In the late 19th century, Auguste Lumière and his brother, Louis Lumière, created what is considered to be the first motion picture – the film La Sortie Des Ouvriers De L’Usine Lumière (1895), which is also known as “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory”.

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Phantom rides were an early genre of film, popular towards the end of the 19th century. It involved a camera being fixed to the front or the back of a moving vehicle, to show the progress of the vehicle, and give the audience the sensation of travel, as well as taking in some exotic or picturesque scenery.

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The Sick Kitten (1903) is a short silent film directed by George Albert Smith, starring two young children tending to a sick kitten. This ground-breaking British film was the first to use a close-up shot in history.

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Life Of An American Fireman (1903), is a short, silent film made by Edwin S. Porter. As one of the earliest American narrative films, it depicts the rescue of a woman and child from a burning building. The revolutionary film was the first to use ‘continuity editing’, by cutting between locations to follow the story.

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Florence Lawrence is often referred to as the ‘first film star’ in Hollywood, whose name was used to promote her films. Before her, actors and actresses worked anonymously, out of fear that stage managers would refuse to hire them if they were found to be working in films and because movie executives didn’t want their players to become well known and start demanding higher salaries.