Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
to
to
Exclude
Only includes titles with the selected topics
to
In minutes
to
1-50 of 2,775
- A group of astronomers go on an expedition to the Moon.
- A group of bandits stage a brazen train hold-up, only to find a determined posse hot on their heels.
- Here is a picture that is extremely laughable. An old man is indulging in a dream, which dream is demonstrated in the picture. It shows him in a restaurant partaking of a sumptuous meal and a bottle of wine with a soubrette. There is a sudden awakening, however, and in an apparently disgusted mood, he finds himself in his own bed and his wife endeavoring to induce him to get up and build the fire.
- The first filmed version of Frankenstein. The young doctor discovers the secret of life, which he uses to create a perfect human. Things do not go according to plan.
- This is the first movie version of the famous story. Alice dozes in a garden, awakened by a dithering white rabbit in waistcoat with pocket watch. She follows him down a hole and finds herself in a hall of many doors.
- The execution of Topsy, a female elephant, in a publicity stunt advertising the opening of Luna Park on Coney Island. Topsy was originally owned by Forepaugh Circus where she killed a drunken spectator who burned the tip of her trunk with a cigar. She was sold to Sea Lion Park in 1902 which was then sold to new owners who turned it into Luna Park. After they decided they could no longer handle her, the owners of Luna Park announced they would hang Topsy, leading to an outcry by the ASPCA. The owners then decided they would electrocute the elephant, with a backup plan of feeding her cyanide-laced carrots and strangling her with a cable.
- Performing on what looks like a small wooden stage, wearing a dress with a hoop skirt and white high-heeled pumps, Carmencita does a dance with kicks and twirls, a smile always on her face.
- This short film, one of the first to use camera tricks, depicts the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.
- A divinely inspired peasant woman becomes an army captain for France and then is martyred after she is captured.
- Three men hammer on an anvil and pass a bottle of beer around.
- A fireman rushes into a carriage to rescue a woman from a house fire. He breaks the windowpanes and carries the woman to safety; after dangerous and uncertain moments he also saves the woman's son.
- In a medium close-up shot of the first kiss ever recorded on screen, two fervent lovers cuddle and talk passionately at hair's breadth, just before the love-smitten gentleman decides to give his chosen one an innocent peck.
- Much to our amazement, an elegant and masterful illusionist detaches his own head effortlessly from his shoulders for a once-in-a-lifetime performance.
- A fairy godmother magically turns Cinderella's rags to a beautiful dress, and a pumpkin into a coach. Cinderella goes to the ball, where she meets the Prince - but will she remember to leave before the magic runs out?
- The fiend faces the spectacular mind-bending consequences of his free-wheeling rarebit binge.
- Robinson Crusoe and Friday fight with hostile natives, and eventually retire to their jungle cottage to relax.
- A cartoonist defies reality when he draws objects that become three-dimensional after he lifts them off his sketch pad.
- A jealous husband arrives in the office of Hawkshaw, a private detective. The husband is certain that his wife is being unfaithful, and he wants the detective to produce photographic evidence. The detective tails the wife, and thinks he has caught her, but a sudden mishap prevents him from getting a photo. Despite this and further setbacks, the dedicated detective presses on, determined to fulfill his assignment.
- Clowns ride in on a wagon drawn by a skeletal horse. The clowns proceed to transform from blackface performers to white costumed clowns, and back again, as they perform zany antics.
- "Company F, 1st Ohio Volunteers, initiating a new man. Nineteen times he bounces in the blanket, and each toss is funnier than the last one."
- The story of Ononko's Vow is a pretty love tale through which is intertwined the story of an Indian's fidelity to his promise. The prologue takes place during the course of the Bloody Brook Massacre when an Indian chief, one of the rescuing party, saves a young Puritan, Jonathan Smith, from the tomahawk of a hostile Indian. Ungagook is the name of this chief, and he is accompanied by his little ten-year-old son, Ononko. Ungagook unknown to Smith receives his death wound in rescuing the latter. Together the chief and his son come to the house of Smith and as they see him safely to his door the colonist's young wife expresses her thanks to Ungagook. The chief makes a gesture which is intended to convey the Idea that he thinks lightly of what he has done, and immediately thereafter betrays the fact that he is mortally hurt. He expires in the home of Smith, but before doing so has his little son Ononko promise fidelity to the family in whose house his spirit goes to the Great Manitou. Twenty-eight years later we see how Ononko, now a vigorous young brave, keeps the pledge which he made his father in the years gone by. Deerfield has been sacked. Jonathan Smith and his daughter Ruth, who has just been affianced to Ebenezer Dow, are driven before the tomahawks and flintlocks of the Indians. Dow has gone for assistance, managing to evade the raiders, and the rescuing party comes from the settlement below. Jonathan Smith is saved by a trapper, but his daughter Ruth is among the colonists who are being taken on across the meadow toward Pine Hill and thence to Canada. Ononko has seen the light in the sky from the village below and has hastened with the relieving party of colonists and Narragansett Indians to the scene. He enters the room where the colonists had stoutly defended themselves but where most of them were massacred. Failing to find his friend he seeks him without, and meets him as he is leaving the awful scene of carnage. Learning from the father that his daughter is among the retreating Indians, Ononko promises to seek for her and bring her back to the grieving old man. The story ends in his successfully carrying out his promise. After the rescue, which is accomplished in a most thrilling manner, we see the young colonist and his bride-to-be approaching the edge of the settlement under the guidance of the tall young chief of the Narragansetts. Behind them walks their friend, the trapper. Ononko stands at the edge of the forest and points toward the settlement below. The three others pass him and turn to bid him good-bye, first asking him to proceed with them into the village. Ononko refuses. Why? Perhaps because in the breast of the handsome savage some gentle thought of the girl he has saved has entered: but his nobility of character permits him to entertain the thought only for a fleeting moment. When Ruth was in captivity she was protected from the snow only by the woolen dress she wore. On the homeward march Ononko had given her his blanket to keep her warm. As he bids Ebenezer and his pretty fiancée farewell Ruth offers Ononko his blanket, which she is wearing. The young chief prettily presents it to Ebenezer and places it across the shoulders of the girl. After accepting the gift the young people go to their home, their trapper friend accompanying them. Ononko stands contemplating the settlement below him. What his thoughts may be the observer is left to imagine. At the finish of the film we again see Mr. Sheldon bidding good-bye to the two young people who have been visiting his town.
- One of W.K.L. Dickson's laboratory workers horses around for the camera.
- A man (Thomas Edison's assistant) takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. This is one of the earliest Thomas Edison films and was the first motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States.
- Based on the story by Charles Dickens: Ebenezer Scrooge is well known for his harsh, miserly ways, until he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, and then by three other spirits.
- A man, objecting to being filmed, comes closer and closer to the camera lens until his mouth is all we see. Then he opens wide and swallows camera and cinematographer. He steps back, chews, and grins.
- A poor young girl tries to sell matches in a snowstorm. After being robbed by bullies, she lights matches which illuminate visions of a far happier Christmas than the one she faces.
- The story deals with the love of a young doctor and the daughter of an old Professor of Mineralogy. A certain unclaimed mine has been left to the young man by his uncle. A false friend succeeds in securing the plans and location of the mine, and persuades the old Professor to enter his scheme to cheat the rightful owner out of his claim. The facts are kept safely from the daughter, who is in love with the real owner of the mine, until some months after she has been forced to marry the false friend. The truth is then revealed to her, when her former sweetheart meets her father and the "friend" in their new western abode, and accuses them of deliberately stealing his claim. But Justice takes care of its own when an explosion occurs in the mine and the father is killed and the husband is badly injured. Medical aid is required at once. The girl in a wild ride reaches the nearest village twenty miles away, and seeing the sign of a doctor on the door, she nervously knocks. It is opened; she finds herself face to face with the man whom she loves and whom her husband has so cruelly wronged. She has come to ask him to save the life of his worst enemy. Here the nobility of the man is revealed. She has asked for medical aid; he is the doctor, if the man dies he may again regain the woman of his heart, but duty before everything, and he goes with her, and again, face to face, the two men meet. With the calm, quiet precision of his profession he forces his enemy to do his bidding. He saves his life and then turns to the wife. Silently the two, this man and this woman, look into each other's eyes long and earnestly, and part. She sinks into her chair with a sob, a moan, realizing what she has missed in life. For days she watches beside the bed of the man who has deprived her of happiness. Weary with watching, one night she falls asleep. He is delirious. He rises from his couch and wanders back up to the deserted mine. A moment he pauses on the edge of the dizzy height, a cry from the woman startles him, a shriek, and he is dashed to pieces one thousand five hundred feet below. A pale, quiet little woman dressed in black stops at the doctor's door one day and leaves a note asking for forgiveness and a mining claim upon the doctor's table, then sadly turns to leave; but a strong hand touches her shoulder, and she looks into the eyes of the man she loves, and as she stretches her arms to a great cluster of flowers on the table and holds them to her breast, we realize that something new and sweet and true has come into both their lives.
- The earliest extant sound film. William K.L. Dickson stands in the background next to a huge sound pickup horn connected to a Thomas Edison phonograph recorder. As he plays a violin, two men dance in the foreground. This film was made to demonstrate a new Thomas Edison machine, the Kinetophone. These machines were Kinetoscope peepshow viewers mated with Thomas Edison wax cylinder phonographs. But the Kinetophone never caught on and this film was never released. The film still exists, but the phonograph soundtrack has been lost.
- Based on the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe: Eliza, a slave who has a young child, pleads with Tom, another slave, to escape with her. Tom does not leave, but Eliza flees with her child. After getting some help to escape the slave traders who are looking for her, she then must try to cross the icy Ohio River if she wants to be free. Meanwhile, Tom is sold from one master to another, and his fortunes vary widely.
