Thomas A. Edison Movies

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

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

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

A great feature of the Pan-American Exposition, as unanimously conceded by all visitors, was the electric illumination of the Exposition grounds at...

Experimental test footage from Edison’s earliest motion picture work, capturing camera trials, exposure studies, and mechanical movement....

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...

Daily practice of life boat crew, showing boat being upset purposely by the men. As these boats are self-righting and self-bailing, the scene is...

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

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

A formerly lost Edison film from 1912.

A comic short in which a tramp attempts to ride a bicycle, tumbling repeatedly before giving up in despair. A skilled rider then takes the stage,...

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

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

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...

East Side Drive, No. 1 (1896) is a brief, silent actual-city documentary directed by James H. White for Edison. Filmed on New York City’s East...

This film records the arrival of the Governor General of Canada, the Earl of Minto, accompanied by the Countess of Minto and their household, as they...

“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...

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...

An Edison Kinetophone short featuring leading suffragists Harriet May Mills, Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw, Mrs. Raymond Brown, Mrs. John Rogers, Jr., and...