1902 in film

Events

• March 10 – A Circuit Court decision in the United States ends Thomas Edison's monopoly on 35 mm movie film technology.
• April 2 – Thomas Lincoln Tally opens the Electric Theater, the first permanent movie theater, in Los Angeles. Tally co-founds the First National Exhibitors Circuit in 1917.
• August 9 – Georges Méliès' film The Coronation of Edward VII is first shown in London on the evening of the Coronation itself.
• September 1 – Actor/producer Méliès premières the first science fiction film, the silent A Trip to the Moon, at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris, France; it proves an immediate success. One scene features the animated human face of the moon being struck in the eye by a rocket.
• William Wardell invents an 11 mm amateur film format, Vitak.

  Notable films released in 1902

Mitchell and Kenyon

• Bradford Coronation Procession
• Burnley v. Manchester United, this film may be the first moving picture images of Manchester United ever recorded.
• Comic Pictures In High Street, West Bromwich
• Dewsbury v. Manningham
• Electric Tram Rides from Forster Square, Bradford
• Employees Leaving Storey's Moor Lane Mill, Lancaster
• The Great Local Derby: Accrington v. Church, Cricket Match
• Leeds Athletic And Cycling Club Carnival
• Lieutenant Clive Wilson And The Tranby Croft Party, Hull
• Living Wigan
• Sheffield United v. Bury
• Street Scenes In Halifax
• Tram Ride Into Halifax
• Wexford Bull Ring
• Workers Leaving The Jute Works, Barrow

  Edwin S. Porter

• Fun In A Bakery Shop
• Jack and the Beanstalk

  Ferdinand Zecca

• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, directed by Ferdinand Zecca, hand-tinted by Segundo de Chomón
• Quo Vadis?, directed by Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca

  Georges Méliès

• The Coronation of Edward VII.
• The Treasures of Satan
• A Trip to the Moon
• Robinson Crusoe
• Le Voyage de Gulliver à Lilliput et chez les géants

  Others

• The Enchanted Cup, directed by Walter A. Booth
• The Little Match Seller, directed by James Williamson
• Maria Marten, or The Murder at the Red Barn, directed by Dicky Martin
• The Prince of Darkness, produced by America Mutoscope
• Sleeping Beauty
• Snow White, produced by Siegmund Lubin
• The Troublesome Fly, produced by Biograph
• Working Rotary Snow Plows, produced by Edison Studios

  Births

• January 2 – Sybil Seely, American silent film actress
• January 31 – Tallulah Bankhead, American actress
• February 3 – Dolly Rudeman, Dutch film poster designer
• February 14 – Thelma Ritter, American actress
• March 8 – Louise Beavers, African-American film and television actress
• March 23 – Philip Ober, American actor
• March 27 – Kenneth Macpherson, Scottish-born avant-garde film-maker
• March 28 – Flora Robson, English actress
• April 25 – Mary Miles Minter, American actress
• May 2 – Brian Aherne, English actor
• May 3 – Walter Slezak, Austrian-born character actor and singer
• May 4 – Mona Mårtenson, Swedish film actress
• May 6 – Max Ophüls, German-born film director
• May 10 – David O. Selznick, American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive
• May 21 – Anatole Litvak, Russian-born American filmmaker
• May 28 – Luis César Amadori, Italian–Argentine film director and screenwriter
• May 30 – Stepin Fetchit, American comedian and film actor
• June 5 – Walter Plunkett, American costume designer
• June 22 – Marguerite De La Motte, American film actress
• July 1 – William Wyler, German-born American film director, producer and screenwriter
• July 18
• *Dimitar Panov, Bulgarian film and theater actor and director
• *Chill Wills, American actor and a singer
• August 10
• *Norma Shearer, Canadian-American actress
• *Curt Siodmak, Polish-born American novelist and screenwriter
• August 11 – Lloyd Nolan, American film and television actor
• August 22 – Leni Riefenstahl, German film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, actress, dancer and propagandist for the Nazis
• September 5 – Darryl F. Zanuck, American film producer and studio executive
• September 22 – John Houseman, Romanian-born British-American actor and producer
• October 5 – Larry Fine, American actor, comedian, member of The Three Stooges
• October 18 – Miriam Hopkins, American film and TV actress
• October 28 – Elsa Lanchester, British-born American actress
• November 4 – John P. Fulton, American special effects supervisor
• December 9 – Margaret Hamilton, American film character actress
• December 19
• *Barton MacLane, American actor, playwright and screenwriter
• *Ralph Richardson, English actor

  Deaths

• February 15 – Wilhelmina J. R. Albregt-Engelman, Dutch actress