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British photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes the first successful photographs of motion, showing how people and animals move.
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Etienne Marey in France develops a camera, shaped like a gun, that can take twelve pictures per second.
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FIrst American film shown to a public audience.
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Henry Miles sets up the first film exchange, allowing exhibitors to rent films instead of buying them.
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Los Angeles annexes Hollywood.
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Credits begin to appear at the beginning of motion pictures.
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William Fox founds the Fox Film Corporation, combining motion picture production, distribution, and theaters.
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Warner Bros.'s The Jazz Singer, presents the movie's first spoken words: "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet." The Vitaphone method that the studio uses involves recording sound on discs.
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The first drive-in movie theater opens in New Jersey.
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Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen form the film studio DreamWorks.
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Titanic, which premiered in 1997, becomes the highest grossing film in Hollywood history, earning $580 million domestically.
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The Blair Witch Project, which cost $30,000 to make, grosses $125 million, making it the most profitable film in Hollywood history.
