Asking what was the first movie ever made is a bit like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. It's hard to give a definitive reply. The answer really depends on what you consider to be a movie. If you consider a set of moving pictures to be the first movie ever made, then Eadweard Muybridge's high-speed ptographs of a horse galloping can rightfully claim the title. While these photos can be considered the first moving pictures, were they truly the first movie ever made?


The First Motion Picture Ever Made - The Horse In Motion (1878)

Eadweard Muybridge's groundbreaking motion photography was accomplished using multiple cameras and assembling the individual pictures into a motion picture. Muybridge was commissioned by Leland Stanford (California governor/ Stanford University) to scientifically answer a popularly debated question during this era - are all four of a horse's hooves ever off the ground at the same time while the horse is galloping? Muybridge's time-motion photography proved they indeed were, and the idea of motion photography was born.

First Home Movie Ever Made - Roundhay Garden Scene (1888)

Early movie history is surrounded in the mists of time, as different competitors developed movie technology simultaneously. However, the Roundhay Garden Scene is thought to be the oldest surviving film on record.The Roundhay Garden Scene was directed by the French inventor, Louis Le Prince and features some members of Le Prince's family playfully walking around a garden. The film lasts about two seconds. It is recorded at a groundbreaking 20 frames per second and is the earliest surviving film.

First Movie Ever Shot (U.S.A.) - Monkeyshines No. 1 (1889 or 1890)

Monkeyshines, No. 1 may very well be the first movie ever shot using a continuous strip of film. It was shot as a camera test by W.K.L. Dickson and William Heise, both of whom worked for Thomas Edison. Historians are unsure of the exact date this film was shot as it was filmed to be a camera test and not for commercial purposes.

The First Copyrighted Movie Ever Made - Fred Ott's Sneeze (1893-4)

This title goes to Fred Ott's Sneeze, which reportedly was the first movie ever made at Thomas Edison's Black Maria rooftop studio. The actual name of this movie is Record of a Sneeze, which was made in late 1893 and copyrighted on January 7, 1894.

First Movie Ever Made for Projection - Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory (1895)

The Lumiere Brothers held a private screening of projected movies on March 22, 1895. This test screening was a success. The Lumiere's then held their first paid, public screening of movies on December 28, 1895 in the basement the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. The basement was set up with a hundred seats. Thirty-three people paid attendance to witness the birth of cinema.The program that night consisted of ten Lumiere shorts, each running approximately 46 seconds in length

One of the First Film -Strongman Sandow (1890)