War of the Worlds)
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Hitchcock’s Psycho was released.
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Saw Hollywood filmmakers begin to create more innovative and groundbreaking films that reflected the social revolution taken over much of the western world such as Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Graduate (1967), A Space Odyssey (1968), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Easy Rider (1969) and The Wild Bunch (1969). Bonnie and Clyde is often considered the beginning of the so-called New Hollywood.
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Saw the development of a commercially successful independent cinema in the United States. Although cinema was increasingly dominated by special-effects films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and Titanic (1997)
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Another cinematic evolution began, from physical film stock to digital cinema technology. Meanwhile DVDs became the new standard for consumer video, replacing VHS tapes.
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Americans spend $12 billion to buy or rent video tapes, compared to just $4.9 billion on box office ticket sales. 76% of households have VCR players.
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Saw the beginning of a growing problem of digital distribution to be overcome with regards to expiration of copyrights, content security, and enforcing copyright. There is higher compression for films, and Moore’s law allows for increasingly cheaper technology.
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The Dark Knight was the first major feature film to have been at least partially shot in IMAX technology.
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James Cameron’s 3D film Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time.
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Onward 3D films gained increasing popularity with many other films being released in 3D. The best critical and financial success was the feature film animation of Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar’s Toy Story 3.
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Titanic was re-released in a special 3D version to celebrate the 100th anniversary
