List of cinematic firsts

• Peter Mark Roget's wrote the article Explanation of an optical deception in the appearance of the spokes of a wheel when seen through vertical apertures which described a stroboscopic illusion.

• Almost simultaneously, around December 1832, the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and the Austrian professor of practical geometry Simon Stampfer invented the Phenakistiscope, the first practical device to create a fluid illusion of motion. Plateau introduced the device in January 1833 in a scientific magazine.

• French astronomer P.J.C. Janssen came up with the idea for a "revolver photographic". This huge camera system used a Maltese cross-type mechanism, very similar to the system that would later be of great importance in the development of movie cameras. Janssen successfully captured two transits of Venus, the one of 1874 in Japan, and that of 1882 at Oran, in Algeria. Discs with test footage of a simulation from 1874 have been preserved and a modern animated version is sometimes regarded as the first movie.[1]

• Using a battery of 12 cameras Eadweard Muybridge records several series of The Horse in Motion, capturing successive phases of movements that allowed his patron Leland Stanford to study the positions of the legs of his race horses during different gaits. The technique would soon be dubbed chronophotography.

• During his lectures on locomotion, Eadweard Muybridge projected looping animations of The Horse in Motion with his Zoopraxiscope. The stroboscopic apparatus used glass discs on which silhouette versions of the photographs had been traced by an artist (with anamorphic corrections for the distortion caused by fast rotation).

• Étienne-Jules Marey developed the Chronophotographe, which could take 12 pictures per second from a single viewpoint.

• In Leeds, England Louis Le Prince films Roundhay Garden Scene, believed to be the first motion picture recorded.[2]

• Monkeyshines, by William Kennedy Dickson and William Heise. Believed to be the first film shot in the United States.[3] An experimental film made to test the original cylinder Kinetograph format.

• Dickson Greeting, by William Kennedy Dickson was the first semi-public demonstration of cinematographic pictures in the United States. The National Federation of Women's Clubs were shown a 3 second clip of Dickson passing a hat in front of himself, and reaching for it with his other hand on May 20, 1891 at Edison's laboratory.

• On 28 October 1892 Charles-Émile Reynaud gave the first public performance of a moving picture show at the Musée Grévin in Paris, the Théâtre Optique. The show, billed as Pantomimes Lumineuses, included three cartoons, Pauvre Pierrot, Un bon bock, and Le Clown et ses chiens, each consisting of 500 to 600 individually painted images and lasting about 15 minutes. The film was the first to use perforations.

• Blacksmith Scene, by William Kennedy Dickson. The first Kinetoscope film shown in public exhibition on May 9, 1893 and is the earliest known example of actors performing a role in a film.[4]
• The world's first film production studio, the Black Maria, or the Kinetographic Theater, was completed on the grounds of Edison's laboratories at West Orange, New Jersey, for the purpose of making film strips for the Kinetoscope. Construction began in December 1892.[5]

• On April 14, 1894, a public Kinetoscope parlor was opened by the Holland Bros. in New York City at 1155 Broadway, on the corner of 27th Street—the first commercial motion picture house. The venue had ten machines, set up in parallel rows of five, each showing a different movie. For 25 cents a viewer could see all the films in either row; half a dollar gave access to the entire bill.[6]
• The Dolorita Passion Dance was banned in New Jersey after its use in peepshows. Russell Kick quotes the work Censorship as saying it "was probably the first [film] to be banned in the United States."[7]
• La Sortie des Usines, the first film to be made in France.
• The Dickson Experimental Sound Film by William Kennedy Dickson. It is the first known film with live-recorded sound and appears to be the first motion picture made for the Kinetophone, the proto-sound-film system developed by Dickson and Thomas Edison.[8]

