The first moving pictures, often called 'flickers,' were very, very short. A few seconds to a couple minutes of footage featured such commonplace scenes as a sneezing man, a kissing couple, a dance performance, a boxing match, or acts from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Viewers typically watched these little films with a Kinetoscope.
As projection became commonplace, movies expanded in length. In the first decade of the 20th century, most films were one or two reels long, or about 10 to 15 minutes, and they began to contain storylines, characterization, and even basic special effects. Georges Méliès' films The Haunted Castle and A Trip to the Moon amused viewers with disappearing objects, double exposure tricks, and fadeouts. The 1903 flick The Great Train Robbery, the very first real Western, excited viewers with its action scenes and intrigued them with its creative camera work, including shots taken from a moving train.
For many years, film producers were hesitant to make movies longer than one or two reels because they thought audiences would grow restless watching longer films. As the 1910s approached, however, a few directors decided to take the risk with feature length films. Les Miserables and The Life of Moses were four and five reels respectively, but they were released in sections. In 1911, Dante's Inferno, a 69-minute film, was released in its complete form, followed in 1912 by Oliver Twist and Queen Elizabeth.
Other popular early films include:
The Life of an American Fireman, the first documentary
D.W. Griffith's epic post-Civil War drama Birth of a Nation, that actually inspired a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan
Slapstick Keystone Comedies featuring the hilarious Keystone Kops
Serial movies, like The Adventures of Kathlyn, that held viewers' attention over multiple episodes
Cecil B. DeMille's fantastic epics, like The Ten Commandments and The King of Kings
The Lost World, the first science fiction film
Westerns, like director John Ford's The Iron Horse
Spooky films, including The Cat and the Canary
Canine star Rin Tin Tin's movies
Imports, like the Russian film Battleship Potemkin
Movie spectacles, like Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur