Best Trickfilm
The Electric Hotel is a 1908 silent trick film directed by Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón and produced by the French company Pathé. It depicts travelers entering a hotel where luggage, brushes, shoes, and other objects appear to move and perform tasks without human assistance. Chomón created th...
Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy is a 1909 American silent short produced by Vitagraph and directed by J. Stuart Blackton, who had been born in Sheffield, England, in 1875. It depicts a smoker who encounters two miniature cigar and cigarette spirits played by a fairy, achieved through double e...
The Haunted Hotel, also known as The Haunted Hotel, or The Strange Adventures of a Traveler, is a 1907 American silent trick film directed by J. Stuart Blackton for the Vitagraph Company. The short film depicts a traveler staying at a mysterious establishment where his luggage unpacks itself, food s...
The Big Swallow is a 1901 British short trick film directed by James Williamson. The film is a pioneering example of early cinema utilizing creative editing and extreme close-ups to create a comedic visual illusion. The narrative follows a man who becomes irritated by a persistent cameraman, subsequ...
"The '?' Motorist" is a 1906 British short silent trick film directed by Walter R. Booth and produced by the Charles Urban Trading Company. The film features a couple in a motorcar who evade a police officer by driving up the side of a building and into space. Utilizing early special effects and sto...
The One-Man Band is a 1900 French silent trick film created by Georges Melies. In this short, Melies plays a music teacher who uses early cinematic multiple exposure techniques to clone himself on screen, resulting in seven identical musicians performing in a small bandstand. The film is one of Meli...
The Enchanted Drawing is a 1900 American trick film directed by J. Stuart Blackton and released by the Vitagraph Company. Blackton appears on screen sketching a face and several objects on a large pad, then uses stop-camera substitutions to make the drawn bottle, glass, hat, and cigar appear to move...
The Red Spectre is a 1907 French silent trick film commonly associated with director Segundo de Chomon. Staged as a theatrical fantasy, it presents a red-clad supernatural figure performing transformations, disappearances, and other illusions before a fixed camera. The short is distinguished by its...
