A con­tri­bu­tion (which we always wel­come) from one of our read­ers in Roma­nia:

“The broth­ers Auguste and Louis Lumière cre­at­ed the first pub­licly shown movies, the first doc­u­men­taries and, with this 50-sec­ond film shot at a Provence rail­way sta­tion, the first hor­ror pic­ture. It is said that as Paris audi­ences watched the train chug toward the screen, they believed it was about to crash out of the frame and into the audi­to­ri­um, and ran out scream­ing. True or not, the sto­ry indi­cates the pow­er the medi­um would wield over its audi­ence.

The 50-sec­ond silent film [L’Ar­rivée D’un Train En Gare De La Cio­tat] cap­tures the entry of a steam loco­mo­tive into the train sta­tion in the French coastal town of la Cio­tat. Like most of the oth­er ear­ly Lumière films, L’Ar­rivée d’un train con­sists of a sin­gle, unedit­ed ‘view’ illus­trat­ing an aspect of every­day life.”

“L’Ar­rivée D’un Train En Gare De La Cio­tat” appears in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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It’s not exact­ly the same as watch­ing a film on the sil­ver screen. But you get what you pay for. Below, we have Frank Capra’s 1939 clas­sic, Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton, star­ring Jim­my Stew­art and Claude Rains. For those who cling to the hope that democ­ra­cies can rid them­selves of cor­rup­tion and spe­cial inter­ests, this film is for you, and it also appears in our col­lec­tion of free online movies.

Get a high­er qual­i­ty copy of Capra’s clas­sic on DVD here.

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In 2006, doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Jehane Nou­jaim (Con­trol Room) made a wish at the TED con­fer­ence (see below) — for world peace. For Nou­jaim, peace starts with cul­tur­al exchange, with get­ting to know one anoth­er. And since we all can’t trav­el, anoth­er way to achieve this is through film and its abil­i­ty to “take you into new worlds” and “across bor­ders.”

Two years lat­er, Nou­jaim’s wish may come true, and the uni­fy­ing pow­er of film will be put to the test. May 10 marks Pangea Day, a day when peo­ple from around the world (from Mum­bai and Cairo to Kigali, Rio and LA) will come togeth­er and watch the same films made by var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al film­mak­ers. “Watch par­ties” will be held world­wide, and the event will be broad­cast via web­cast and mobile phone. Below, we’ve also post­ed a movie trail­er intro­duc­ing the con­cept of Pangea Day. For more infor­ma­tion, click here. (Thanks Natasha for the heads up.)

Nou­jaim at TED

Pangea Day Trail­er

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Released in 1922, the Ger­man Expres­sion­ist film, Nos­fer­atu: A Sym­pho­ny of Hor­ror, offers a chill­ing adap­tion of Bram Stok­er’s Drac­u­la (get free audio­book of Stok­er’s work here). The film was made by F. W. Mur­nau and stars Max Schreck. Watch it below, or find it in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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