Professor Barbenfouillis and five of his colleagues from the Academy of Astronomy travel to the Moon aboard a rocket propelled by a giant cannon. Once on the lunar surface, the bold explorers face the many perils hidden in the caves of the mysterious planet.
In a medieval castle, a dark magician thought to be Mephistopheles conjures up a series of bizarre creatures and events in order to torment a pair of interloping cavaliers.
Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.
A green-skinned demon places a woman and two courtiers into a flaming cauldron.
A man needs to get to Monte Carlo from Paris, but finds out that a train will take 17 hours to get there. He decides to go with a man with a special car, who claims that he can get there in just two hours. Complications ensue.
A fairy godmother magically turns Cinderella's rags to a beautiful dress, and a pumpkin into a coach. Cinderella goes to the ball, where she meets the Prince - but will she remember to leave before the magic runs out? Méliès based the art direction on engravings by Gustave Doré. First known example of a fairy-tale adapted to film, and the first film to use dissolves to go from one scene to another.
The first movie ever censored for political reasons. The title refers to the then contemporaneous Dreyfus affair in which a Jewish military officer was falsely convicted of treason, and it was alleged that he was framed due to anti-semitism.
Divers go to work on a wrecked ship (the battleship Maine that was blown up in Havana harbour during the Spanish-American War), surrounded by curiously disproportionate fish.
One of the greatest of black art pictures. The conjurer appears before the audience, with his head in its proper place. He then removes his head, and throwing it in the air, it appears on the table opposite another head, and both detached heads sing in unison. The conjurer then removes it a third time. You then see all three of his heads, which are exact duplicates, upon the table at one time, while the conjurer again stands before the audience with his head perfectly intact, singing in unison with the three heads upon the table. He closes the picture by bowing himself from the stage.
A bearded man hangs up a wreath and, like any good magician, waves his hands inside of it and under it to show us it's only a wreath…
A man has an encounter with several spooky apparitions in a castle that is evidently owned by the Devil.
This picture depicts the eruption of the volcano by which over 30,000 souls were hurled into eternity. The numerous explosions which took place during the eruption are plain to be seen. Thousands upon thousands of tons of molten lava, sand, rocks and steam are thrown high in the air and descend with crushing force upon the unfortunate inhabitants of the doomed city of St. Pierre. This is the worst calamity which occurred since a similar eruption by Mt. Vesuvius when Pompeii was destroyed. (Lubin Catalog)
Two travellers are tormented by Satan from inn to inn and eventually experience a buggy ride through the heavens courtesy of the Devil before he takes one of them down to Hell and roasts him on a spit.
An officer calls his sailors to the deck. They assemble around the canon while the officer scans the horizon. They all turn in the direction of the camera to look in the distance. At the same time the ship is hit! This scene is a filmed reconstruction of the 1897 Greek-Turkish war.
In this hand-colored short, a magician and his assistant do a series of magic tricks, including making potted plants appear, among others. Melies played the magician, and the actor Manuel played his assistant.
A series of fantastical wrestling matches.
A science fantasy film that deals with an extraordinary race to the north pole by rival parties of balloonists. Based on the novel "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras" by Jules Verne.
A man takes off his clothes in preparation for bed, only for new clothes to spontaneously generate, leading to comical consternation.
At the royal court, a prince is presenting the princess whom he is pledged to marry when a witch suddenly appears. Though driven off, the witch soon returns, summons some of her servants, and carries off the princess. A rescue party is quickly organized, but the unfortunate captive has been taken to a strange, forbidding realm, from where it will be impossible to rescue her without some special help.
A woman arrives home after the ball. Her servant helps her undress and bathe.
