Fantasmagorie

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.