L'Arrivee d'un train a la Ciotat: Early Film

This is a new entrant on the Top 1000 list, and it clocks in as the shortest film on the list by far, running just less than one minute long.  Released in 1896, it's one of the first publicly exhibited films by the Lumiere brothers.

No relation.

The film is simple, obviously created to showcase the new medium of film rather than to tell a story.  It shows a train pulling into a station.  Some reports suggest that the film incited fear and panic, because the viewers actually believed that there was a train headed for them.  This I think is unlikely; just another example of historians making people who lived in the past appear less intelligent or primitive compared to our modern sensibilities.  For example, even in the 1400s, it is improbable that you would have been able to find a single person who actually believed that the world was flat.  However, viewers were undoubtedly unaccustomed to the level of realism film was capable of, and were sufficiently impressed with the new technology.

There's not really much else to say about this piece.  It's mostly just significant to film history; watch this short film and appreciate the medium's humble beginnings.