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Welcome!films by the year

Films by the Year began around 2011 as a way to organize my film viewing by watching a film from each decade beginning with the 1890s up to the present decade. I begin with years that end in zero, 1890, 1900, 1910, etc. and once I’ve watched a film from each decade I return to the 1890s and start with films from years that end in one, 1891, 1901, 1911, etc. and so on. In order to do this I began entering the films in a spreadsheet in chronological order by release date. After a while I made the spreadsheet public as a Google sheet and in 2015 I created this website which includes my film index, which has now grown to over 21,000 entries. You will also find film reviews, articles on film history and the complete Lumière and American Mutoscope & Biograph photo catalogues organized by catalogue number. The latter catalogue is still a work in progress. Many of the films in the index and playlists for the film history articles link to my Films by the Year YouTube channel. I also have a channel on the Russian social media site Odnoklassniki. I invite you to join my Films by the Year Facebook Group where I post about my current projects and uploads to my YouTube channel.

Updates to the Film Index as of July 10, 2025

Here is the list of new YouTube uploads and index entries:

1894 Danseuse de French-Cancan – new index entry and YouTube upload from IMDb’s list of films released in 1894
1896 Pigeons sur la place Saint-Marc – new YouTube upload for The Year 1896 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1897 13th Infantry, U.S. Army, in Heavy Marching Order, Double-Time, Governors Island – new index entry and added to online AM&B Photo Catalogue
1898 U.S. Troops Landing at Daiquiri, Cuba – new YouTube upload for The Year 1898 in Film playlist
1900 Le Maître de ballet – new YouTube upload from my digital archive
1903 Post Man Delivering Mail, U.S.P.O. – new YouTube upload for The Year 1903 in Film playlist
1905 Raffles, the Dog – new index entry from Paper Print Collection Catalogue
1920 A Trip Through the World’s Greatest Motion Picture Studios – new index entry from my DVD collection
2003 Ce jour-là (That Day) – new index entry from rarefilmm.com

Updates to the Film Index as of July 4, 2025

Here is the list of new YouTube uploads and index entries:

1896 Concours de bébés – new YouTube upload for The Year 1896 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1897 13th Infantry, U.S. Army Marching Through Sallyport, Governors Island – new index entry and added to online AM&B Photo Catalogue
1898 U.S. Battleship “Oregon” – new YouTube upload for The Year 1898 in Film playlist
1900 Le Déshabillé de la mariée – new YouTube upload from my digital archive
1903 Old Mail Coach at Ford, U.S.P.O. – new YouTube upload for The Year 1903 in Film playlist
1903 Racing for a Tow – new index entry from Paper Print Collection Catalogue
2003 Hypnos (Short) – new index entry from rarefilmm.com
2023 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – new index entry from IMDb’s list of films released in 2023

Coming Soon

The Year 1898 in Film –  Article and YouTube playlist. Currently adding films from August with 195 films in the playlist so far.

The Year 1903 in Film – Article and YouTube playlist. Currently adding films from August with 124 films in the playlist so far.

The Life and Deeds of the Immortal Vožd Karađorđe (1911) – translating Serbian intertitles to English. Have completed the first 40 of 60 minutes.

Ongoing Projects

  1. Adding all entries from Kent Niver’s Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress to the film index. There are about 3,000 films listed in the book arranged in alphabetical order. I’m currently working through titles that begin with the letter “R”.
  2. Creating an online version of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Photo Catalogues. These can be downloaded from Rutgers University but there’s no way to search them. When it’s finished you will able to search by title and find a still from the film along with other information.
  3. I have an enormous amount of films in digital format that I haven’t added to the index or uploaded to YouTube. I’m currently working through all the films I have that were produced for Le Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre in 1900.
  4. Adding films from Jon Whitehead’s streaming site rarefilmm.com. I’m currently adding films from years ending in “3” to the film index.
  5.  Adding films from IMDb’s list of films from each year sorted by number of ratings. Currently working on years that end with “4”. I add one film 1904, 1914, …until I get to 2024 then start with the year 1905, 1915 and so on ad infinitum.
  6. Uploading my collection of over 800 movie trailers to Odnoklassniki. So far I’ve uploaded 355.
  7. Uploading my entire collection of digitized films to the cloud. Eventually external hard drives fail or might be destroyed in a fire or natural disaster. I started in July, 2023 and have uploaded over 9 TB so far. Currently I’m working through films from the year 2010 and some anthologies of films from the late 19th and early 20th centuries along with DVD extras, trailers, etc.