The Top 20 Films of 1896 & 1906
Previously in our “Best of the 6s” series we’ve looked at Flickchart’s Top Ten Movies from 1966, 1946, 1996, 1986, 1916, 1936, and 1976, as we work our way up to 2016 and the best films of this year. This series is about exploring film history and how it’s evolved over each decade past, and this month we go right back to the origins of film, looking at films from 1896 and 1906.
The very earliest films date back into the late 1880s, but 1896 is a watershed year as the Lumiere brothers in France and the Edison company in the United States perfected projection technology. Before this, films were seen in machines like the Kinetoscope, a single-viewer experience where one would stand and look through a small hole to see the film. Most films were short clips of real life, called “actualities,” or bits of vaudeville acts or sporting matches. The shift to projection allowed for longer films and a communal viewing experience, and though most 1896 films remained short actualities, the beginnings of narrative are already coming into play.
By 1906, special effects were all the rage, thanks to the enormous success of Georges Méliès, J. Stuart Blackton, and other filmmakers who had figured out how to use the camera to make things seem to disappear, reappear, and transform on screen. So-called “trick” films dominated the early years of the 20th century, with fantasy and horror making their first strides onto the screen to replace the documentary impulse of the 1890s.
You may think these films are hopelessly old or out of date, or that including them in our countdown series is a joke, but I hope you’ll look at these films as what they are – baby steps in a baby industry that still have a surprising amount of power to delight and transfix us today. Because these are so short and we’re combining two years together, we’re including twenty rather than ten.
20. Aladdin and His Lamp (1906)
https://youtu.be/k14dJdstflU
The first thing that jumps out of this gorgeous film are the vibrant colors. Now, true color film wasn’t introduced until the mid-1930s, but it was very common for films of the early 1900s to have lots of color – painstakingly hand-painted on each frame. Many of the colored prints haven’t survived or have faded, though, leaving us with B&W – that this one has been so well preserved is astonishing. In fact, you can tell in this version that the last scene is from a different, far more faded print. Add in plenty of well-developed trick shots courtesy of co-director Segundo de Chomon (see more of his work below), and this is quite a lovely take on the familiar tale of Aladdin. – Jandy Hardesty
19. Card Game (1896)
Auguste and Louis Lumiere were the first to implement a workable way to project films for commercial purposes, and were the fathers of the documentary format. In 1896 most films were “actualities,” that is, very short snippets of film depicting something often mundane, like a baby eating breakfast, workers leaving a factory, a train arriving at a station (see below), a woman feeding chickens, a lion at the zoo, or a group of men playing cards. The ability to capture life as it happened was amazing enough in the early years of cinema, but the future of cinema followed narrative and fantasy and the Lumiere’s naturalistic cinema verite did not remain dominant. Here a standard round of cards is interrupted by the arrival of a bottle and glasses, proving that in 1896 as now, card games are as much about a perfectly poured glass of booze as they are about the game itself. The real highlight is the waiter in the background, who is for some reason unreasonably excited about the men drinking. Living vicariously? – Jandy
18. New York: Broadway at Union Square (1896)
The Lumieres took their camera on the road, following their impulse to document life as it was in the world in 1896 to America and elsewhere in the world. One of the things that makes their films so refreshing to watch even today is that they’re an unassuming snapshot into the lives of people over one hundred years ago. This isn’t a recreation of fin-de-siecle New York City, this is it! Other filmmakers of the early era quickly moved into staging events and narratives, and that’s an exciting development too, but there’s something wonderful about the Lumieres’ interest in unmediated reality. – Jandy
17. The Impossible Convicts (1906)
Spoiler alert: the thing that makes the convicts “impossible” is that the film runs backwards. So the jailbirds and their wardens go up and down the stairs in a way that wouldn’t normally happen. There’s a plot about a prison break tying the slapstick together, but I don’t think running the film forward — er, backward? — would make this short amount to anything more than a silly camera trick. That said, if you can’t enjoy silly camera tricks, you should stop reading this article now! – David Conrad
16. Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)
J. Stuart Blackton was one of the first trick filmmakers – he hasn’t achieved the lasting name recognition of Georges Méliès, but he was a pioneer in special effects and animation. This films is widely considered to be the first animated film, or at least the earliest surviving one, with Blackton drawing chalk figures of a man and a woman, then a clown and a dog, on a chalkboard, at which point they come to life. This “lightning drawing” style was a popular vaudeville act at the time, and has experienced renewed popularity in the YouTube era. – Jandy
15. The Hilarious Posters (1906)
https://youtu.be/dPPP2MrlYr8