• First hand-colored film, Annabelle Serpentine Dance by William Kennedy Dickson.[9]
• Charles Francis Jenkins displays the Phantascope, the first patented Film projector.
• Incident at Clovelly Cottage by Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres is the first film to be made in the United Kingdom.[10]
• L'Arroseur Arrosé, the first comedy film.
• The Execution of Mary Stuart, the first use of a special effect in a movie.
• History of the Kinetograph, Kinetoscope, and Kinetophonograph by Antonia and William Kennedy Dickson, considered the first book of history on film, is published.[11]

• The first building dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures was the Vitascope Hall, established on Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 26 — it was converted from a vacant store.[12]
• Later that year on October 19, the Edisonia Hall opened in Buffalo, New York in the Ellicott Square Building. The Edisonia was the first known dedicated, purpose-built motion picture theater in the world.[13]
• Alice Guy-Blaché, the first female film director[14] makes La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) acknowledged as the first narrative fiction film. This movie also introduces screenplays for the first time.
• In The Kiss, May Irwin and John Rice re-enact the kiss from the New York stage hit The Widow Jones, the first film of a couple kissing.[15]
• The House of the Devil, the first horror film.
• Le Coucher de la Mariée, a French erotic short film considered to be one of the first erotic films made. The film was first screened in Paris in November 1896, within a year of the first public screening of a projected motion picture.

• The first example of object manipulation and stop-motion animation was the short film by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton called The Humpty Dumpty Circus.[16]
• King John is the first film adaptation of the work of William Shakespeare. The film features Herbert Beerbohm Tree in the title role and features the death scene from King John.[17]

• Histoire d'un crime, directed by Ferdinand Zecca was the first film to use flashbacks to create a non-linear narrative.[18]
• The earliest known use of intertitles was in the British film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost.[19]
• A Nymph of the Waves, the first experimental film.

• Edward Raymond Turner's children and several other very short test films, the earliest known moving pictures photographed in color.[20]
• A Trip to the Moon is the first sci-fi movie, as well as the first film to feature an extraterrestrial.

• The Great Train Robbery, directed by Edwin S. Porter was the first western film.[21]

• The Great Train Robbery, directed by Siegmund Lubin was the first film remake.[22]

Actually, as the earliest known film remake to date, Playing Cards is the 1896 remake by George Melies, a French director who was renowned for his achievements in the silent film era. The original film of the same name was produced by a man named Louis Lumière and was released earlier in the same year.

Like many early films, the story of Playing Cards was simple: a man and his three friends sit in a garden enjoying each other's company around a deck of cards. Soon a young girl is called over, and the friends have some wine, laughing over their shared amusement. Interestingly, the film was considered lost until 1981 when it was rediscovered and restored for public viewing. Though Playing Cards is a simple remake, Melies included his own family as actors in the film and re-imagined the scene as his own.

• Humorous Phases of Funny Faces directed by J. Stuart Blackton is the first animated film recorded on standard picture film.[23]
• The Story of the Kelly Gang by Charles Tait is the first feature film to be released.[24]

• January 19, Variety publishes reviews of two films, An Exciting Honeymoon and The Life of a Cowboy by Edwin S. Porter. These are believed to be the first film reviews published.[25]
• L'Enfant prodigue is the first feature film produced in Europe.

• The Assassination of the Duke of Guise is the first film to have a score specifically written for it, by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.[26]
• Fantasmagorie is considered the first animated cartoon

• The first full length feature film produced in the United States was an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables.
• The Kinemacolor process is first shown to the public at Palace Theatre in London. This is the first time the public saw color films.[27]
• Wilbur Wright und seine Flugmaschine was the first film shot from an aeroplane took place in April 1909. Wilbur Wright was training military personnel and took a newsreel cameraman on a flight in Rome to record this.[28]
• Albert Samama Chikly took the first underwater shot.[29]

• The German film serial, Arsène Lupin contra Sherlock Holmes directed by Viggo Larsen was the first film crossover.
• For the first time, the rights to adapt a novel are bought from a publisher, (Little, Brown & Company who published Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona.) The film is made by D. W. Griffith.
• D. W. Griffith makes In Old California, the first film to be made in Hollywood.[30]

• With Our King and Queen Through India, a documentary recording Indian celebrations around the coronation of George V, is the first feature film to be released in colour, using the Kinemacolor system.

