Top 11 Best Films of the 19th Century

1. Sallie Gardner at a Gallop
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
United States (currently United States of America) | Northern America | North America
1878 | 1870s | 19th Century

Eadweard Muybridge's ""Sallie Gardner at a Gallop"" (1878) invites us for multiple repeated viewings, just as the inventor intended using the zoopraxiscope. The first successful recording of movement is a seminal moment in the history of cinema, whose legacy is unsurpassed to this day.



2. The Machine Man [L'homme machine]
Director: Étienne-Jules Marey
France (formerly French Republic) | Western Europe | Europe
1885 | 1880s | 19th Century

Étienne-Jules Marey's "The Machine Man" (1895) is a curious animation for its time. On the one hand its tricks are meant to serve a technical purpose, on the other its style resembles the not yet discovered stylism of post modern art: the human reduced to just a linear silhouette on a white canvas.



3. Buffalo Running
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
United States (currently United States of America) | Northern America | North America
1883 | 1880s | 19th Century

The first nature documentary is the unassuming "Buffalo Running" (1883), directed by the grandfather of cinema, Eadweard Muybridge. The language of the unintrusive gaze is invented here to celebrate a life void of human beings, a chimera of a world beaming with beauty.



4. Child Bringing Bouquet to Woman
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
United States (currently United States of America) | Northern America | North America
1887 | 1880s | 19th Century

Eadweard Muybridge must have been far more interested in artistic representation rather than science when shooting "Child Bringing Bouquet to Woman" (1887). Granted there is movement, but the warmth of emotions is telling in this rare proto-cinematic attempt at story writing.



5. Athlete Swinging a Pick
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
United Kingdom (formerly United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) | Northern Europe | Europe
1881 | 1880s | 19th Century

Eadweard Muybridge went down to his bare skin in "Athlete Swinging a Pick" (1881) in order to show the full force of a human being that can be achieved through movement. Combining physiology and myth, this is also a first attempt at exposing how the camera can fake reality into fiction.



6. The Magic Rosette [La rosace magique]
Director: Émile Reynaud
France (formerly French Republic) | Western Europe | Europe
1877 | 1870s | 19th Century

In its day, the moving images in Émile Reynaud's ""The Magic Rosette"" (1877) must have felt more exciting than some of the current developments in AI technology. Ground-breaking in form and content, this is one of the few pre-cinema works of art that possess true magic within them.



7. Skeleton of Horse
Director: Eadweard Muybridge
United States (currently United States of America) | Northern America | North America
1881 | 1880s | 19th Century

Potentially the earliest work of stop-action animation, Eadweard Muybridge's "Skeleton of Horse" (1881) entices us to the art with its elaborate attention to detail and crisp imagery – a beautiful reminder of the painstaking efforts of the scientists working on moving photography in the 19th century.



8. Transit of Venus [Passage de Vénus]
Director: Pierre Janssen
France (formerly French Republic) | Western Europe | Europe
1874 | 1870s | 19th Century

Pierre Janssen allowed the world to gaze at stellar objects for the first time on film in ""Transit of Venus"" (1874). He gave hope that one day images in motion can become part of our quest to understanding the world that we inhabit. The series of photographs set the race for the discovery of cinema.



9. Horse and Rider Jumping Over an Obstacle [Pferd und Reiter springen über ein Hindernis]
Director: Ottomar Anschütz
Germany (formerly German Empire) | Western Europe | Europe
1888 | 1880s | 19th Century

Ottomar Anschütz is less known amongst the early inventors in cinematic history, yet his foray in chronophotography boasts sharp images, comparable, if not better, to those by Marey or Muybridge. "Horse and Rider Jumping over an Obstacle" (1888) captured the Prussian Army with military precision.



10. Man Walking Around the Corner
Director: Louis Le Prince
United Kingdom (formerly United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) | Northern Europe | Europe
1887 | 1880s | 19th Century

In time, "Man Walking Around the Corner" (1887) stays as just one simple, yet ambitious, experiment. Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince's 16-lens camera is a significant milestone towards the discovery of film, and its output is without question an important artifact in the archaeology of cinema.



11. The Musician Monkey [Le singe musicien]
Director: Émile Reynaud
France (formerly French Republic) | Western Europe | Europe
1878 | 1870s | 19th Century

Émile Reynaud's animated work predates the successes in moving photography. "The Musician Monkey" (1878) is charming and simultaneously creepy in its visuals, nonetheless through its movement it announced to the world that pictures were no longer still.

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