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The First Movie: The Horse in Motion
This groundbreaking motion photography was accomplished using multiple cameras and assembling the individual pictures into a a single motion picture. it’s something that you could do today, using a few cameras that are set to go off at an exact moment. -
Roundhay Garden Scene
The world’s earliest surviving motion-picture film, showing actual consecutive action is called Roundhay Garden Scene. It’s a short film directed by French inventor Louis Le Prince. While it’s just 2.11 seconds long, it is technically a movie. According to the Guinness Book of Records, it is the oldest surviving film in existence. -
Arrival of a Train
This 50-second silent film shows the entry of a train pulled by a steam locomotive into a train station of the French coastal town of La Ciotat. It’s a single, unedited view illustrating an aspect of everyday life, and the film consists of one continuous real-time shot. -
Panchromatic Film
The process of panchromatic film was first made or devised in 1912 by French producer Leon Gaumont. Panchromatic film was a type of black and white film sensitive to light of all colors (including red), thereby making the picture more realistic. The first feature film made entirely with the new emulsion (panchromatic negative film stock) was The Headless Horseman (1922). -
First 3-D Film
The Power of Love (1922) - now a lost film - was the first 3-D feature film shown to a paying film audience, at the Ambassador Hotel's 'theater' in Los Angeles in September, 1922. The stereoscopic film was projected 'dual-strip' in the red/green anaglyph format, making it both the earliest known film that utilized dual strip projection and the earliest known film in which anaglyph glasses were used. -
The First Gangster Movie
Warner Bros. inaugurated the crime-gangster film, with director Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar (1930) (starring Edward G. Robinson as a small-time hood) - the first talkie gangster film. It has often been called the grandfather of the modern crime film, and is one of the most well-known and best of the early classical gangster films. Edward G. Robinson created a quintessential portrayal of an underworld character, ruthless gangster Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello. -
The First War Film
The first of numerous Hollywood films to take up the U.S. cause of World War II was Wake Island (1942). It was Hollywood's first major World War II film, starring Brian Donlevy, William Bendix, and Robert Preston. The war film was followed by other morale-boosting feature films such as Flying Tigers.
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Cinerama
Paramount's wrap-around, big-screen Cinerama debuted - a break-through technique that required three cameras, three projectors, interlocking, semi-curved (at 146 degrees) screens, and four-track stereo sound. A travelogue of the world's vacation spots, with a thrilling roller-coaster ride was shown in This Is Cinerama - it premiered as the first Cinerama film shown to the public. Paramount's wrap-around, big-screen Cinerama was the first real widescreen feature film format. -
The most expensive movie
Cleopatra (1963), the most expensive film ever made to date opened. It was one of the biggest flops in film history. The epic starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and Richard Burton. Negative publicity was generated by the off-screen extra-marital affair conducted between major stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, in the long run, it was beneficial for the film's bottom line, since it became the most expensive film made-to-date, and took two and a half years of filming. -
Apollo 13
On April 13, 1970, an explosion on board the Apollo 13 lunar mission forced the crew to abort their mission to the moon and devise a way to bring their compromised spaceship home. They landed safely in the Pacific Ocean four days later. The events of the space flight were recounted in director Ron Howard's Apollo 13 (1995) twenty five years later, with Tom Hanks in the role of veteran astronaut Jim Lovell. -
The start to the longest running horror franchise
Friday the 13th(1980) debuted - it was the first segment in one of the longest running, most prolific and financially-successful horror film series of all time. It was one of the first splatter-films to be picked up as a franchise by a major studio - Paramount Pictures. It was a quintessential slasher movie with minimal character development (and amateurish acting), premiering its main character Jason Voorhees. -
The first acting Oscar awarded to a horror film since the Best Actor award given to Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Rob Reiner's Misery (1990), derived from horror meister Stephen King's 1974 novel, won an Academy Award for its lead actress Kathy Bates, the first acting Oscar awarded to a horror film since the Best Actor award given to Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931/32). It was the 19th highest-grossing film of 1990, with $61.3 million (domestic) in revenue.