• Lois Weber directs The Merchant of Venice making her the first American female director of a feature length film.[31]

• The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith was the first big budget Hollywood epic.[32]

• The Fall of a Nation, directed by Thomas Dixon Jr. was the first film sequel.[33]
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is the first feature-length film adaptation of a Jules Verne work. Since its release, at least 56 subsequent feature-length adaptations have been made as of 2022.[34]
• A Daughter of the Gods is the first film with a budget greater than $1,000,000.[35]

• The first animated feature film was El Apóstol by Quirino Cristiani from Argentina.[36]
• The Gulf Between directed by Wray Physioc is the first feature film to use Technicolor.[37]

• Men Who Have Made Love to Me, directed by Arthur Berthelet was the first film to break the fourth wall.[38]

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the first movie to have a twist ending.

• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1921), directed by Emmett J. Flynn was the first film to feature time travel to the past.[39]

• On October 18, the first-ever Hollywood premiere was held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, for the release of Robin Hood.[40]
• The first colour feature film made in Hollywood, The Toll of the Sea, starring Anna May Wong.
• First feature film in 3D. The Power of Love by Nat Deverich,[41] which premiered at the Ambassador Hotel Theater in Los Angeles on September 27.[42]
• Foolish Wives becomes the first film to cost $1 million to produce. The studio took advantage of its exorbitant price and advertised it as "The First Real Million Dollar Picture".[43]

• 16 mm film is introduced by Eastman Kodak in the United States.

• The Big Parade, the first movie to swear.

• Don Juan becomes the first sound film, using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, though it contains no spoken dialogue.[44]

• The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson is the first feature film with recorded dialogue, using the Vitaphone system.[45]
• Napoleon by Abel Gance is the first film to be filmed in the widescreen format.[46]

• Lights of New York, directed by Bryan Foy is the first all talking feature film.[47]
• Wings, directed by William A. Wellman is the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
• The Viking is the first feature-length film in color with sound (music and sound effects only).
• Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon with synchronized sound and the first cartoon to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack.
• In Old Arizona, the first major Western to use the new technology of sound and the first talkie to be filmed outdoors.[48]
• The Air Circus becomes the first aviation oriented film with dialogue as well as the first film to depict the barnstormer era.[49][50]

• The First Academy Award ceremony takes place at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Los Angeles on May 1. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans wins the award for "Unique and Artistic Production" (denoting artistic strength) and Wings wins the award for "Outstanding Picture, Production" (denoting technical production quality). Both awards were eliminated and merged the next year into the single Best Picture category. Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor won the awards for best actor and actress, which were awarded for work in a number of different films throughout the year. Acting categories were later narrowed to honor work on a single film.[51]
• Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock was the first British sound film.
• The Broadway Melody, first ever musical film. Also the first sound film and first musical to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
• Happy Days is the first feature film to be shown entirely in widescreen anywhere in the world. It was filmed using the Fox Grandeur 70 mm process.[52]
• Glorifying the American Girl, the first film with sound to swear.

• Fiddlesticks, directed by Ub Iwerks was the first complete sound cartoon to be shot in two-strip Technicolor.[53]
• Elstree Calling directed by Alfred Hitchcock was the first film to show a television set.
• Shadows of Glory becomes the first film foreign-language sound film to be produced in the United States.[54]
• Morocco becomes the first film to feature two women sharing a kiss on screen.[55] The women were Marlene Dietrich and an uncredited actress.

• Peludópolis, directed by Qirino Christiani is the first animated feature with sound.[36]
• The Police Patrol is the first feature film to be broadcast on television.

