The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe (1897-1902)

Let yourself be carried away in the mesmerizing events and celebrities of the time, and feel the enthusiasm of early cinema that overcame the challenge of capturing life-like movement. The rare high resolution images from Amsterdam, Paris, London and Venice from 120 years ago reflect the essence of early cinema: capturing the first-ever moving images of important events, famous locations and personalities, as well as spectacular moments such as dance and sports performances, or even natural phenomena like fire or storm, that only work when seen in motion.

High quality

The Mutoscope and Biograph Collection is the oldest film collection held at Eye Filmmuseum. It includes over 200 films, most of which made in Europe between 1897 and 1902. This constitutes the largest existing collection of Mutoscope and Biograph films surviving in the world.

Eye Filmmuseum appreciates the funding from the European Commission's 'European Tribute to Film Heritage' program, which allowed digitizing 50 selected films from the Eye and BFI collections, in high quality (8K). With an especially composed score by Daan van den Hurk.

Winner of the FOCAL Award 2021 in the category: 'Best Archival Restoration and Preservation Project'. In 2025, the 68mm films were inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.