Thomas A. Edison Movies

Feature-length compilation of 1920s newsreel footage, with commentary about news, sports, lifestyles, and historical figures.

A showcase of trapeze artist Alciede Capitaine, billed as “The Perfect Woman,” whose daring feats on the flying bar combined grace with...

A short film in which the members of the Motion Pictures Patents Company (which had been founded only a year earlier) congratulate Thomas Edison...

East Side Drive, No. 1 (1896) is a brief, silent actual-city documentary directed by James H. White for Edison. Filmed on New York City’s East...

Experimental test footage from Edison’s earliest motion picture work, capturing camera trials, exposure studies, and mechanical movement....

A short Edison Kinetophone film, part of Edison’s early experiments in synchronizing sound and image. Distributed by General Film Company....

A location actuality filmed in Philadelphia (May 27–28, 1904) documenting the Inter-Collegiate Athletic Association’s championships:...

A short documentary capturing the officers and crew of the USS Brooklyn during a naval parade in Brooklyn, New York, on October 1, 1898, following...

This film captures the departure of the 2nd Special Service Battalion, Canadian Infantry, from Quebec for the war in South Africa. Soldiers in...

This Edison short features famed cyclist Neidert performing a series of impressive bicycle stunts on stage, including riding backwards, balancing on...

A satirical short produced to highlight the unreasonable extremes of local film censorship—a film so heavily censored that only the title cards...

A group of Jewish men in Ottoman Jerusalem perform a dance.

A comedy of a young man’s humiliating initiation into a woman-hating men’s club, The Five Jolly Bachelors. With Eddie Boulden and the...

This film records the arrival of the Governor General of Canada, the Earl of Minto, accompanied by the Countess of Minto and their household, as they...

“A comic subject, clear, bright and characteristic. Shows four girls in their night dresses, engaged in an animated pillow fight. During the...

The Passion Play of Oberammergau (1898) presents scenes from the famed Bavarian passion play, dramatizing the final days of Jesus Christ—from...

The dancer Fatima, well-known for her dancing shows at the World's Exhibition in 1893, performs for the camera. She opens her act by twirling around...

This 1894 film depicts a staged “war council” featuring a group of Sioux men in traditional dress, seated in deliberation as Buffalo Bill...

A line is shot to the man clinging to the overturned boat. He fastens it to his body using all his fast failing strength. The crew pull him through...

Metropolitan Opera stars, tenor Enrico Caruso and bass-baritone Pol Plancon, in a scene from the opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" filmed in Edison...