• The first animated film to use the full, three-color Technicolor method was Flowers and Trees made by Disney Studios. The film was also the first to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.[56]
• Love Me Tonight by Rouben Mamoulian is credited as the first film to use a zoom lens.[57]
• The Venice Film Festival runs from 6–21 August, the first film festival.[58]
• White Zombie directed by Victor Halperin was the first zombie film.

• The Crooked Circle was the first film to be broadcast on television, on March 10 in Los Angeles.
• Morgenrot was the first film to have its screening in Nazi Germany, and thus the first film of Nazi Cinema. Released three days after Adolf Hitler became Reichskanzler, the film became a symbol of the new times touted by the Nazi regime.[59]

• Becky Sharp, starring Miriam Hopkins, was the first feature-length film in three-strip Technicolor.

• Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length cel-animated and Technicolor feature film.[60]

• First African American to be nominated and to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress: Hattie McDaniel (Gone with the Wind, 1939).
• Walt Disney's Fantasia is the first film with surround sound, using Disney's Fantasound system.[45]

• First twins to win the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay: Julius and Philip Epstein, (Casablanca, 1942).

• First film to feature a live-action and animated character on screen at the same time: The Three Caballeros.[61]
• First feature film made for television broadcast: Talk Fast, Mister.

• Sanshiro Sugata Part II becomes the first numbered sequel.

• The first Cannes Film Festival takes place from September 20 to October 5.[62]

• First feature film in 3D and partly in color: Robinson Crusoe by Alexander Andreyevsky.[41]
• First feature film shot (almost) entirely from the POV of the main character: Lady in the Lake[63]

• First African-American man to receive an Academy Award: James Baskett (Academy Honorary Award for his portrayal of "Uncle Remus" in Song of the South, 1946) (See also: Sidney Poitier, 1964)
• The first British Academy Film Awards ceremony takes place with The Best Years of Our Lives, winning the award for best film.[64]

• Distant Drums is the first film to use the Wilhelm scream.

• The Robe is the first film to be released in CinemaScope.

• Sesto Continente, directed by Folco Quilici, was the first full-length, full-color underwater documentary.[65][66] The much more famous The Silent World, released in 1956, is frequently erroneously claimed as such.

• Disney's Lady and the Tramp is the first feature-length animated film to be released in a widescreen format, after it is released in CinemaScope.[67] This was after Disney released the Academy Award-winning short film, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, in the same format two years prior.
• A Generation is the first film to use a squib.[68]
• Famous Film Festival is network television's first feature movie anthology television series.

• Forbidden Planet is the first science fiction film to depict humans traveling in a faster-than-light starship of their own creation, the first to be set entirely on another planet in interstellar space, far away from Earth, as well as the first film to use an entirely electronic musical score, which was courtesy of Bebe and Louis Barron.[69][70]
• The Wizard of Oz is the first feature-length film to be broadcast in its entirety on network television.

• The White Snake Enchantress is the first feature-length anime film to be made in color.[71]

• Psycho is the first film to show a flushing toilet.[72]

• NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, the first regularly scheduled feature movie anthology network television series to broadcast recently released feature films in color, debuts.

• Magic Boy becomes the first anime film to be released in the United States on June 22, 1961.

• The Manchurian Candidate was the first Hollywood film to cast a black actor in a role not specifically written as black.[73]
• Mutiny on the Bounty was the first motion picture filmed in the Ultra Panavision 70 widescreen process.

• The Cardinal was the first film to be shown in 70mm despite being filmed on 35mm filmstock.[74][75][76] However, there is some disagreement over whether Taras Bulba, which was released a year prior, was shown using this process before the premiere of The Cardinal.[77]

• First movie with African-American interracial marriage: One Potato, Two Potato,[78] actors Bernie Hamilton and Barbara Barrie, written by Orville H. Hampton, Raphael Hayes, directed by Larry Peerce
• First African-American man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor: Sidney Poitier (Lilies of the Field, 1963) (See also: James Baskett, 1948)
• First feature film made for network television: See How They Run.

