Middletons explore 1939 World's Fair, daughter falls for artist, tech & family win her back.

Produced by Westinghouse for their exhibit at the fair, The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair (1939) follows a fictional family on their visit. But, beneath its seemingly conventional facade,...

1936 film Master Hands glorifies Chevrolet factory workers in dramatic, music-driven documentary.

Master Hands, though a sponsored industrial film, is an early example of documentary filmmaking. While showcasing the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, Michigan, the film utilizes unexpected techniq...

Cinepoem explores water's beauty & diversity: calm lakes, raging rivers, & ice's transformation.

Ralph Steiner's silent film, H2O (1929) abandons traditional narrative structure in favor of a poetic and impressionistic exploration of water in all its forms. Steiner's camera captures the flow of...

Bert the Turtle teaches kids to duck & cover, offering simplistic hope in face of nuclear threat.

Produced by the U.S. government at the height of the Cold War, Duck and Cover (1951) employed animation and catchy music to teach children nuclear bomb safety protocols.

The film's instructional pu...

Violinist plays, 2 men dance, sound unsynced! History's 1st sound film experiment

Though a simple 17 second scene of two men dancing to a violin, The Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894) holds immense weight as the earliest known film with synchronized sound. This short experiment by William ...

Chicago documentary weaves jazz, Black life, & intellectual debates.

Made with a shoestring budget and a dedicated volunteer crew, Ed Bland's Cry of Jazz (1959) defies conventional narrative structure. Instead, it blends documentary footage of Chicago's Black neighborhoods with staged conversati...

1st film shown publicly, using Kinetoscope. Historical landmark of early cinema.

Blacksmith Scene (1893), a mere 30 seconds long, is a significant artifact of film history. This short work by William Dickson, made under the supervision of Thomas Edison, is not just one of the first films ever p...

Italian immigrant struggles in America without English. Learns language, finds success.

The Making of an American (1920) is a fascinating example of early cinema's exploration of film's potential as a social and educational tool. Funded by the Connecticut Department of Americanization, the film ...

A exposé of child labor horrors. Poor family & child Alice toil under ruthless factory owner.

The Cry of the Children, a hard-hitting 1912 silent drama by George Nichols for the Thanhouser Company, tackles the social issue of child labor, a daring topic for the era, and utilizes a blend of ficti...

Fireman's dream preludes fiery rescue. Mother, child trapped. Smoke, flames, daring dash.

Life of an American Fireman (1903), a silent film by Edwin S. Porter, broke away from the single-shot actuality films that dominated the era. The film tells a clear narrative, using a series of connected s...