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The Film Portal

Man working with a movie projector in a movie theater, 1958

A film (British English)—also called a movie (American English), motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay, or flick—is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally accompanied by sound and (less commonly) other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema" is a shortening of the word "cinematography" and is used to refer to either filmmaking, the film industry, the overall art form, or a movie theater. (Full article...)

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Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local discothèque while dealing with social tensions and disillusionment in his working class ethnic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story is based on "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", a mostly fictional 1976 article by music writer Nik Cohn.

A major critical and commercial success, Saturday Night Fever had a tremendous impact on the popular culture of the late 1970s. It helped popularize disco around the world and initiated a series of collaborations between film studios and record labels. It made Travolta, already well known from his role in the popular TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, a household name. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, at the time becoming the fourth-youngest nominee in the category. The film showcases aspects of the music, dancing, and subculture surrounding the disco era, including symphony-orchestrated melodies, haute couture styles of clothing, pre-AIDS sexual promiscuity, and graceful choreography. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, featuring songs by the Bee Gees, is one of the best-selling soundtrack albums worldwide. Travolta reprised his role of Tony Manero in Staying Alive in 1983, which was panned by critics despite being successful at the box office. (Portal:Film/Featured content)

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The following are images from various film-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Poster for a Biograph Studios release from 1913 (from Film industry)
Image 2A frame from the Lumière brothers staged comedy film, L'Arroseur Arrosé (1895) (from History of film)
Image 3GIF animation from retouched pictures of The Horse in Motion by Eadweard Muybridge (1879). (from History of film technology)
Image 4Publicity still for the Egyptian film My Wife, the Director General (1966) (from Film industry)
Image 5Complex vignette shot in die Austernprinzessin (The Oyster Princess) (from History of film)
Image 6A production scene from the 1950 Hollywood film Julius Caesar starring Charlton Heston (from History of film)
Image 7Italian neorealist movie Bicycle Thieves (1948) by Vittorio De Sica, considered part of the canon of classic cinema (from History of film)
Image 8The first two shots of As Seen Through a Telescope (1900), with the telescope POV simulated by the circular mask (from History of film)
Image 9The Babelsberg Studio near Berlin was the first large-scale film studio in the world (founded 1912) and the forerunner to Hollywood. It still produces global blockbusters every year. (from Film industry)
Image 10Czermak's 1855 Stereophoroskop (from History of film technology)
Image 11Off Plus Camera Film Festival in Kraków, 2012, with Andrzej Seweryn, Daniel Olbrychski, and Wojciech Pszoniak on stage. (from Film industry)
Image 12A scene from Raja Harishchandra (1913) – credited as the first full-length Indian motion picture. (from Film industry)
Image 13Animated GIF of Prof. Stampfer's Stroboscopische Scheibe No. X (Trentsensky & Vieweg 1833) (from History of film technology)
Image 14A still from The Story of the Kelly Gang (Australia, 1906; 80 min.) (from Film industry)
Image 15Max Skladanowsky (right) in 1934 with his brother Eugen and the Bioscop (from History of film technology)
Image 16A shot from Raja Harishchandra (1913), the first film of Bollywood. (from Film industry)
Image 17Publicity still for the Egyptian film Yahya el hub (1938) (from Film industry)
Image 18Edward Raymond Turner's three-color projector, 1902 (from History of film technology)
Image 19William Friese-Greene (from Film industry)
Image 20Louis Poyet [fr]'s engraving of the mechanism of the "fusil photographique" as published in La Nature (april 1882) (from History of film technology)
Image 21Frame from a c.1912 Chronochrome film (from History of film technology)
Image 22A.E. Smith filming The Bargain Fiend in the Vitagraph Studios in 1907. Arc floodlights hang overhead. (from History of film)
Image 23
An electrotachyscope
American Scientific, 16/11/1889, p. 303
(from History of film technology)
Image 24Flying pelican captured by Marey around 1882. He created a method of recording several phases of movement superimposed into one photograph (from History of film technology)
Image 25Poster for the 1956 Egyptian film Wakeful Eyes starring Salah Zulfikar and Shadia (from History of film)
Image 26The Wizard of Oz (from History of film)
Image 27The Babelsberg Studio near Berlin, the earliest large-scale film studio complex (founded 1912) Today its one of the major film studios worldwide. (from History of film)
Image 28Don Juan is the first feature-length film to use the Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system with a synchronized musical score and sound effects, though it has no spoken dialogue. (from History of film)
Image 29The Cinématographe Lumière in projection mode (from History of film technology)
Image 30London IMAX has the largest cinema screen in Britain with a total screen size of 520 m². (from Film industry)
Image 31Akira Kurosawa, Japanese film director (from History of film)
Image 32Oskar Messter (from History of film)
Image 33Charlie Chaplin (from History of film)
Image 34The Jazz Singer (1927), was the first full-length film with synchronized sound. (from History of film technology)
Image 35The Hollywood Sign (from Film industry)
Image 36Insert shot in Old Wives for New (Cecil B. DeMille, 1918) (from History of film)
Image 37Maria Germanova in Anna Karenina (1914) (from Film industry)
Image 38Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France (from History of film technology)
Image 39Georges Méliès (left) painting a backdrop in his studio (from History of film)
Image 40Cinema admissions in 1995 (from History of film)
Image 41A surviving two-color-component image from the first Technicolor feature film, The Gulf Between (1917) (from History of film technology)
Image 42Nestor studio, 1911 (from Film industry)
Image 43
The Pathé Brothers, by Adrien Barrère.
(from Film industry)
Image 44Film still from Dickson Greeting (from History of film technology)
Image 45Original script from the 1989 film Batman (from History of film)
Image 46Old Chinese Cinema in Qufu, Shandong (from Film industry)
Image 47Discounted DVD home video film releases sold in the Netherlands (from Film industry)

