Georges Méliès filmography


was a French filmmaker and magician generally regarded as the first person to recognize the potential of narrative film. He made about 520 films between 1896 and 1912, covering a range of genres including trick films, fantasies, comedies, advertisements, satires, costume dramas, literary adaptations, erotic films, melodramas, and imaginary voyages. His works are often considered as important precursors to modern narrative cinema, though some recent scholars have argued that Méliès's films are better understood as spectacular theatrical creations rooted in the 19th-century féerie tradition.
After attending the first demonstration of the Lumière Brothers' Kinetoscope in December 1895, he bought a film projector from the British film experimenter Robert W. Paul and began using it to project short films at his theater of illusions, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, in Paris. Having studied the principles on which Paul's projector ran, Méliès was able to modify the machine so that it could be used as a makeshift camera. He began making his own films with it in May 1896, founded the Star Film Company in the same year, and built his own studio in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis in 1897. His films A Trip to the Moon, The Kingdom of the Fairies, and The Impossible Voyage were among the most popular films of the first few years of the twentieth century, and Méliès built a second, larger studio in 1907. However, a combination of difficulties—including American film piracy, standardized film prices set in 1908 by the Motion Picture Patents Company, and a decline in popularity of fantasy films—led eventually to Méliès's financial ruin and the closing of his studio. His last films were made in 1912 under the supervision of the rival filmmaker Charles Pathé, and in 1922–23 Méliès sold his studios, closed the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, and discarded his own collection of his negative and positive prints. In 1925 he began selling toys and candy from a stand in the Gare Montparnasse in Paris. Thanks to the efforts of film history devotées, especially René Clair, Jean George Auriol, and Paul Gilson, Méliès and his work were rediscovered in the late 1920s, and he was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1931.
In the list below, Méliès's films are numbered according to their order in the catalogues of the Star Film Company. In Méliès's numbering system, films were listed and numbered according to their order of production, and each catalogue number denotes about 20 meters of film. The original French release titles, as well as the original titles used in the US and UK versions of the Star Film catalogues, are listed in the body of the filmography; notable variant titles are provided in smaller text. The parenthetical descriptive subtitles used in the catalogues are also provided whenever possible. Films directed by Méliès but not originally released by the Star Film Company are also included. Where available, the list also includes information on whether each film survives, survives in fragmentary form, or is presumed lost. Unless otherwise referenced, the information presented here is derived from the 2008 filmography prepared by Jacques Malthête, augmented by filmographies prepared in the 1970s by Paul Hammond and John Frazer.

List of films

Miscellaneous films

Later projects

Following the revival of interest in Méliès and his work in the late 1920s, he took part in several film projects:
The following films are listed without cited sources in the 1974 filmography by Paul Hammond and its revision by John Frazer, but not in the more complete 2008 filmography by Jacques Malthête. None of the following films have catalogue numbers, and all of them, if any existed to begin with, are presumed lost.
English titleFrench titleDateLength
No English titlePaulus chantant: Père la Victoire189720m/65 ft
No English titlePaulus chantant: En revenant d'la revue189720m/65 ft
Seek and Thou Shalt FindNo French titleJanuary 190827m/88 ft
The Duke's Good JokeNo French titleNovember 1908286m/930 ft
Cinderella Up-to-DateNo French titleOctober 1909292m/950 ft
For the Cause of SuffrageNo French titleOctober 1909279m/905 ft
For Sale—a BabyNo French titleNovember 1909184m/600 ft
A Tumultuous ElopementNo French titleNovember 1909Unknown
Count's WooingNo French titleNovember 1909153m/497 ft
Mrs. and Mr. DuffNo French titleNovember 1909150m/488 ft
No English titleLe Traitment 706/Guérison de l'obésité en 5 minutesSeptember 1910124m/390 ft
No English titleLe Mousquetaire de la Reine1910Unknown
No English titleLe Conte du vieux Talute1910Unknown
No English titleLes sept barres d'or1910Unknown
No English titleGalatée1910Unknown
No English titleL'Homme aux mille inventions1910Unknown

Misattributed films

The following films by other directors have occasionally been erroneously credited to Méliès:
TitleYearActual directorStudio
Magic Roses1906Segundo de ChomónPathé
Excursion to the Moon1908Segundo de ChomónPathé
The Red Devil1908Probably Ferdinand ZeccaPathé
Bessie's Ride1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
Changing Cooks1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
Mary's Stratagem1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
Mexican As It Is Spoken1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
The Mission Waif1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
The Ranch Man's Debt of Honor1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
Right or Wrong1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
Red Cloud's Secret1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
The Stolen Grey1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
His Terrible Lesson1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
Tommy's Rocking Horse1911Gaston MélièsStar Film
The Ghost of Sulphur Mountain1912Gaston MélièsStar Film
The Prisoner's Story1912Gaston MélièsStar Film

Footnotes

Citations