The Roundhay Garden Scene, filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince in Leeds, England, on November 16, 1888, is considered the first home movie ever filmed.

A Day with Thomas A. Edison (1922)

Interview with Thomas Edison on his 84th birthday in 1931

“Blacksmith Scene,” filmed on May 1, 1893 by W.K.L. Dickson for Edison, was the first Kinetoscope film shown in public exhibition and may be the first acting performance filmed.

W.K.L. Dickson’s experimental film test with sound shot in 1894.

The “Execution of Czolgosz with Panorama of Auburn Prison” was filmed on November 9, 1901. It is a detailed re-creation, based on eyewitness description, of the execution of President McKinley’s assassin. Notice the exterior master shot taken the day of execution at Auburn Prison.

“The Great Train Robbery,” made in December 1903 by Edwin Porter for Edison, was the first dramatically creative American film. Notice Justus D. Barnes firing at the camera. Broncho Billy Anderson also starred. Just about everything you wanted in a western.

“What Happened on 23rd Street, NYC,” a whimsy created by Edison Studios in 1901

French “phonoscène” by Alice Guy Blanche, a sound film test made in 1905. It’s a film short about making a film sound short.

A French/German photoscene film short made in 1908

“Jack’s Joke” (1913), made by Edison using the Kinetophone

Clara Bow experiments with color film. Clara Bow rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a spirited shopgirl in the film “It” brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties.

Bard/Pearl Vaudeville, Lee de Forest’s 1923 film made with his Phonofilm System

Ted Case’s 1925 test films

Case’s test film of prison reformer Thomas Mott Osborne

The feature “Don Juan,” starring John Barrymore, Mary Astor, and Estelle Taylor, was released on August 6, 1926. Available from Warner Brothers Archive Collection.

“Sunrise,” starring George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingston, was released on September 23, 1927. Available from 20th Century Fox Studio Classics.

“The Jazz Singer,” starring: Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland, and Eugenie Besserer, was released on October 10, 1927. Available from Warner Brothers Archive Collection.