The history of cinematography

The cinema of the United States, often generally referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods:

The silent film era

Classical Hollywood cinema

New Hollywood

Contemporary period

In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion.

In 1894, the world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The United States was in the forefront of sound film development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

American screen actors like John Wayne, Clark Gable, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley have become iconic figures, and US pop culture legends while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising.

Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising.

The major film studios of Hollywood are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world, such as Gone with the Wind (1939), Star Wars (1977), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009). Today, American film studios collectively generate several hundred movies every year, making the United States one of the most prolific producer of films in the world. Gone with the Wind (1939)