• Harlow (Magna film) : first feature film shot on video at the lower range of modern high definition. It used Electronovision, an american film production process based on french 819 lines TV system, which could display 737 active lines on screen, so slightly above 720p (albeit as a B&W, interlaced, 4/3 format). Videotape was transferred to 35 mm film for distribution.

• The Learning Tree was the first film directed by an African-American person, Gordon Parks, for a major American film studio, in this case Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.[79]

• Tiger Child, the first film in the IMAX format is made. Directed by Donald Brittain and produced by Roman Kroitor and Kichi Ichikawa, it premiered at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan at the Fuji Group Pavilion.[80]
• Midnight Cowboy wins the Oscar for Best Picture, making it the only X Rated movie to win the award.[81]

• The first permanent shush theatre, Cinesphere is built on the grounds of Ontario Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[82]
• A Clockwork Orange, first film to be released with Dolby Sound Reduction audio system.

• A Computer Animated Hand, the first movie that used some advanced CGI techniques.
• Cheongchun gyosa, the first movie commercially released on VHS.
• Fritz the Cat, the first animated feature to be given an X rating.

• First use of 2D computer animation in a significant entertainment feature film, Westworld. The point of view of Yul Brynner's gunslinger was achieved with raster graphics.[83][84]

• The Man with the Golden Gun becomes the first film to feature an "astro-spiral" jump, in which a car drives up a corkscrewed ramp and turns 360 degrees along its long axis. The stunt was performed with a AMC Hornet X hatchback by Loren "Bumps" Willert, and was done across a river near Bangkok, Thailand.[85]

• Jaws becomes the first film to gross more than $400 million at the box office.[86]
• Lisztomania becomes the first movie to use the new Dolby Stereo sound system.
• Barry Lyndon was the first film with scenes shot entirely by natural candlelight.[87]

• Steadicam is used for the first time in a production: Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory,[88] however, John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, released the same year is the first to be commercially released.
• The Young Teacher is the first feature film released on VHS.

• Superman: The Movie is the first film with a computer-generated title sequence.
• Watership Down is the first animated film to be presented in Dolby Stereo.
• Jaws is the first feature film released on LaserDisc.

• The Shining by Stanley Kubrick is the first film to use a steadicam in "low mode".[89]

• Looker is the first film to feature a CGI human character, Cindy. Also, first use of 3D shaded CGI.[90][91]

• For Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, ILM computer graphics division develops "Genesis Effect", the first use of fractal-generated landscape in a film.[92] Bill Reeves leads the Genesis Effect programming team, and creates a new graphics technique called Particle Systems.

• Rock & Rule is the first animated film to use computer graphics.[93]
• The Terry Fox Story was the first television film ever made for a cable network.[94]

• The Last Starfighter uses CGI for all spaceship shots, replacing traditional models. First use of 'integrated CGI' where the effects are supposed to represent real world objects.[93]
• The Sensorium is regarded the world's first 4D film.[95]
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers becomes the first film to receive a home video release in its original aspect ratio, when The Criterion Collection releases it as Laserdisc Spine #008. The practice would go onto to become the industry-wide standard for future home video releases.

• In Young Sherlock Holmes, Lucasfilm creates the first photorealistic CGI character, 'stained glass knight' with 10 seconds of screentime.[96][93]

• At the Canada Pavilion in Expo 86, Vancouver, Canada the first showing of 3D Imax takes place (Transition).[82]

• Julia and Julia (Giulia e Giulia) : first feature film shot in analog HDTV with a resolution in the 1000+ lines range (japanese 1125 lines Hi-Vision system, with 1035 active lines). Transferred to 35 mm for distribution.

• Tin Toy by John Lasseter becomes the first computer-animated short film to win an Academy Award.[97]

• The Rescuers Down Under is both Walt Disney Animation Studios's first theatrical sequel and Hollywood's first feature film digitally colored and assembled entirely on computers, using the studio's proprietary "Computer Animation Production System" (CAPS).

