Early Days

• The invention of the motion picture camera is a matter of some dispute, but Frenchman Louis Lumiere is often credited with it. He made short films depicting simple scenes starting in 1895.
  
  

Evolution

• From simple shorts, silent films gradually grew into more elaborate and meaningful pieces. D.W. Griffith's controversial "Birth of a Nation" in 1915 established film as a legitimate art form.
  
  

German Expressionism

• In Germany, a group of filmmakers produced dark, disturbing films such as "Nosferatu" in 1919 and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" in 1920, emulating the Expressionist movement in other art forms at the time.
  
  

Soviet Filmmaking

• Silent Soviet filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein applied Marxist principles to their filmmaking techniques. Works such as "The Battleship Potemkin" in 1925 established such cinematic standards as the montage and the notion of meaning within editing.
  
  

The Coming of Sound

• Sound films first arrived with "The Jazz Singer" in 1927. They quickly eclipsed silent movies (though a few artists, such as the great comedian Charlie Chaplin continued to produce silent films for a few more years).