The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

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.

1896-06-30 | fr

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

1927-09-23 | de

Laurel & Hardy: Their Lives and Magic

The lives of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), on the screen and behind the curtain. The joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. The story of one of the best comic duos of all time: a lesson on how to make people laugh.

2011-12-28 | de

One Second in Montreal

A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.

1969-09-25 | en

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

1922-06-11 | en

Visions of Lourdes

Charles Dekeukeleire, then a questioning Catholic, was spurred into making this documentary on a pilgrimage with the Catholic Young Workers’ Movement. The director’s approach is one of critical reflection; A film emotional and fervent, even acerbic.

1932-01-01 | xx

Railway Station

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.

1980-01-01 | pl

A Sea Cave Near Lisbon

The water beats relentlessly against the Hell's Mouth (Boca do Inferno), one of the main natural attractions of Lisbon's west coast, filmed from above almost in a vertical plunge onto the deep, rocky ground.

1896-10-29 | en

Head of Procession Including Bluejackets

1897-01-01 | en

Royal Carriages Passing Westminster

1897-01-01 | en

Caped Mounted Riflemen Passing St Paul's

1897-01-01 | en

Athlete with Wand

An athlete demonstrating various poses.

1894-02-01 | xx

The Mistral

Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens follows the course of the famous wind as it originates in the Alps and finds its way to the Mediterranean Sea. Natural sounds and creative camera work provide a mood film showing the effect of the fury of the wind on the life of southern France.

1966-09-02 | fr

Luis Martinetti, Contortionist

Luis Martinetti, a contortionist suspended from acrobatic flying rings, contorts himself for about thirty seconds. This is one of the first films made for Edison's kinetoscopes.

1894-01-01 | xx

Amy Muller

Vaudeville dancer Amy Muller performs a portion of her stage routine, which features dancing on her toes. She dances on one toe for part of the performance. Later, she also twirls and does cartwheels.

1896-03-23 | xx

Watermelon Contest

Two men have a contest to see which one can be the first to eat a large slice of watermelon.

1896-01-01 | xx

Kino-Pravda No. 21: Lenin Kino-Pravda. A Film Poem About Lenin

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel made to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilich Lenin (21st January 1924 - 1925) drawn from 'The Final Journey', a Pravda feuilleton written on the occasion of Lenin's funeral by the man who had introduced Vertov to cinema, Mikhail Koltsov. Contains: First anniversary of Lenin's death: 1. Assassination attempt on Lenin and Soviet Russia's progress under his leadership / 2. Lenin's illness, death and funeral / 3. The year after Lenin's death

1925-01-21 | ru

Ways to Strength and Beauty

The perfect body as an object of cult worship. Based on the mass sports and body worship movement of the 1920s, the film propagates physical training and shows in stylized documentary scenes aspects of physical hygiene, gymnastics, sports and dancing as well as scenes in which supposed sportsmen of antiquity pose naked.

1925-03-16 | de

1925 Studio Tour

A tour of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio in 1925 shows the people who make the movies there, and gives viewers a glimpse at how movies are made.

1925-04-09 | en

Dragoons Passing St Paul's

1897-01-01 | en