Movie Timeline

1894 – The world’s first Kinetoscope Parlor opens in New York City: customers paid 25 cents to watch ten, 20 second films such as “Rooster,” “Trapeze,” and “Barber Shop”

1895 – First communal movie theater, with a film projected onto a screen, opens in NYC; it shows an eight-minute boxing film

1915 – First 3-D movie, “Jim the Penman,” premieres at Astor Theatre in New York

1927 – Hollywood’s first “talkie”, “The Jazz Singer” premieres

1932 – Walt Disney releases the animated film “Flowers and Trees” in color

1933 – First drive-in movie theatre built in Camden, New Jersey

1939 – “Gone with the Wind” and “Wizard of Oz” are released in Technicolor

1951 – Crosby Video is developed, the first prototype of a videocassette recorder

1953 – NBC airs the first national color television broadcast

1959 – “The Scent of Mystery” premiered in Smell-O-Vision, in which over 30 scents were pumped into the theatre during the film

1982 – “Tron,” an animated film uses 15 minutes of computer imagery, the most yet

1984 – The Supreme Court rules that videocassettes do not present a copyright infringement

1987 – Avid Technologies company, now a master of digital editing, is formed

1995 – “Toy Story” is released, the first full-length computer-animated feature

1996 – “The English Patient” becomes the first digitally edited film to win an Academy Award

1998 –“The Last Broadcast” is released; it is made on a video camera with home computer equipment

2002 – “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” is released; it is made on a digital camera, without film

2008 – The special effects wizardry of “The Dark Knight” blows away the box office

All information gathered from Scott Kirsner’s book "Inventing the Movies: Hollywood’s Epic Battle Between Innovation and the Status Quo," from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs. Timeline compiled for web by Molly Webster.