Godina 1897

An incident of the Franco-Prussian War. It shows the bombardment of a house at Bazeille. It is the animated reproduction of de Neuville's celebrated painting.

A weary traveler stops at an inn along the way to get a good night's sleep, but his rest is interrupted by odd happenings when he gets to his room--beds vanishing and re-appearing, candles exploding, pants flying through the air and his shoes walking away by themselves.

A romantic couple are transformed into skeletons via X-Rays. The film combines two very recent innovations: Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895, and Georges Méliès' accidental realisation of the special-effects potential of the jump-cut in 1896.

A woman arrives home after the ball. Her servant helps her undress and bathe.

Angelic and demonic serpentine dance from dawn of cinema. Hand-colored frame by frame. Lumière no. 765 or 765.1 (colorized, different dancer?).

Wintertime in Lyon. About a dozen people, men and women, are having a snowball fight in the middle of a tree-lined street. The cyclist coming along the road becomes the target of opportunity. He falls off his bicycle. He's not hurt, but he rides back the way he came, as the fight continues.

Lasting for roughly 50 seconds, it shows the goodbyes of many passersby - first Europeans, then Palestinian Arabs, then Palestinian Jews - as a train leaves Jerusalem.

Two crooks throw a lady off a roof, and a hapless policeman tries to capture them.

A man has an encounter with several spooky apparitions in a castle that is evidently owned by the Devil.

A rocky sea voyage as reenacted by Georges Méliès.

“This film is remarkable in several respects. In the first place, it is full life-size. Secondly, it is the only accurate recent portrait of the great inventor. The scene is an actual one, showing Mr. Edison in working dress engaged in an interesting chemical experiment in his great Laboratory. There is sufficient movement to lead the spectator through the several processes of mixing, pouring, testing, etc. as if he were side by side with the principal. The lights and shadows are vivid, and the apparatus and other accessories complete a startling picture that will appeal to every beholder.” (Edison Catalog)

This legendary fight was filmed on March 17, 1897, using 63mm film that produced an aspect ratio of about 1.75:1. Using three adjacent cameras, Enoch Rector recorded the entire fight, simultaneously creating the world's first known feature film, as the resulting footage lasted over 90 minutes in length. About a quarter of the film survives today.

George Albert Smith's remake of Georges Méliès - Le Manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle) from 1896. This film is lost or never existed. Copies of it online are actually a Méliès film.

Three military men, seen inside a fortification, are firing on an unseen enemy force. The call for reinforcements but ladders appear signalling the enemy is about to overrun this position.

This early film made by Georges Hatot for the Lumière Company is a brief single shot-scene of the assassination of the French revolutionary writer, Jean-Paul Marat--who has the notorious distinction of having influenced the Reign of Terror.

[…] by shooting the fish in a globular bowl, the Lumières effectively use a fisheye lens, which offers distortions. The history of cinema has witnessed a struggle between the objective and subjective camera and the optically distorting lenses like the fisheye lens has been a powerful tool for the subjective camera. Here it is at the start.

A gardener is watering his flowers, when a mischievous boy sneaks up behind his back, and puts a foot on the water hose. The gardener is surprised and looks into the nozzle to find out why the water has stopped coming. The boy then lifts his foot from the hose, whereby the water squirts up in the gardener's face. The gardener chases the boy, grips his ear and slaps him in his buttocks. The boy then runs away and the gardener continues his watering. Three separate versions of this film exist, this is the third version.

A view of the entrance to the Stockholmsutställlningen, the World Exhibition in Stockholm.

Women wash clothes in a washhouse on the edge of a river.