Movies & TV Shows from 1896

Russian sovereign Nicholas II and Alexandra Fiodorovna, and President Felix Faure, parading down the Champs-Elysées in a carriage, followed by horsemen.

Several military companies parading, on foot, in front of Wilhelm II, in Breslau, Germany (nowadays Wroclaw, Poland).

Sovereign Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna and President Félix Faure, walking by, followed by their respective escorts.

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Sovereign Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna and their suite slowly walk down a staircase, preceded by a company of cuirassiers.

Panorama of the docks, the city and the bridge of a boat sailing the Rhine river in Cologne, Germany.

A battalion, preceded by three riders and a military marching band, parades in front of the crowd. A man is manoeuvring a handcart bearing the inscription "Sunlight Soap" in the foreground.

The first part of the film shows an actuality street scene of traffic in the Strand. Behind the traffic we can see the entrance to the Gaiety Theatre on the Strand, advertising its latest show 'My Girl'. The second part is a different film altogether, spliced onto the first and is R W Paul’s Turn Out of a Fire Brigade filmed in November 1896 in Newcastle at the Westgate Road fire station. The film date is 1896.

Filmed in 1896 by Alexandre Promio for the Lumière company, this short actuality presents one of the earliest traveling shots in cinema. With the camera mounted on a gondola, the film glides along Venice’s Grand Canal, capturing passing gondolas, bustling waterfront activity, and the city’s iconic architecture from a moving perspective. This simple yet groundbreaking technique introduced audiences to a new way of experiencing motion on screen.

Georges Méliès makes a woman disappear, then reappear.

A black and white short from the Lumière brothers in which a crowds is filmed at the Place de l'Opèra in Paris.

Geneva (Exhibition 1896): back to the barn.

A brief fantasy tale involving a strange fairy who can produce and deliver babies coming out of cabbages. This film is lost or never existed. Copies of it online are actually the 1900 remake.

Movement of pedestrians, cabs, carts and trams at the crossroads of two avenues.

The German infantry parades in front of Nicholas II and Wilhelm II.

The first movie audiences took particular delight in scenes of rushing, churning water. These scenes of Niagara Falls were taken in September 1896, while Dickson and Bitzer were filming McKinley and the Empire State Express.