The genesis of the motion picture medium is recreated in this 5-part collection of the cinema's formative works which reveal the foundation from which the styles and plots of contemporary cinema later evolved. This first program includes the first blockbuster in American film, The Great Train Robbery and other significant early films by pioneer filmmakers.

Originally produced in 1994. Includes film "Homage to Eadweard Muybridge."--Container.

Motion studies (1877-85) / Eadweard Muybridge. -- Actualities (1896-97) / Louis Lumiere -- The Great train robbery (1903) / Edwin S. Porter -- The Golden beetle (1907) / Ferdinand Zecca -- A trip to the moon (1902) / Georges Melies -- Kinetoscopes (1894-96) / Thomas Edison -- Biograph Mutoscope.