In the earliest days of cinema, the late 19th and early 20th centuries bore witness to an incredible surge of innovation and creativity, with several pioneers born in the 1860s playing pivotal roles in shaping this new medium. Among these trailblazers, the Lumière brothers, Auguste (born 1862) and Louis (born 1864), stand out with their invention of the Cinématographe, a device that could both capture and project moving images. Their screening in Paris in 1895 is often heralded as the birth of commercial cinema.

In the United States, Thomas Edison (though born earlier in 1847) and his assistant, W. K. L. Dickson, were instrumental in developing the Kinetoscope, a forerunner to the movie projector. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in Britain, William Friese-Greene (born 1855), often dubbed as a “father of cinematography”, was experimenting with early motion pictures. These 1860s directors, along with numerous others, laid the foundation for the world of film as we know it today.

Click on the directors’ pictures to look at their profiles.