Movies: Edison Studios

After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits....

Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée; but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster....

A man (Thomas Edison's assistant) takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. This is one of the earliest Thomas Edison films and was the second motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States....

Viola Dana stars as the child of a widower who marries again, much to her dismay. Despite all attempts by the adults, the child refuses to accept her new step-mother...

A young, dark-haired woman performs a dance inspired by George du Maurier's character Trilby, in an early modern dance style reminiscent of Isadora Duncan. She dances barefoot without stockings and is dressed in a long, flowing gown bound across the ...

The hanging of child murderer, William Carr...

The forerunner of all serials, What Happened to Mary was a series of twelve monthly one reel episodes, each a complete entity in itself, revolving its immediate dramatic and melodramatic problems within the framework of a single episode and designed ...

A short film depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over it. The executioner lifts his axe ready to bring it down. After that frame Mary has been replaced by a ...

William K.L. Dickson plays the violin while two men dance. This is the oldest surviving sound film where sound is recorded on the phonograph....

Three men hammer on an anvil and pass a bottle of beer around. Notable for being the first film in which a scene is being acted out....

One of the first, of not the first, film adaptation of Grimm's fairytale....

Roy Conover has just returned to his village home from college....

An illegitimate child of the slums comes to faith. Later, she chooses to labor in a canning factory in order to investigate its poor conditions, not realizing she has a significant connection to the cold-hearted factory owner....

A “madman” escapes prison and the torments of his warders....

A baker's assistant throws a handful of dough at a rat. The dough sticks to the side of a barrel and the assistant proceeds to sculpt the dough into various faces and shapes. There is some experimental use of stop motion....

Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of the famous fairy tale story of Jack and his magic beanstalk. Borrowing on cinematographic methods reminiscent of 'Georges Melies' , Porter uses animation, double exposu...

Edison short about a happy couple about to be married, but the guy's carelessness at their workplace leads to tragedy....

Porter's sequential continuity editing links several shots to form a narrative of firemen responding to a house fire. They leave the station with their horse drawn pumper, arrive on the scene, and effect the safe rescue of a woman from the burning ho...

A woman riding a train must contend with the unwelcome advances of a male passenger....

Tim spends his days running with a railroad gang which frustrates his struggling parents. When his father falls ill Tim reluctantly gets a job begrudging being forced into that position, but when events take a tragic turn he realizes the need for him...