Best Documentary Movies of 1900

A film in which limbless Nikolai Kobelkoff demonstrates a series of tasks, from aiming a pistol to performing gymnastics. Kobelkoff was born without arms and legs but persevered, becoming an international star in the early 20th century as a "Human Torso".

A splendid picture of the remarkable centrifuge railroad at Coney Island in which the car makes a complete circle in its course around the track, commonly known as "Loop the Loop."

While our photographers were crossing the Atlantic Ocean a most wonderful and sensational picture was secured, showing a storm at sea. The picture was secured by lashing the camera to the after bridge of the Kaiserine Maria Theresa, of the North German Lloyd Line, during one of its roughest voyages. The most wonderful storm picture ever photographed. Taken at great risk. (Edison Films, 1901)

“Showing the entire height of this wonderful structure from the base of the dome and return, with the great Paris Exposition in the background, looking down Champs de Mars. A most realistic picture.” According to Edison film historian Charles Musser, this film features the first camera tilt among the company's surviving oeuvre.

Sailors row a whaling boat in a medium-tight shot.

A panoramic shot, making a full circle, at the 1900 Paris Exposition. It begins and ends looking at the front of the Palace of Electricity. As it pans, first we see a workman hosing down the promenade. Men and women walk past, all wearing hats. We see the base of the Eiffel Tower, which the Palace faces. A couple strolls. A mother and daughter walk passed, father is slightly ahead wearing a boater. Three men in uniform walk toward the camera as it comes to a stop facing the Palace.

Scenes on an ostrich farm, filmed in Natal during the Boer War.

The magic of a real solar eclipse filmed on 28 May, 1900 by a famous magician, Nevil Maskelyne, while on an expedition by The British Astronomical Association to North Carolina.

An early short with a self-explanatory title.

Taken from an automobile. This picture was taken during the fashionable driving hour, making a complete circle of the Place de la Concorde, passing hundreds of carriages and busses. The beginning of the picture shows the historical church of the Madeleine in the background, the picture ending by approaching and running under the main entrance to the Paris Exposition.

James White, the Edison Company's main filmmaker at the time, realized a burst of creativity during his visit to the 1900 Paris Exposition. It's uncertain who his cameraman was for this journey, but historian Charles Musser suggests that it might've been Alfred C. Abadie. In their Paris Exposition films, they introduced tilting (see 'Panorama of Eiffel Tower') and, although panning and panoramas had already been around for a while, they introduced some novel functions for them.

An interesting view of Central Park before there was a skyline of buildings. All along the length of the park on both sides and to the north, with the exception of the Dakota Apartments located at 72nd Street and Central Park West, It was virtually impossible to see anything other than sky above the trees. In the nineteenth century when people went to visit the park, they really were leaving the "city."

Filmed in July 1900, on the Champs Elysées in Paris, France.

The single camera position is from the top of a building identified as the Trocadero Palace; The camera is pointed toward the Eiffel Tower. The film shows only up to the first arch of the Eiffel Tower.

With a crowded arena in the background, a stationary camera records a bull charging a picador astride his horse. An attendant on foot throws stones at the rump of the horse to get it to move. Various toreadors run past the bull to try to get him to charge or at least run about.

Consisting of a single shot, Spiders on a Web is one of the earliest British examples of close-up natural history photography. Made by one of the pioneers of the British film industry, G.A. Smith, this short film details spiders trapped in an enclosure, and despite the title, does not actually feature a web.

The title pretty much tells you all there is to know about this Edison film. It runs a very brief 27-seconds and shows a torpedo hitting its target and going off. I think the most fascinating thing about this is that we get a pretty close shot of the explosion and its aftermath. It was rather funny seeing this large explosion and especially seeing how long it took for everything that flew up in the air to land back down.

This picture shows the remains of one of the docks, several freight cars being piled one upon the other, while the most interesting part of the picture shows two schooners literally smashed one into the other, forming a most picturesque mass of wreckage.

Warships, UK and Germany

A single shot of a fleet of warships at sea, with a sunset sky superimposed from another sequence to complete the effect.

"This is the last ceremonious public appearance of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. The picture was taken in Phoenix Park, Dublin, April 4th, 1900, and shows the Queen in an open carriage, being cheered by thousands of people, as she passes through an arch of welcome."

This British Bioscope short from 1900 is a crackerjack piece, on an order with 1903's FIREBOAT 'NEW YORKER' ANSWERING AN ALARM. It's little more than a perfectly framed picture of the Odin slowly leaving harbor, with all her guns ablaze in the roiling clouds and flashes of cordite.

Cavalry cross the river in enormous number. Occasionally a horse stops to take a drink, and then walks on.

Film produced by William K. Dickson’s British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.

It's what it says on the label: a panoramic shot of East Galveston, right after the Storm of the Century came through, ripping up trees and destroying house like they were made of cards. Then, a decade and a half later came another Storm of the Century for Galveston.

Photographed February 5, 1900.

Mitchell & Kenyon.

A former carpenter who became one of the first cameramen in Japanese cinema history, Tsuchiya Tsuneji travelled to North America to help in the construction of a Japanese garden and tea house at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. After learning film techniques on how to operate a camera and develop film in December 1898 he returned to Japan carrying an Urban Bioscope camera (both a projector and camera). Taking inspiration from boxing match film actualities popular in the United States he conceived the idea of filming sumo wrestlers at the Ryogoku Ekoin. This resulted in his first film Ekoin Natsu-basho Ozumo.

Film produced by William K. Dickson’s British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.

Back in Blighty - after fighting in the Boer War, these volunteer soldiers are heading home to London and Middlesex

At the turn of the 20th century, the streets of Manila are filled with horse-drawn carriages, people in white European dresses, and wedding parties coming out of the church. Behind the civilized face of the fin-de-siècle, however, lie the dictates of a colonizing power that has conquered a third world country.

A moving tour through lively turn-of-the-century Southampton.

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