

The Vanishing Lady(1896)
Georges Méliès makes a woman disappear, then reappear.
Movie: The Vanishing Lady
Video Trailer The Vanishing Lady
Recommendations Movies

The Man with the Rubber Head(fr)
A chemist carries out a bizarre experiment with his own head.

A Nightmare(fr)
A man has a fantastical nightmare involving, among other things, a grinning malevolent moon.

Pandora's Box(de)
Lulu is a young woman so beautiful and alluring that few can resist her siren charms. The men drawn into her web include respectable newspaper publisher Dr. Ludwig Schön, his musical producer son Alwa, circus performer Rodrigo Quast, and seedy old Schigolch. When Lulu's charms inevitably lead to tragedy, the downward spiral encompasses them all.

The Devil in a Convent(fr)
A priest is officiating at a convent, when suddenly he is transformed into the devil, who frightens away the nuns and turns the place into pandemonium.

The Portrait(ru)
A man is increasingly unnerved by a mysterious portrait. Based on a story by Nikolai Gogol, the film is thought to have run about 45 minutes long, but only an 8 minute fragment is known to have survived.

The Kingdom of the Fairies(fr)
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.

Dunechka(ru)
Melodrama based on the autobiographical screenplay by Svetlana Shafranskaya. A love story of a 12-year-old girl who goes on a tour with the theatre in which her father works. This love will bring her much trouble, disappointments and grief, but at the same time will awaken her soul, make her happier and wiser.

Quick-Draw Joe: Sand Dune Duel(ja)
An exciting and fast-paced entertaining action in which G-Man Joe of Aces (Japanese version 007) challenges a terrible international mafia organization based in Japan. To defeat the villains, Joe uses his unprecedented skills of fast shooting and karate secrets!

Summoning the Spirits(en)
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…

Lone Wolf(sh)
A boy finds a large wolf-like dog in the mountain and they befriend. The local peasants think that it may be a real wolf responsible for the sheep pestilence. They decide to kill the animal, but the boy is worried about it and he secretly provides the dog with the food.

An Up-to-Date Conjurer(fr)
A film from Méliès has him playing a magician who does a few tricks including making a woman disappear.

Lancement d'un navire(fr)
At the launch of a ship, of which we can only see the hull, the audience moves aside.

Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants(fr)
Georges Méliès' adaptation of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" is most distinguished, today, for being a color film of the classic story. Color was rare in 1902 (and many years after) as non-tinted color has to be hand painted on the film; this was an arduous task. Also notable is the film's short running time of approximately five minutes. Much of the original work is not covered, but viewers were expected to be familiar with the story, and enjoy the filmed highlights. There are a couple of scenes missing; according to contemporary reports, Gulliver's shipwreck was certainly included. You can do a lot in a few minutes, as Mr. Méliès includes a re-make of his own "Une partie de cartes" (1896), which already looked like something previously covered by the Lumière Brothers.

Arrival of a Train at Vincennes Station(fr)
This lost film presumably features a train arriving at Vincennes station, eastern Paris. (Until 2020, was confused with Arrival at Joinville flipbook.)

The Clock Store(en)
The various clocks and watches in a clock store dance, ring alarms musically, and otherwise entertain us in an after hours presentation.

Sideshow Wrestlers(fr)
A man gets cajoled into working as a sideshow wrestler.

Faust: Appearance of Mephistopheles(fr)
A short reenactment of a scene from Goethe's Faust.

Divers at Work on the Wreck of the "Maine"(fr)
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.
Similar Movies
The Haunted Bedroom(en)
Lizette loves Jean but a 10,000 franc dowry insisted upon by Jean's father is keeping them apart. Paul, Lizette's "black sheep" brother, begs that she gives him her saved money so he can increase it for her - at the gaming table!! He does win but there are a few who are determined he shall not reach home with his money. Paul also suffers from a bad heart and with the stress he feels from being set upon, he takes refuge at an inn. He seals the money up in an envelope addressed to Lizette Rouget but dies before he can deliver it safely to her. Lizette is now destitute, Jean having long ago deserted her but the ghost of Paul continues to haunt the inn's bedroom to guard the money from "unworthy hands".

You'd Be Surprised(en)
A diamond is stolen at a houseboat party given by the district attorney. He gives the thief a chance to return it by putting an empty box on a table and turning out the lights. When the lights are turned back on the box is gone, and the district attorney has a knife in his back and is quite dead. The police and the coroner arrive. There are several attempts made on the life of the coroner. Ruth Whitman is found hiding in a grandfather-clock, holding the gem box. She claims the box was pushed into her hands and she was pushed into the clock. The district attorney's butler/valet tells the coroner he saw who killed his employer and a few minutes later he is also murdered. The mystery deepens.

Endless(en)
A lonesome man at the threshold of death finds himself trapped in a place called the Endless.

The Shadow on the Wall(en)
George Walters is a youth who is dominated by Bleary, a heartless bully, who forces him to pose as the son of millionaire George Warring, kidnapped as a baby. The missing son had a twin brother who had recently died, but a painting of the shadow of the late son is on one wall. Walters' shadow matches this painting perfectly, establishing him as the missing son to the Warring family. Walters falls in love with Warring's daughter Lucia and finds that the family attorney Glaxton is slowly poisoning the old man.

Strangers of the Night(en)
A rousing fusion of satire, mystery and action. Aristrocrat Ambrose Applejohn is aching for excitement. He gets more than he bargained for when two Russian thieves, Anna Valeska and her partner Borolsky, arrive at the mansion one dark night.

My Weston is My Hero(en)
The final days before Weston mysteriously snaps and goes insane.

Who Killed Simon Baird(en)
Edith and John Maitland will allow David Sterling to marry their daughter Helen as soon as he earns five thousand dollars, so David tries to sell one of his inventions to Simon Baird for that amount. Simon, unable to make up his mind, is found murdered the next day, and David is arrested with five thousand dollars of Simon's money in his possession.

Isabelle aux Dombes(fr)
Pialat's first film was the short Isabelle aux Dombes, shot in 1951 when the director was 26 years old. The film is an entirely silent montage of documentary footage, ragged experimental techniques — mainly some negative-image inserts — and symbolic psychodrama that's surprisingly not too different from the work that Stan Brakhage would begin making just a year or two later. Images of death proliferate throughout the film, and what started as a loose documentary soon becomes an eerie psuedo-horror piece that's obsessed with death and decay.

Sherlock Jr.(en)
A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.

The Speed Spook(en)
An auto racer driving through a small town finds himself tangled up in a local political controversy, an election and a mystery that surrounds a supposedly "haunted" car that speeds through town with no driver and disappears before anyone can catch it.

The Hands of Orlac(de)
A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he is horrified to learn they once belonged to a murderer.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog(en)
London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.
The Alchemistic Suitcase(en)
A nervous and unsettling young boy takes a mysterious old suitcase across London... to a twisted and surreal conclusion.

Disappearance at Clifton Hill(en)
Following the death of her mother, a young woman returns home to Niagara Falls and becomes entangled in the memory of a kidnapping she claims to have witnessed as a child.

Transmutation(en)
A spiral of dreams and ages unravel as two celestial characters awaken and transmutate into a mythological being.

M'Liss(en)
M'liss, a feisty young girl in a mining camp, falls for Charles Gray, the school teacher. Charles is implicated in a murder of which he is innocent, and the two must fight to save him from a lynching.

Ghost Catchers(en)
Two zanies get mixed up with a Southern colonel, his beautiful daughters, a nightclub and a haunted mansion.