Thomas A. Edison Movies

A six-part documentary recording the 74-year-old Edison's collaborations with his staff, conversations with industrial leaders, and supervision of...

A graceful performance of the Mikado dance, featuring three Japanese women in elaborate traditional costume. Originally noted for its striking effect...

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

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...

Filmed on January 1, 1899, this Edison short shows a victory march by General Lee and the Seventh Army Corps. When watching these early films it's...

A formerly lost Edison film from 1912.

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

On February 17, 1913, after many years of R+D, Thomas Alva Edison introduced the Edison Kinetophone to an enthusiastic New York audience. The...

This short captures the thrill of winter sport in Canada, showing skiers racing downhill at high speed before leaping over a snow-built hurdle. Most...

An Edison Kinetophone short presenting an on-stage minstrel company performing musical numbers and patter; made as part of Edison’s early...

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

In this John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short, a look is taken at the problems of film preservation efforts in the 1930s and early 1940s.

The Birth of the Telephone (1914) is a Kinetophone short produced by Edison, featuring Thomas A. Watson, assistant to Alexander Graham Bell,...

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

The Old Violin (1914) is a Kinetophone short produced by Edison, directed by Daniel Higham. The film features an elderly violinist reprimanding a...

Shows ice plows in operation, drawn by horses and guided by men on skates. The plows are first operated in one direction and then crosswise, cutting...

A documentary overview of the career of silent cinema pioneer Edwin S. Porter.

Civil War drama of a Confederate spy who is captured by Union soldiers.

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

“This film is remarkable in several respects. In the first place, it is full life-size. Secondly, it is the only accurate recent portrait of...