360The Lumière brothers hold the first public cinema show
On 28 December 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière showed ten short films to a paying audience in a basement room of the Grand Café in Paris. Their cinématographe both filmed and projected moving pictures. Each film lasted under a minute, showing scenes such as workers leaving a factory. It is often called the birth of cinema.
In the 1890s, inventors in several countries were racing to make pictures move. Thomas Edison's kinetoscope let one person at a time watch a film through a peephole.
In Lyon, France, the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, who ran a photographic factory, built the cinématographe. The light, hand-cranked machine could film, develop and project moving images onto a screen for a whole audience.
On 28 December 1895, they held the first public, paid screening in the Salon Indien, a basement room of the Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. About 33 people paid one franc each to watch ten short films, each less than a minute long.
The films showed everyday life: workers leaving the Lumière factory, a baby being fed, a gardener being sprayed with a hose. Within weeks, crowds were queuing outside.
The brothers sent camera operators around the world to film and show their work. Within a few years, cinema had become a new form of entertainment, and soon an industry.
- 1894
- Edison's kinetoscope parlours open
- February 1895
- The Lumières patent the cinématographe
- 28 December 1895
- The first public paid screening in Paris
- 1896
- Lumière films are shown around the world
Sources: Institut Lumière · Britannica · BFI.