Motion pictures and television are possible because of two quirks of the human perceptual system: the phi phenomenon and persistence of vision. The phi phenomenon refers to what happens when a person sees one light sources go out while another one close to the original is illuminated. To our eyes, it looks like the light moves from one place to another. In persistence of vision, our eyes continue to see an image for a split second after the image has disappeared from view. First observed by the ancient Greeks, persistence of vision became more widely known in 1824 when Peter Roget(who also developed the thesaurus) demonstrated that human begins retain an image of an object for about one-tenth of a second after the object is taken from view. Following Roget’s pronouncement, a host of toys that depended on this principle sprang up in Europe. Bearing fanciful manes (the Thaumatrope, the Praxinoscope), these devices made a series of hand-drawn pictures appear to move.

Before long, several people realized that a series of still photographs on celluloid film could be used instead of hand drawing. In 1878 a colorful Englishman later turned American. Edward Muybridge, attempted to settle a $25.000 bet over whether the four feet of a galloping horse ever simultaneously left the ground. He arranged a series of 24 cameras alongside a racetrack to photograph a galloping horse. Rapidly viewing the series of pictures produced an effect much like that of a motion picture. Muybirdge’s technique not only settled the bet (the feet did leave the ground simultaneously at certain instances) but also photography. Instead of 24 cameras talking one pictures in rapid order, it was Thomas Edison and his assistant, William Dickson, who finally developed what might have been the first practical motion-picture camera and viewing device, Edison was apparently trying to provide a visual counterpart to his recently invented phonograph. When his early efforts did not work out, he turned the project over his assistant. Using flexible film, Dickson solved the vexing problem of how to move the film rapidly through the camera by perforating its edge with tiny holes and pulling it along by means of sprockets, projections on a wheel that fit into the holes of the film in 1889 Dickson had perfected a machine called the Kinetoscope and even starred in a brief film demonstrating how it worked.

These early efforts in the Edison lab were not directed at projecting movies to large crowds. Still influenced by the success of his phonograph, Edison thought a similar device could make a money by showing brief films to one person at a time for a penny a look. Edison built a special studio to produce films for his new invention, and by 1894, Kinetoscope parlors were spring up in major cities. The long-range commercial potential of his invention was lost on Edison. He reasoned that the real money would be made by selling his peep-show machine. If a large number of people were shown the film at the same time, fewer machines would be needed. Developments in Europe proved Edison wrong， as inventors there devised large-screen projection devices. Faced with competition, Edison perfected the Vitascope and unveiled it in New York City in 1896.

Early monies were simple snippets of action—acrobats tumbling, horse running, jugglers juggling, and so on. Eventually, the novelty wore off and films became less of an attraction. Public interest was soon rekindled when early filmmakers discovered that movies could be used to tell story. In France, Alice Guy-Blachè produced The Cabbage Fairy, a one-minute film about a fairy who produces children in a Cabbage patch, and exhibited it at the Paris International Exhibition in 1896. Guy-Blachè went on to found her own studio in America. Better known is the work of a fellow French filmmaker and magician, Georges Méliès. In 1902 Méliès produced a science-fiction film that was the great-great-grandfather of Star Wars and Star Trek; it was called A Trip to the Moon.

由于人类感知系统的两个怪癖：也就是似动现象和持久视觉，造就了电影和电视。似动现象指的是当一个人看到一个光源熄灭，而另一个光源被照亮时发生的情况。在我们看来，这看起来像光从一个地方移动到另一个地方。在视觉暂留中，当图像从我们眼前消失时，我们的眼睛会继续看到一个图像。这是是首先由古希腊人观察到的，在1824年，当彼得·罗杰特（同时开发了同义词库）证明人类可以在事物脱离视线后，人们仍然可以将该图像在视线中保留大约十分之一秒，自此之后视觉暂留变得广为人知。在罗杰特发表声明之后，一系列依赖于这一原理的玩具开始在欧洲兴起。这些设备承载幻想的灵魂（西洋镜，教学用喉动态镜），使得一系列手绘图片看起来似乎可以移动了。 不久之后，有几个人意识到，可以使用赛璐珞胶片上的一系列照片来代替手绘。 1878年，一位富有色彩的英国人后来变成美国人。爱德华·麦布里奇，试图下一个25000美元的赌注，以确定一匹奔跑的跃马是否会四只蹄子同时离开地面。他在赛马场旁边安排了一整套相机，共24台，来拍摄疾驰的马匹。快速查看一系列图片非常像再看一部电影。麦布里奇的技术不仅赢得了赌注（在某些情况下，四只蹄子确实会同时离开地面），他还拍摄了照片。相比于用24台摄像机以快速的顺序进行拍照，托马斯·爱迪生和他的助手威廉·迪克森最终开发出了可能是第一台实用的电影摄影机和观看设备，而爱迪生显然正在试图为他最近发明的留声机提供一个视觉对应物。当他早期的努力没有奏效时，他把这个项目交给了他的助手。迪克森使用柔韧性薄膜，解决了麻烦问题，有关如何迅速利用摄像头穿过薄膜边缘的缘微小的孔洞，来快速移动薄膜，并通过链轮拉动薄膜来快速移动薄膜，在1889年迪克森已经完善了一台名为“活动电影放映机”的机器，甚至还出演了一部简短的电影，以演示它的工作原理。 爱迪生实验室的这些早期做出的努力并不是用于给大批人群投射电影。仍然受到他留声机的成功所带来的影响，爱迪生认为一个类似的设备可以通过每次向一个人展示短片而赚钱。爱迪生建立了一个专门的工作室，专门从事于用他的新发明来制作电影，到1894年，配有“活动电影放映机”的客厅在各大城市涌现出来。爱迪生失去了他的发明的长期商业潜力。他认为通过出售他的西洋景机器，可以赚到现金。如果大量的人同时出现在电影中，则需要更少的机器。欧洲的发展证明爱迪生的想法是错误的，因为当时的发明家发明了大屏幕投影设备。面对这样的竞争，爱迪生完善了其放映机，并于1896年在纽约市对外公开其放映机。 早期的电影是通过拍摄简单的动作片段而赚钱的 – 包括杂技演员翻筋斗，马儿在奔跑，杂技演员表演杂耍等等。最终，新奇感消失，电影变得不那么吸引人。当早期的电影人发现电影可以用来讲故事时，公众的兴趣不久就会被重新燃起。在法国，爱丽丝·盖·布兰琪制作了《甘蓝仙子》这部影片，这是一部有关于仙女的一分钟电影，故事讲述了这位仙子在圆白菜地中诞下孩子的故事，这部影片并在1896年在巴黎国际展览会上展出。盖·布兰琪在美国建立了自己的工作室。法国电影制片人兼魔术师乔治·梅里爱的作品更为出名。 1902年，梅里爱制作了一部科幻电影，这部电影是“星球大战”和“星际迷航”的鼻祖；这部影片名为《月球之旅》。