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Credit: Escarlati

The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud.

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Did you know...

... that to film the series Quarterback, the NFL allowed quarterbacks to wear microphones for every game of the 2022 season?
... that food stylist Susan Spungen estimated that she baked hundreds of pies with Josh Brolin and film staff while practicing for a scene in Labor Day?
... that in 1933 Nazi sympathisers attempted to kidnap two German-Jewish filmmakers in Liechtenstein?
... that actress Eula Morgan performed opera in her 1940s film roles, such as Madame Rinaldi in The Great American Broadcast?
... that a men's soccer team hired Jenna Winebrenner to analyze game film and practice with the squad?

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Howard W. "Kroger" Babb (December 30, 1906 – January 28, 1980) was an American film producer and showman. His marketing techniques were similar to a travelling salesman's, with roots in the medicine show tradition. Self-described as "America's Fearless Young Showman", he is best known for his presentation of the 1945 exploitation film Mom and Dad, which was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2005.

Babb was involved in the production and marketing of many films and television shows, promoting each according to his favorite marketing motto: "You gotta tell 'em to sell 'em." His films ranged from sex education-style dramas to "documentaries" on foreign cultures, intended to titillate audiences rather than to educate them, maximizing profits via marketing gimmicks. (Full article...)

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Per a review process, Featured lists are considered to be the best list articles on English Wikipedia.

Image 1

Pharrell Williams garnered several accolades for composing the song "Happy".

Despicable Me 2 is a 2013 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The sequel to Despicable Me (2010), it was directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin, and written by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. Despicable Me 2 stars the voices of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, Russell Brand, and Ken Jeong. The film follows Gru (Carell) as he is recruited by agent Lucy Wilde (Wiig), who is investigating a theft of a mutagen. During their investigations, they extract El Macho (Bratt), a supervillain with the goal of causing world domination after faking his death.

Despicable Me 2 debuted in Australia on June 5, 2013, and was released in the United States on July 3. Produced on a budget of $76 million, Despicable Me 2 grossed $970.8 million worldwide, finishing its theatrical run as the third-highest-grossing film of 2013. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 75% based on 187 reviews. (Full article...)
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Jacques Grétillat, J. Gordon Edwards, and Paulette Duval during the production of Nero (1922)

J. Gordon Edwards (1867–1925) was a Canadian American film director, screenwriter, and producer of the silent era. His oeuvre consists of over fifty feature films made between 1914 and 1924. He is perhaps best known for directing twenty-four films starring vamp actress Theda Bara—including Cleopatra, her most famous role— and also the 1921 epic The Queen of Sheba. Edwards was born in Montreal and educated at a military academy with the expectation that he would pursue a career as a British Army officer. He decided against a life in the military in favor of a future in theater. At the time, the Canadian theater and film industry was limited primarily to repertory theatre, so Edwards became one of many to emigrate to the United States to work in the field. He had a short career as an actor before becoming a stage director. By 1910, he was working for American motion picture producer William Fox, who sent him to Europe to study film production.

In 1914, the Balboa Amusement Producing Company produced the drama St. Elmo. Balboa was not a film distributor, and had a standing agreement to sell its films to Fox's Box Office Attractions Company for distribution. Some modern writers credit this film as Edwards's directorial debut. However, contemporary sources named Bertram Bracken in that role, as does the American Film Institute. Aubrey Solomon's history of the Fox Film Corporation states Bracken "reportedly" directed. Regardless of Edwards's role in St. Elmo, he was chosen to direct Life's Shop Window (1914), Box Office Attractions' first film as a production company rather than merely a distributor. (Full article...)
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The 56th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1983 and took place on April 9, 1984, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, beginning at 6:00 p.m. PST / 9:00 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 22 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Jack Haley Jr. and directed by Marty Pasetta. Comedian and talk show emcee Johnny Carson hosted the show for the fifth time. He first presided over the 51st ceremony held in 1979 and last hosted the 54th ceremony held in 1982. Nine days earlier, in a ceremony held at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, on March 31, the Academy Scientific and Technical Awards were presented by hosts Joan Collins and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Terms of Endearment won five awards, including Best Picture. Other winners included Fanny and Alexander and The Right Stuff with four awards, Tender Mercies with two awards, and Return of the Jedi, Boys and Girls, Flamenco at 5:15, Flashdance, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin', Sundae in New York, The Year of Living Dangerously, and Yentl with one. The telecast garnered 42.1 million viewers in the United States. (Full article...)
Image 4

Elvis is a 2022 biographical drama film directed by Baz Luhrmann from a screenplay co-written with Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner. It chronicles the life of the American rock and roll singer and actor Elvis Presley under the management of Colonel Tom Parker. The film stars Austin Butler and Tom Hanks as Presley and Parker, respectively, with Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Luke Bracey in supporting roles.

Elvis debuted at the 75th Cannes Film Festival on May 25, 2022, and was released on June 23 in Australia and on June 24 in the United States. Produced on a budget of $85 million, Elvis grossed $288.7 million worldwide. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 377 reviews. (Full article...)
Image 5

Basshunter during the concert in Halmstad, 20 April 2008

Basshunter is a Swedish singer, record producer and DJ. He has released nineteen music videos, five lyric videos, two remix videos, one video megamix and five promotional video singles, and has made a guest appearance in one music video. Basshunter appeared in four short films, twelve television shows and one commercial.

From his second album LOL (2006), Basshunter released music videos for the singles "Boten Anna", "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA", "Vifta med händerna" and "Jingle Bells". Carl-Johan Westregård and Kim Parrot directed the music videos for "Boten Anna" and "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA". A second version of the music video for the former was made. In 2007, a music video for the reissue of "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA" titled "DotA" was released. (Full article...)
Image 6

Adams at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival

Amy Adams is an American actress who has received various awards and nominations, including two Golden Globe Awards, four Critics' Choice Movie Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Additionally, she has been nominated for six Academy Awards and seven British Academy Film Awards. In 2017, Adams received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the motion picture industry.

Adams' breakthrough role in the 2005 acclaimed independent comedy-drama Junebug earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and won her the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2007, she starred in Walt Disney Pictures' romantic musical Enchanted, for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, the Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress, and three MTV Movie Awards. Adams' performances in the critically acclaimed dramas Doubt (2008), The Fighter (2010), and The Master (2012) garnered her several accolades, including nominations from the Oscar, Hollywood Foreign Press, BAFTA, SAG, and Critics' Choice award ceremonies. (Full article...)
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The 2023 recipient: Robert Downey Jr.

The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Supporting Actress winner. In lieu of the traditional Oscar statuette, supporting acting recipients were given plaques up until the 16th Academy Awards, when statuettes were awarded to each category instead.

The Best Supporting Actor award has been presented a total of 88 times, to 79 actors. The first winner was Walter Brennan for his role in Come and Get It. The most recent winner is Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer. The record for most wins is three, held by Brennan–who won every other year within a succession of the first five years. Seven other actors have won twice. Brennan is also tied for receiving the most nominations in the category (with four altogether) along with Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Claude Rains, and Mark Ruffalo. (Full article...)
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The 88th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2015 and took place on February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, 5:30 p.m. PST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 24 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by David Hill and Reginald Hudlin and directed by Glenn Weiss. Actor Chris Rock hosted the show for the second time, having previously hosted the 77th ceremony held in 2005.

