At the turn of the 20th century, the Mutoscope and Biograph Company shot incredibly high quality films with a large-format 68mm camera. This compilation shows images with extraordinary detail, shot 120 years ago in Amsterdam, Paris, London, Berlin and Venice. These films reflect the essence of early cinema: they capture the first moving images of important events, famous places and personalities, as well as moments of spectacle such as dance performances and sports or natural phenomena that only come to life in motion. In 2025, the 68mm films were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

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In the earliest days of cinema, there were several successful competitors to the 35mm format. Founded in 1895 by William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson, who had worked for Thomas Edison, inventing both 35mm film and the Kinetoscope, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company patented a new 68mm format. […] Requiring significantly larger Biograph projectors, which were in competition with Thomas Edison’s Vitascope and the Lumière Brother’s Cinematograph, 68mm films were produced for both big screen projection and viewing in Mutoscopes. The 68mm format was four times larger than 35mm, with an image area of 2 by 2+1⁄2 inches (51 mm × 64 mm), projected at 32 fps, resulting in an extraordinarily sharp image, without the flicker and jumpiness of its competitors, and is comparable to today’s IMAX format. […]
The primary attraction of moving images in the days before even stationary cinemas had been founded was the visual pleasure of seeing the world move, seeing everyday life in faraway places, so Biograph’s cameramen travelled the world. Among the most popular films were images filmed from moving trains, with exotic landscapes rushing by, or, as in Irish Mail (1898), a steam locomotive’s speed captured by a cameraman riding on a parallel track, rushing through train stations, until the faster train passes out of frame.
Jan-Christopher Horak, archivalspaces.com, 16 May 2025