In most of Georges Méliès’ films, there’s a strong element of fantasy brought to life via trick photography in front of elaborate backdrops – this one feels anomalous in comparison to the others that make this list. A workman puts up a new poster on a wall, and as soon as he’s gone, all the posters come to life and start playing around with each other – they revert to the static posters when some people go by, but soon can’t contain themselves. The trick photography is slight, just the swap between illustrated poster and real-life people, and the fantasy less elaborate than usual, but it’s still a delightful little bit of fun, and a precursor of “media come to life” films from Sherlock Jr to The Purple Rose of Cairo. – Jandy
14. A Morning Bath (1896)
All films that have survived from the early days of moving pictures are treasures, but A Morning Bath is perhaps a little more special than most. Both of the people who appear in the clip are black, a 100% minority representation rate that few films of any era can claim. Moreover, the action depicted — a woman bathing a child — is as touchingly human as can be. The bathing looks authentic, as though the camera just happened to be on hand to capture a regular morning ritual. Contrast the warm naturalism of A Morning Bath with the scripted, self-conscious feel of The Kiss (see below). – David
13. The Kiss (1896)
The threat of censorship hit the fledgling motion picture industry almost immediately, even for films as seemingly innocuous as The Kiss. Not only were public displays of affection discouraged in Victorian/Edwardian society, but the sheer size of the projected image caused moral outrage. According to one critic of the time: “The spectacle of the prolonged pasturing on each other’s lips was beastly enough in life size on the stage but magnified to gargantuan proportions and repeated three times over it is absolutely disgusting.” The industry has battled censorship ever since, and over much more flagrant offenses than this, which is much more humorous than erotic. – Jandy
12. Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g98eVbp0zic
They say not to eat rich foods right before bedtime, and THIS IS WHY. After a hearty meal and plenty to drink, our “rarebit fiend” finally makes it home to bed (after a harrowing trip through the city hanging on to a lamppost), only to have his shoes wander off, his furniture roll away, and his bed twirl like a whirling dervish and then leap out the window to soar over the city with him hanging on to the back of it. Filmmakers in 1906 were giddy with the potential of trick photography, and this film’s blending of actually quite excellent special effects (that bed hopping around is both terrifying and hilarious) with a fantastical narrative raises it a level above some of the pure trick/magic films of the early 20th century. The story is based on a comic strip by Winsor McCay, who would become the father of true cinematic animation. – Jandy
11. The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)
Considered to be the first feature film ever made, originally clocking in at about 70 minutes, The Story of the Kelly Gang was an Australian production telling the story of Ned Kelly, one of Australian’s most notorious criminals (though with a Robin Hood-esque twist). Unfortunately today the film exists only in fragments that add up to about 15 minutes. So you could easily wonder whether people should be ranking this at all, given 3/4 of it is lost, maybe forever – but its ambition shines through even the fragments remaining. And of course it’s assured its place in film history – feature films didn’t take off for another ten years, so this film is way ahead of its time, a prophetic look forward to the dominant mode of filmmaking up to the present time. This video attempts to reconstruct the missing parts of the narrative via title cards. – Jandy
10. The Witch (1906)
https://youtu.be/vhOu5hoIETg
The Witch is an elaboration on the themes and techniques of Méliès’ Mysterious Knight, an 1899 short. A character — in this case a witch, pointed hat and all — makes things appear and disappear, most notably from the surface of a painting easel. That’s as far as The Mysterious Knight had gone, but The Witch soon segues into an elaborate story involving a haunted graveyard, a huge frog, and a googly-eyed owl. By the time a dragon starts spewing smoke and fire from its mouth, you’ll be wondering, as the best Méliès films always make you wonder, how exactly he did it. The Witch features some of the lushest backdrop painting in Méliès’ filmography. – David
9. The Haunted House (1906)
Now, this one introduces some confusion into our list. The genre of “a group of visitors take shelter in a house only to be beset by strange happenings” seems to have been very popular in the first decade of the twentieth century, and Segundo de Chomon directed two films along these lines, one in 1906 and one in 1908. The only one I could find online is the 1908 version, The House of Ghosts – it seems IMDb commenters are also confusing these two, clearly discussing the 1908 film on the 1906 film’s page. Since I can’t find the 1906 version anywhere (if you do find it, please let me know!), I figure many Flickchart users have watched the 1908 and ranked this one, so I did the same, even if it messes up our 1908 list in a couple of years! In any case, you should definitely watch this thing, because it is kind of amazing, with some of the best stop-motion gags (played for both horror and comedy) I’ve seen, and I’m not just talking about in early film, either. This is some good stuff by any standard. – Jandy
8. The Mysterious Retort (1906)
https://youtu.be/S0aIIsVj9u8
