Timeline: Timeline of the early movie industry

Jun 15, 1878

The First Film "The Horse in Motion" is released

In Union Park Racetrack, CA, someone rigged 12 shutters from custom-made cameras with 20x24 inch plates to trip wires 21 inches apart to cover the feet of one-horse stride, with the help of a cinematographer. The horses hooves triggered the trip wires, which captured 16 sequential images of a horse owner riding his horse Sallie Gardner. When sped up by a zoetrope, something strange happened when the photographs were shown in sequence. The photographs came to life.

Period: Jun 15, 1878 to Sep 5, 1941

Timeline of the early movie industry

1903

First Movie with color The Passion Play and Vie et Passion du Christ

the first feature film to have colorized sequences. Colorization was achieved using the Pathecolor/Pathechrome stencil-based film tinting process, which had been invented around 1903 by Pathe Freres, one of the most important and innovative film companies in history.

Dec 1, 1903

the first movie with a story, The Great Train Robbery

While the earliest Edison films were actualities or brief fictional scenarios, by 1902, technological advancements in motion picture cameras and celluloid made possible longer, more complex narratives like The Great Train Robbery.
The film’s popularity stemmed largely from Porter’s formal innovations, significantly, his use of editing to cut together disparate shots into a narrative of shifting perspectives and locations

Aug 17, 1908

First animated movie FANTASMAGORIE

The first fully animated feature film was released in Paris by the Gaumont company. Created by Emile Cohl, Fantasmagorie is considered one of the masterpieces of animated cinema and of early cinema as a whole. Done in a white-on-black style, reminiscent of a film negative, the film broke with the realist tradition emerging in live action at the time

Feb 2, 1914

First Charlie Chaplin film Making a Living

Charlie Chaplin is often considered one of the most legendary and best actors of all time. This was his first movie. While it doesn’t even hold a candle with what he would go onto do, it's still a decent flick for the greatest actor of this time period.

Oct 6, 1927

First movie with sound The Jazz Singer

This movie was the first movie ever with audible dialogue.

Nov 18, 1928

First Disney animation Steamboat Willie

The first film starring Mickey Mouse to be released with synchronized sound, it threw silent animation into obsolescence and launched an empire. Previously, there had been little to distinguish Disney's cartoons from those of his competitors.

Aug 25, 1939

Wizard of Oz is released

One of the greatest and most legendary movies ever made, this was a great movie that got the publics minds off from the growing world tensions and the effects of the great depression.