- In this parody of 1903's _Great Train Robbery, The (1903)_, also made by Edwin S. Porter, young bandits rob the passengers of a kiddie train and are chased by police officers.
- A family is terrified when an eagle carries off its young child.
- James J. Corbett and Peter Courtney meet in a boxing exhibition.
- An athlete swings Indian clubs.
- There is a maker of lay-figures, a gay old party who half falls in love with his own creations of pretty women and gay soubrettes. He has a son who follows in his father's footsteps. There is a young apprentice with ambitions for the stage, who is very much in love with an orphan ward of his employer. The ward is unwillingly betrothed to the good-for-nothing son. The old man has built a wonderful soubrette figure which it is his ambition to imbue with life. Then comes a fancy dress ball, which all the town people attend. The old man and his son dress themselves up and join the revelry. The little ward has nothing to wear and cannot go, until the apprentice suddenly conceives the brilliant idea of borrowing the clothes from the beautiful soubrette figure and dressing his sweetheart in them. When the old toy-maker sees her at the ball, accompanied by the young man dressed as Mephistopheles, he is convinced that he sees his own creation and the Devil. Rushing frantically from the ball, he hastens home to see if it can be true. The young people, preceding him, have no time to resume their own clothes or restore the doll to its position, so the girl takes the doll's place while the young man hides himself up the chimney. The old man and his son come in and try to induce the doll to again assume life and motion. They perform all sorts of tricks with her and the girl plays the part of the doll well enough to fool them utterly. Disgusted with their failure, they build a fire and decide to warm up a hot toddy to soothe their discouraged feelings. The young man above, smoked out by the fire, impersonates the Devil, and makes the doll live and dance for the old man on condition that he consent to the marriage of his ward to his apprentice. The old man and his son quarrel over this agreement, and after the girl has put the clothes back upon the doll the son returns and smashes it to atoms to get square with his father. In the evening the old man is called upon by his apprentice, who demands the hand of his ward in marriage. When the old man refuses the document, signed by himself, is flashed before him, and then the young man confesses the trick that he had played. He tells the old man that he impersonated the Devil and (not knowing that the son is listening behind him) tells him that the girl, the ward, impersonated the doll. The son is horrified at the thought of having killed the girl he once loved, but the apprentice, understanding the situation more thoroughly, calls the girl from her own room and the young man apparently sees a miracle, the doll-girl, which he had smashed, restored to life! In his joy at his escape from murder he gladly relinquishes all claim to the hand of the ward, and insists upon his father making good his written word.
- Film "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" based on the novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.
- Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of the famous fairy tale story of Jack and his magic beanstalk. Borrowing on cinematographic methods reminiscent of 'Georges Melies', Porter uses animation, double exposure, and trick photography to illustrate the fairy's apparitions, Jack's dream, and the fast growing beanstalk.
- Gulliver washes ashore on Lilliput, the inhabitants of which are no more than six inches tall. He later travels to Brobdingnag, a country populated by giants.
- Two members of a vigilante group known as 'The White Caps' post a warning sign on a man's home. When the man comes home, he tears down the sign, and then proceeds to abuse his wife both verbally and physically. As soon as she can get away from him, the wife leaves home with her child to find a place of refuge. When the vigilantes find out about this, they arm themselves with rifles and immediately go to confront the abusive husband.
- An elderly gentleman in a silk hat sits on a stool in front of a store on the main street of town. He has a telescope that he focuses on the ankle of a young woman who is a short distance away. Her husband catches the gent looking. What will the two men now do?
- Annie Oakley, the 'Little Miss Sure Shot' of the 'Wild West' gives an exhibition of rifle shooting at glass balls and clay pigeons in a film from the Edison Catalog.
- A hotel porter tries in his spare time to find out the secrets of the guests in looking through the keyholes of the different rooms. He must see very funny things, judging from his facial expressions.
- A charming representation of the Mikado dance by three beautiful Japanese ladies in full costume. Very effective when colored. (from the Edison Catalog)
- A woman being fitted for shoes exposes her ankle to the shoe clerk, who is intrigued. He kisses her, but her chaperone hits him with her umbrella.
- In this trickery extravaganza, Excelsior, the wizard of illusion, pulls out a handkerchief from his pocket, and after that, everything is possible in his rare and spectacular show.
- A vignette of a barroom/liquor-store in the West, no plot per se. However this short is usually regarded as the first "Western" in the sense that it depicts a western scene.
- "Firemen in working uniform, rubber coats, helmets, and boots. Thrilling rescue from burning building. Smoke effects are fine." - from the Edison Catalog
- Smith casts his wife as a sluttish housewife who is mutilated by lighting her oven with paraffin.
- A staging of Jesus' passion.
- A burglar is arrested for a murder. He is condemned to death. Before his execution the murderer dreams of his past, of how he was a bank clerk, then turned to crime. The criminal is then taken out of his cell, and a moment later is executed.