• Beauty and the Beast is the first animated film to have an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

• Batman Returns is the first film to be released with Dolby SR-D technology (later known as Dolby Digital).[98] This came after a limited experimental release of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country played in three US theatres in 1991.[99]

• Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees, originally released in 1991, is the first film to be streamed on the Internet.[100]
• Du fond du coeur is the first feature film to be shot on european 1250 lines (1152 active) HDTV format, at least partially, due to technical problems during shooting. Du fond du coeur (1994) was more successful in this regard, but, though finalized on 35 mm film, was intended as a TV serie rather than for theatrical release.
• Super Mario Bros. is the first film adaptation to be based on a video game.

• True Lies by James Cameron is the first film to cost $100 million.[101] Later, such budgets would become much more commonplace. As of January 2022, at least 448 films have been made with a budget of $100 million or more.[102]

• Toy Story by John Lasseter is the first feature film to be made entirely using CGI.[103]
• Casper, the first CGI lead character in feature-length film (preceded Toy Story by six months).
• Party Girl is the first film to premiere on the internet on June 3, 1995.[104]
• The LaserDisc version of Clear and Present Danger featured the first home theater Dolby Digital mix. It was quickly followed by True Lies, Stargate, Forrest Gump, and Interview with the Vampire among others.[105][106]

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame is the first animated film to cost at least $100 million.[107]
• The English Patient is the first digitally edited film to win the Academy Award for Best Editing.

• Titanic by James Cameron becomes the first film to cost $200 million and to earn more than $2 billion worldwide.[108]
• Twister by Jan de Bont, the first film to be commercially available on the DVD format.

• First digital cinema projection in Europe by Philippe Binant with DLP CINEMA technology for the release of Toy Story 2.[109]
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? by the Coen brothers is the first feature film to be entirely color corrected by digital means.[110]
• Fantasia 2000 is the first animated feature-length film shown in IMAX.[111][112] The success of the release, as well as IMAX corporation's struggle with layoffs and closures, led to the creation of IMAX's DMR process, which up-converts conventional films to IMAX format.[113]
• Our Lady of the Assassins (film) was shot on progressive digital HDTV, though at a 30 fps framerate. Transferred to 35 mm for release.

• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is the first feature film to use motion capture to create characters.[114]
• Shrek was the first feature film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
• Spirited Away was the first anime to win an Academy Award (Academy Award for Best Animated Feature).[115] It is also the first hand drawn and foreign film to win in the category.
• Vidocq: first film shot in digital progressive HDTV at standard 24 fps cinematic framerate

• Russian Ark by Alexander Sokurov is the first feature film to be shot entirely in uncompressed high definition video.[116] It is also the first feature film to consist of a single unedited take.[116]
• The Collingswood Story is the first screenlife film[117]
• Apollo 13 is the first film to undergo IMAX's DMR process, which up-converts conventional films to IMAX format.[113]
• Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones is the first Hollywood blockbuster shot primarily on digital video

• The Matrix Revolutions is the first film to be released in IMAX on the same day as its conventional film release, after undergoing their proprietary DMR process.[118]

• Able Edwards, the first movie with all-CGI backgrounds and live actors.[119]
• The Polar Express by Robert Zemeckis, the first film to entirely use the performance capture technique, whereby the physical movements of the actors are digitally recorded and then translated into a computer animation.[114][120]

• The original 65 mm negative of Baraka is scanned in 8K resolution, becoming the first film to do so.[121]

• U2 3D was the first live-action film to be shot, posted, and exhibited entirely in 3D,[122] the first live-action digital 3D film,[123] and the first 3D concert film.[124] Regarding its production, it was the first 3D film shot using a zoom lens,[125] an aerial camera,[126] and a multiple-camera setup.[123] Additionally, it was the first 3D film to feature composite images with more than two layers,[125] and the first to be edited specifically to prevent the viewer from experiencing motion sickness or eye strain.[127]
• The Dark Knight is the first mainstream feature to be partially shot with IMAX 70mm cameras, with 28 minutes of footage.[128]

• Monsters vs. Aliens by Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman, the first animated film to be directly produced in the stereoscopic 3D format instead of being converted into 3D after completion.
• Priyanka Chopra becomes the first actor to portray at least twelve characters in a film, when she stars in What's Your Raashee?.[129]
• Slumdog Millionaire is the first Academy Award for Best Cinematography winner shot mainly on digital video.

