Although not the first feature-length animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality. The appearance of a true character distinguished it from earlier animated "trick films", such as those of Blackton and Cohl, and makes it the predecessor to later popular cartoons such as those by Walt Disney. The film was also the first to be created using keyframe animation.
A womanizing city man meets Tillie in the country. When he sees that her father has a very large bankroll for his workers, he persuades her to elope with him.
Charlie is a clumsy waiter in a cheap cabaret, suffering the strict orders from his boss. He meets a pretty girl in the park and tries to impress her by pretending to be an ambassador. Unfortunately she has a jealous fiancé.
A wicked king has taken over the Emerald City, and wants his daughter, Princess Gloria to marry the horrid courtier Googly-Goo, though she loves Pon, the Gardener's Boy. The camera follows two farmers placing a Scarecrow upon a pole in a cornfield. Pon rescues a Kansas girl named Dorothy from the evil witch Mombi, whom Princess Gloria has been taken to by King Krewl to freeze her heart so she will no longer love Pon. An Indian princess has a ceremony to bring the Scarecrow to life. Pon rescues the cold-hearted princess and they flee for help, discovering the Scarecrow, who promptly falls in love with the princess, and Button-Bright, a lost boy from America. They come to the castle of the Tin Emperor, Nick Chopper, and after oiling him, he falls in love with Gloria. After a bit of a chase aided by the Sawhorse and the Wizard, Mombi turns Pon into a Kangaroo, and a slough of Fred Woodward's animals battle it out.
A tramp gets drunk in a hotel lobby and, upstairs, causes some misunderstandings between Mabel, two hotel guests across the hall from her room, and Mabel's visiting sweetheart.
Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?
Set mostly in the Stone Age, a prehistoric king, with a harem of wives, rules a beach. Charlie arrives and falls for the king's favorite wife. In the end, it turns out to have been a dream; Charlie was asleep in the park.
The Tramp interferes with the celebration of several kid auto races in Venice, California (Junior Vanderbilt Cup Race, January 10 and 11, 1914), standing himself in the way of the cameraman who is filming the event.
A swindler scams a newspaper reporter-photographer and then, not realizing where the man is employed, applies for a job at his newspaper.
Pierre and Jacques are working as waiters at a restaurant where the cooks go on strike. When the two are forced to work as bakers, the striking cooks put dynamite in the dough, with explosive results.
When a married couple become separated in the park, a tramp sits with the lady and is beat up when her husband rejoins her. He takes a room in their hotel, and chaos ensues.
The Tramp, a film Johnnie (someone who loiters near theaters or studios to meet stars or get a job), attempts to meet his favorite movie actress at the Keystone Studio, but does not win friends there.
A very plastered fella follows a pretty woman home, and proceeds to make a nuisance of himself.
Charlie takes care of a man in a wheelchair.
Charlie plays an actor who bungles several scenes and is kicked out. He returns convincingly dressed as a lady and charms the director, but Charlie never makes it into the film.
In a dance hall, two members of the orchestra and a tipsy dancer fight over the hat check girl.
This early Chaplin film has him playing a character quite different from the Tramp for which he would become famous. He is a rich, upper-class gentleman whose romance is endangered when his girlfriend oversees him being embraced by a maid. Chaplin's romantic interest in this film, Minta Durfee, was the wife of fellow Keystone actor, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
When a burglar dressed as Santa Claus steals a family's Christmas presents, amateur detective Octavius sets out to recover the loot.
Two drunks fight with their wives and then go out and get even drunker.
To show his girl how brave he is, Pug challenges the champion to a fight. Charlie referees, trying to avoid contact with the two monsters.
