The Lumière brothers were Frenchmen who ran a family photographic business in Lyon, France at the end of the nineteenth century. They were some of the first people to figure out how to connect individual images to create moving pictures, and they essentially invented the modern process of filmmaking. Their first film, from 1895, was a forty-five-second reel depicting workers leaving their factory.

The Japanes director Akira Kurosawa became internationally famous for his samurai films, which were sweeping epics that reflected a wide range of philosophical issues. Many of his films were remade around the world in different genres. Most notable among these was the 1960 Western film The Magnificent Seven, by John Sturges, which followed a similar story to that of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

In 1927, Al Jolson, a notable vaudeville star, starred in a semi-autobiographical film called The Jazz Singer, which was most notable for Jolson turning to the camera and telling the audience, "You ain't heard nothing yet!" This was the first recorded sound to feature prominently in a movie. The Jazz Singer ushered in the era of talkies, and largely spelled the doom of silent films.

Walt Disney's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was considered a folly while Disney was making it, as no one had made a full length animated feature before. Financed entirely on his own, and with considerable debt accrued, Disney's film was released under great suspicion. The film ended up being a success, with the Academy Awards giving seven small special Oscars to Disney for his film.