Film

History of Cinema

  • Roundhay Garden Scene

    Roundhay Garden Scene
    The first film ever made with a single camera, in Roundhay, Leeds, England.
    At just over 2 seconds long, it was recorded at a whopping 12 frames per second.
  • Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory

    Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory
    A man opens the big gates to the Lumière factory. Through the gateway and a smaller doorway beside it, workers are streaming out, turning either left or right. Most of them are women in long dresses and big hats, but some are men. Suddenly a man with a long apron rushes out through the crowd, followed by a big dog. At last some men on bikes leave the gateway. When all workers have left the factory, the doorkeeper starts closing the gates again.
  • A trip to the moon

    A trip to the moon
    A group of men travel to the moon by being shot in a capsule from a giant cannon. They are captured by moon-men, escape, and return to the earth.
  • Kinemacolor

    Kinemacolor
    Kinemacolor was the first successful color motion picture process, used commercially from 1908 to 1914. It was invented by George Albert Smith of Brighton.
  • The Birth of a Nation

    The Birth of a Nation
    The Civil War divides friends and destroys families, but that's nothing compared to the anarchy in the black-ruled South after the war.
  • The Kid

    The Kid
    The Tramp cares for an abandoned child, but events put that relationship in jeopardy.
  • The Jazz Singer

    The Jazz Singer
    The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Warner Bros.
  • The Public Enemy

    The Public Enemy
    A young hoodlum rises up through the ranks of the Chicago underworld, even as a gangster's accidental death threatens to spark a bloody mob war.
  • King Kong

    King Kong
    A film crew goes to a tropical island for an exotic location shoot and discovers a colossal giant gorilla who takes a shine to their female blonde star. Then he's captured and brought back to New York City for public exhibition.
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

    Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
    Snow White, pursued by a jealous queen, hides with the Dwarfs, but the queen learns of this and prepares to feed her a poison apple.
  • Gone with the Wind

    Gone with the Wind
    A manipulative Southern belle carries on a turbulent affair with a blockade runner during the American Civil War.
  • Psycho

    Psycho
    A Phoenix secretary steals $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
  • Night of the Living Dead

    Night of the Living Dead
    A group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a farmhouse.
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey

    2001: A Space Odyssey
    Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest.
  • The Godfather

    The Godfather
    The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
  • Jaws

    Jaws
    When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and a grizzled fisherman set out to stop it.
  • Star Wars

    Star Wars
    Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader.
  • Blade Runner

    Blade Runner
    A blade runner must pursue and try to terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
  • Die Hard

    Die Hard
    John McClane, officer of the NYPD, tries to save his wife Holly Gennaro and several others that were taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.
  • Jurassic Park

    Jurassic Park
    During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok.
  • Schindler's List

    Schindler's List
    In Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.
  • Forrest Gump

    Forrest Gump
    Forrest Gump, while not intelligent, has accidentally been present at many historic moments, but his true love, Jenny Curran, eludes him.
  • Toy Story

    Toy Story
    A cowboy doll is profoundly threatened and jealous when a new spaceman figure supplants him as top toy in a boy's room.
  • Titanic

    Titanic
    A seventeen-year-old aristocrat falls in love with a kind, but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.
  • The Matrix

    The Matrix
    A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.
  • X-Men

    X-Men
    Two mutants come to a private academy for their kind whose resident superhero team must oppose a terrorist organization with similar powers.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

    The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
    A meek Hobbit and eight companions set out on a journey to destroy the One Ring and the Dark Lord Sauron.
  • The Pianist

    The Pianist
    A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II.
  • Avatar

    Avatar
    A paraplegic marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.