When an alchemist falls asleep while tending to his large retort (like a beaker), a snake enters his room and transforms into a jester, setting in motion a serious of transformation and appearing/disappearing tricks within the retort. As he often did in his films, Georges Méliès himself appears as the alchemist. He hasn’t changed up his techniques much since his earlier films, and indeed in many ways this 1906 film is much more stage bound and simplistic than 1903’s A Trip to the Moon. Yet there are striking individual images, like the spider-face that appears first in the retort. The version above is the full film in black and white, but it’s very worthwhile to check out this shorter fragment of the film in hand-painted color, as it would’ve been at the time. – Jandy
7. Demolition of a Wall (1896)
https://youtu.be/9p0HI9t5IB0
This Lumiere actuality is fairly straightforward… at first. Then halfway through, it reverses the film so we see the wall restored, apparently the first time film was reversed like this – a technique that would be indispensable to fantasy, action, and comedy filmmakers in the future. But the Lumieres seem to have no tricks in mind here – they’re not trying to fool you into thinking the wall really returned to upright state. Rather, they’re testing the medium. Seeing what you can do with it, and what it looks like when you do it. – Jandy
6. Rip van Winkle serial (1896)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQWzowWcdRxtYaat-1IbJKkku6mxeLnOs
W.K.L. Dickson, the most accomplished filmmaker working for Edison in the early years of cinema, made this serial based on Rip Van Winkle in 1896, consisting of eight 25-second parts. Serials would become staples of silent-era cinema, and it’s also exciting to see the beginnings of narrative form while most other 1896 films remain actualities. Four of these episodes made it into the Top Ten for 1896, but I ran them all together into one entry because in true serial fashion, each entry really is incomplete without the others. In fact, in 1903 when longer films (5-10 minutes) were becoming the norm thanks to the switch to projection from single-viewer Kinetoscope machine, the Rip films were edited into a single film, which would look very much like the playlist linked above. The particular episodes that rank highest among Flickcharters (and would’ve been individual entries in this Top Twenty had we not merged them together) are Rip Passing Over the Hill, Exit of Rip and the Dwarf, Rip’s Toast, and Rip’s Twenty-Year Sleep. – Jandy
5. The ‘?’ Motorist (1906)
https://youtu.be/EvYC2_3m2ps
The British also got into the trick photography business thanks to Walter R. Booth, and here live-action, trick photography, and animation combine to give us a delightful automobile chase on land, up a building, into the clouds and even to the rings of Saturn. This one has every trick in the book, and a breezy narrative to go along with it. Stick to the very end, as there’s another fun gag with a horse/horseless carriage. – Jandy
4. A Nightmare (1896)
https://youtu.be/jdpZUDUQ7Yw
A Nightmare is the other Melies movie in which the moon has a huge, well-defined face; well, there might be more than just this and A Trip to the Moon, but let’s stipulate that this is the “other” moon-related short. Its minute-and-change runtime, typical of Melies’ 1890s output, is too short to gin up much fear from the nightmare plot, but ample time for Melies to serve up several distinctive images. In addition to the large anthropomorphic moon outside the dreamer’s window, there is a woman that changes into a dancing monkey and then into that most terrifying of creatures, a clown. – David
3. Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896)
https://youtu.be/d_9N68MO9gM
Legend has it that when the Lumiere brothers first screened this 50-second film of, well, a train entering the La Ciotat station, people in the theatre freaked out, terrified that the train barreling toward them on screen was going to run them down. It’s an enjoyable story, but it’s probably a myth or at least greatly exaggerated. However, the Lumieres’ contribution to cinema cannot be denied, and you can see here already in cinema’s infancy a developing understanding of composition and the movement within the frame. Though the camera is as static as in any early film, the diagonal lines created by the train and the flux of people toward the camera and across the screen are visually dynamic in a way that not even most other Lumiere films were. Details like that are why this film remains a favorite of early cinema historians and curious cinephiles alike. – Jandy
2. The 400 Tricks of the Devil (1906)
https://youtu.be/kkZEwrQN-Gw
One of the most sprawling Méliès spectacles this side of Le Voyage dans la Lune, The 400 Tricks of the Devil is a fast-paced and fairly bizarre little film that makes equal use of the two defining Melies traits: camera tricks and ornate stage dressing. The creepy skeleton horse dancing like a huge marionette at the front of a golden chariot (there is some color tinting) is a must see. If you’re not sold yet, I’ve got one word for you: VOLCANO! – David
1. The House of the Devil (1896)
https://youtu.be/lkDGNkoWhtU
One of the very first narrative films, and to its date the most ambitious in length, Méliès’ Le manoir du diable is also widely considered the first horror film. Watching it makes it clear that it was never really meant to scare, but entertain. Yet Méliès tricks often transport into the surreal and amazing; without an understanding of the viewer/film relationship, it would come across as the most wonderful magic. The conceit is not the extent of the craft. The goblin assistant has a nice and creepy walk, lending credence to the horror theme. The cloak the devil figure wears has a pleasant visual synergy to the wings of the bat into which he transforms. Watching Méliès initially reveals the foundation for understanding film editing, but paying attention reveals the foundation for understanding showmanship. – Alex Lovendahl