• Avatar by James Cameron is the first 3-D film to be the highest grossing film of all time, surpassing the 2D ones.. It is also the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Cinematography shot entirely on digital video.[130]
• Toy Story 3 is the first animated film to cost at least $200 million.[131] It's also the first animated film to gross over a $1 billion.

• The Artist is the first film financed entirely outside the United States and United Kingdom to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.[132]
• Searching For Sonny is the first feature film shot entirely on a DSLR.[133]
• Olive is the first feature film shot entirely on a cellphone.[134]

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first wide-release film to be shot using a high frame rate. Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie shot the film using 48 frames per second, twice the usual 24 frames per second.[135] However, few cinemas were capable of showing the high frame rate version of the film - at most 1,000 screens out of the 39,056 showing it in the United States - and most showed it in the ordinary frame rate. The reason for this increased frame rate was to make the 3D easier to watch, as well as remove camera blur, and increase clarity.[136]
• Brave is the first film to make use of the Dolby Atmos sound format.[137]
• Frankenweenie becomes the first black-and-white film and the first stop-motion animated film to be released in IMAX.[138]

• Skyfall is the first film to gross over £100 million in the United Kingdom.[139]
• The Wolf of Wall Street by Martin Scorsese, becomes the first major American movie to be delivered to theaters in digital formats only.[140]
• Stalingrad is the first Russian film to be released in IMAX.[141][142]

• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the first mainstream feature to be released in IMAX with Laser.[143]

• On 14 February, the first films are released on the Ultra HD Blu-ray format, with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Salt, Hancock, Chappie, Pineapple Express, and The Smurfs 2 being the first to be released, among others.[144][145]

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the first film to be shot in 8K resolution.[146] It was shot with the Red Weapon 8k camera.

• Avengers: Infinity War is the first Hollywood feature film to be entirely shot with Arri Alexa IMAX cameras equipped with Panavision Sphero 65 & Ultra Panavision 70 lenses.[147]

• The Lion King by Jon Favreau, the first photorealistic animated film.[148]
• Parasite by Bong Joon-ho, the first film not in the English language to win Academy Award for Best Picture.[149]

• Nomadland by Chloé Zhao, the first Oscar Best Picture winning film to be released theatrically, direct-to-streaming and VOD at the same time.

• The Suicide Squad is the first non-Marvel Studios film ever released to be shot entirely with IMAX-certified digital cameras. Although Top Gun: Maverick and Dune had both accomplished the same feat and had finished filming earlier, The Suicide Squad was released first, on August 5, after the releases of the other two were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was shot with the Red Ranger Monstro 8K & Komodo 6K cameras. The film was also the first feature film to use the Red Komodo camera.[150]
• The Tomorrow War is the first streaming original film to cost at least $200 million to produce. The film was originally set for theatrical release by Paramount Pictures, but the film's distribution rights were ultimately acquired by Amazon due to the COVID-19 pandemic,[151] Four months later, Red Notice was also released under similar circumstances and cost, on Netflix. As of early 2022, The Gray Man is set become the first streaming original to cost at least $200 million that was originally intended as a streaming original, once it releases in July 2022.[152]

• Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan is the first film to shoot sections in IMAX black and white analog photography.[153]
• The Creator by Gareth Edwards is the first large-budget major studio film to be shot on the prosumer Sony FX3 camera, the low cost of which is a rarity for a blockbuster film.[154]