In related events, the academy held its 7th Annual Governors Awards ceremony at the Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center on November 14, 2015. On February 13, 2016, in a ceremony at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by hosts Olivia Munn and Jason Segel. (Full article...)
Image 9
Up in the Air is a 2009 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and co-written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner. The film is an adaptation of the eponymous 2001 novel by Walter Kirn. Up in the Air was screened as a "sneak preview" at the Telluride Film Festival on September 6, 2009, before its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2009. Up in the Air was released in the United States on December 4, 2009; playing on 15 screens in its first weekend, it grossed over $1.1 million. The film opened nationwide on December 23, 2009, earning over $11 million its first weekend in wide release. The film earned $79 million over 18 weeks in the United States and Canada, with an additional $83 million in overseas markets.

Up in the Air garnered various awards and nominations, with the nominations in categories ranging from recognition of the film itself to its screenplay, direction and editing, to the performance of the three primary actors – George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick. The film received six Academy Award nominations with Farmiga and Kendrick both receiving nominations for Best Supporting Actress, though the film failed to win any of the awards. At the 63rd British Academy Film Awards, Up in the Air won one award – Best Adapted Screenplay, awarded to Reitman and Turner – out of the five for which it was nominated. The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association named Up in the Air Best Picture and awarded Reitman Best Director and Best Screenplay with Turner. Clooney was given the award for Best Actor. The film also received five nominations at the 67th Golden Globe Awards, with Reitman and Turner taking the award for Best Screenplay. Reitman and Turner also received recognition for the film's screenplay from the Writers Guild of America, where they won the Best Adapted Screenplay award. They received a subsequent twenty more awards and twenty-four nominations overall. (Full article...)
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Harrelson at the 2009 premiere of Zombieland

Woody Harrelson is an American actor who made his film debut as an uncredited extra in Harper Valley PTA (1978). His breakthrough role was as bartender Woody Boyd on the NBC sitcom Cheers (1985–1993), which garnered Harrelson a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series from a total of five nominations. He would later reprise the character in other television shows, such as Frasier and The Simpsons. In 1992, Harrelson starred opposite Wesley Snipes in White Men Can't Jump. He then appeared in the Oliver Stone-directed Natural Born Killers (1994) alongside Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Downey Jr. For his performance as free-speech activist Larry Flynt in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and an Academy Award for Best Actor. He next appeared in The Thin Red Line (1998).

From 1999 to 2000, Harrelson acted in the Broadway revival of The Rainmaker. He then had a minor role in the 2003 comedy Anger Management. From 2005 to 2006, Harrelson played Rev. Shannon in a London production of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana. His next film role was as hit-man Carson Wells in the Coen brothers-directed No Country for Old Men (2007), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. That year he also portrayed physician Robert O. Wilson in the documentary Nanking. In 2008, Harrelson starred opposite Will Ferrell in Semi-Pro and Will Smith in Seven Pounds. His work in The Messenger (2009) garnered him an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. He then starred in Zombieland (2009), later returning to the franchise in Zombieland: Double Tap (2019). (Full article...)

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Because of the movies I make, they get nervous, because they think of me as difficult and angry. I AM difficult and angry [laughs], but they don't expect a sense of humor. And the only thing that gets me through is a sense of humor.

— Martin Scorsese

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Terms - Animation • Beta movement • Camera • Cult film • Digital cinema • Documentary film • Dubbing • Experimental film • Fan film • Film crew • Film criticism • Film festival • Film frame • Film genre • Film journals and magazines • Film industry • Film manifesto • Film stock • Film theory • Filmmaking • History of film • Independent film • Lost film • Movie star • Narrative film • Open content film • Persistence of vision • Photographic film • Propaganda • Recording medium • Special effect • Subtitles • Sound stage • Web film • World cinema

Lists - List of basic film topics • List of film topics • List of films • List of film festivals • List of film formats • List of film series • List of film techniques • List of highest-grossing films • List of longest films by running time • List of songs based on a film or book • Lists of film source material • List of open content films

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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)
A Trip Down Market Street (High Res)
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Animated phenakistiscope disc - Running rats Fantascope by Thomas Mann Baynes 1833
Annie Oakley shooting glass balls, 1894
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Chicago Theatre blend
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
De Orient Magazine advertisement for Panggilan Darah (1941)
Edison's Greatest Marvel-The Vitascope - Restoration
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Lonesome (1928)
MultiplaneDemo
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Nanook of the North
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Poesaka Terpendam ad, Poestaka Timoer 66 (15 Oct 1941), p3
Poster - Island of Lost Men 01
Poster for Quo Vadis (1913 silent film) - Lygia Bound to the Wild Bull
Poster for Quo Vadis (1913 silent film)
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The Freshman
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The Great Train Robbery (1903)
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The Mummy 1932 film poster
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Wings (1927)
Winsor McCay (1912) How a Mosquito Operates