The Great Train Robbery (1903)
Plays here · source: Internet Archive
Four bandits hold up a telegraph operator, board a moving train, rob the passengers at gunpoint, and flee on horseback until a posse runs them down. Twelve minutes, shot on location and in studio, with cross-cutting, a panning camera and a bandit who fires his pistol straight into yours.
The film that proved movies could tell a story and sell a ticket. Every Western, and most of narrative editing, starts somewhere near here.
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