1900s Films

A Trip to the Moon (original French title: Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Melies. Widely regarded as the first science fiction film, it follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a bullet-shaped capsule, encounter the Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth. The film features Melies's most iconic image — the rocket landing in the Moon's eye — and pioneered numerous special effects techniques including superimposition, dissolves, and hand-painted color. The film is in the public domain.

Fantasy · Sci-Fi · Adventure

The film usually credited with proving movies could tell a real story. Four bandits hold up a railroad telegraph office, board the train, rob the mail car, and escape across the New Jersey countryside with a posse in pursuit — all in about twelve minutes. Edwin S. Porter made it for Edison's studio in 1903, cutting between the telegraph office, the train, and the chase in a way audiences had never seen. Its most famous image is a close-up of a bandit (Justus D. Barnes) firing his revolver point-blank at the camera, a shot exhibitors could place at the start or the end of the reel. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1990. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Western · Crime · Silent

Shot by the Miles Brothers just days before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, this single continuous take rides a cable car down Market Street toward the Ferry Building, passing horse-drawn wagons, early automobiles, and pedestrians who wander casually into the frame. It is one of the most haunting pieces of early actuality footage ever made: the city it shows was largely destroyed by the quake and fire less than a week later. Historians have used everything from the cars' license plates to puddles on the street to pin down the exact filming date. The film is in the public domain.

Documentary · Silent · Short

Made by J. Stuart Blackton at Vitagraph Studios, this short is widely cited as the first American animated film. Blackton combines stop-motion photography of chalk drawings on a blackboard with cut-out figures and a few hand-drawn frames, making faces appear to morph, smile, and react on their own. The technique is crude by modern standards, but the idea of bringing a drawing to life on screen was new. The film is in the public domain in the United States as a pre-1930 work.

Animation · Silent · Short

The Merry Frolics of Satan (original French title: Les Quatre Cents Farces du Diable) is a 1906 French silent fantasy film directed by Georges Melies. The film follows a chemical engineer who makes a pact with the devil, gaining magical powers that he uses to play a series of pranks. The film showcases Melies' signature visual effects, including transformations, disappearances, and elaborate set pieces. As a 1906 work, the film is in the public domain.

Fantasy · Comedy

Made by Émile Cohl at Gaumont in Paris, Fantasmagorie is generally considered the first fully hand-drawn animated film. Cohl drew roughly 700 frames on paper, then photographed them onto negative film to create a glowing white-on-black line that constantly morphs: a figure becomes an elephant, a bottle, a clown, a woman's hat, dissolving and reforming in a stream-of-consciousness flow. The title nods to the magic-lantern phantasmagoria shows of the era. The film is in the public domain as a pre-1930 work.

Animation · Silent · Short