10 Christmas Films Made Over 100 Years Ago (That You Can Watch for Free)

The Christmas season gives us permission to delight in the past. 

We sings old songs and zestfully revive the traditions of bygone years. Even the most black-and-white-phobic individuals in our midst might resist the urge to change the channel when a holiday-themed classic movie comes on TV.

But how many of us celebrate by revisiting the earliest Christmas films, over 100 years old?

I invite you to join me for a very YouTube Yuletide by checking out these 10 historical treasures. Not only do they radiate nostalgia and (for the most part) good cheer, but they also bear witness to the rapid development of cinema during its first two decades of existence.

Please note that many of these films have no musical score. I recommend putting on your favorite Christmas CD (you know, provided it’s not holiday death metal or anything like that) while you watch.

Santa Claus – George Albert Smith – 1898

Just three years after the Lumière brothers shot their first movies, Santa Claus made his screen debut in this vignette by the innovative British filmmaker George Albert Smith.

Smith explored cinema’s ability to represent points-of-view and show spatial relations. More important, he used these techniques to recreate experiences, play on viewers’ emotions, and tell stories.

In Santa Claus, the magic of Christmas (combined with movie magic) prompts a vision of St. Nick arriving on a rooftop and climbing into the chimney. Although the film takes place in the bedroom of two small children, we see Santa through a kind of enchanted bubble: a clever double exposure. Then the bubble disappears as Santa enters through the fireplace in an early example of a match-on-action, showing the rough continuity of time and space.

Not bad for a film that lasts little longer than a minute!

Rêve de Noël – Georges Méliès – 1900

Savor some Belle Époque celluloid whimsy as only Méliès could do it. On Christmas Eve, a child dreams of Santa’s merry workshop, which seems to house a surprising number of 1900s Parisian music hall dancers… Meanwhile, the world at large prepares for the holiday in snowy streets, cheerful churches, and opulent feasting halls.

Comparatively low on early special effects or editing tricks, this film simply sets a jolly mood. With its eccentric Elizabethan-meets-19th-century set design and its gaggle of snow fairies dancing, Rêve de Noel is like a stack of Victorian Christmas postcards coming to life. Bask in the visual equivalent of hot buttered rum.

Scrooge, or Marley’s Ghost – Walter R. Booth – 1901

Only part of the first movie adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol survives. Fortunately, there’s enough left to appreciate this ambitious film and imagine what the whole would’ve been like.

Walter R. Booth managed to condense all major plot points down to a few minutes. Even more impressive, he recreated the story’s supernatural elements by using practically the entire arsenal of cinematic language available in 1901. And, banging his head against those limitations, Booth invented the wipe transition.

Best remembered for his playful, special effects-loaded short films, Booth began as a porcelain painter and dabbled in magic. You can see how Booth applied his expertise from those fields to Scrooge. The miniature painter’s attention to detail reveals itself in the set decoration with touches like the “God Bless Us Every One” sign in the Crachit home. Meanwhile, Booth the illusionist gives us see-though spirits, superimposed glimpses of the past, and a dizzying flight through time and space.

Bonus film: watch this later, more elaborate adaptation of A Christmas Carol (1910), a Thomas Edison production directed by J. Searle Dawley.

The Little Match Seller – James Williamson – 1902

In case you’re overdosing on joy, it’s time for Hans Christian Andersen’s tear-jerking tale of child labor and hypothermic hallucinations!

Once again, the supernatural overtones of a popular Christmas story gave an early filmmaker the chance to experiment with special effects and integrate them into a dramatic context. Williamson uses double exposures to portray the little match girl’s visions of warmth as well as her ascent into heaven.

Like Scrooge, Or Marley’s Ghost, this adaptation blurs the line between the era’s “trick films” (and what Gunning called the cinema of attraction) and emerging narrative cinema.

The Parish Priest’s Christmas – Alice Guy – 1906

Shining with simple faith, this moving work by Alice Guy, the world’s first woman director, captures a more pious side of Christmas.

A local priest attempts to buy a statue to complete the crèche, or Nativity scene, in his church. Unfortunately, the priest and his humble flock lack the funds to purchase even the smallest stand-in for baby Jesus. But lo! At mass, beautiful angels appear and reward the congregation’s devotion by bestowing an effigy of Jesus to fill the cradle.

In The Parish Priest’s Christmas, Alice Guy deploys special effects for maximum dramatic impact. The film’s deliberate pace and the naturalistic interactions between characters draw the audience into the priest’s dilemma. This realistic atmosphere makes the heavenly vision at the end (achieved through hidden cuts) even more striking and poignant.

A Trap for Santa Claus – D.W. Griffith – 1909

Dad’s drunk, unemployed, and arguing with mom. Now it feels like Christmas! Anticipating the bleakness of the Pottersville scenes in It’s a Wonderful Life, this socially-conscious Biograph film reminds us that Christmas doesn’t exist for those in dire poverty.

A despairing father abandons his indigent wife and children. On the verge of starvation, his wife inherits a small fortune and moves into a lavish home in time for Christmas Eve. When her children set a trap to catch Santa Claus, little do they know that they’ll end up bringing their father—now turned a burglar—back into their lives. All we need is a Santa suit and the family reunion will be complete…

D.W. Griffith had only been directing films for about a year when he made this short holiday melodrama, which might be why it stands out as particularly, well, melodramatic. The acting harkens back to the 19th century stage, but please don’t judge all silent movies (or Griffith’s) based on this one.

The Night Before Christmas – Edwin S. Porter – 1905

Edwin S. Porter, a pioneer of narrative logic in cinema and director of The Great Train Robbery (1903), evokes the snowbound wonder of Clement Clarke Moore’s beloved poem. And, as in The Great Train Robbery, Porter ends the film with a fourth-wall-breaking shot (not unusual in early movies) as Santa Claus acknowledges the spectators and wishes them a merry Christmas.

My favorite entry on this list, The Night Before Christmas involved a herd of apparently real reindeer, as well as an adorable model version to show their “flight” from the North Pole. You can see the whole iconography of Christmas as we know it today—the jolly red suit, the list that Santa’s checking twice, and the magical sleigh. Intertitles with verses lifted straight from Moore’s poem contribute to the film’s charm.

A Christmas Accident – Harold M. Shaw – 1912

In the time-honored tradition of nasty-people-redeemed-by-holiday-zeal stories comes this short but sweet movie from Edison Studios. Eschewing miracles and special effects, A Christmas Accident provides a tantalizing glimpse into the holiday celebrations of ordinary, working-class people shortly after the turn of the century.

Prosperous, crotchety old coot Mr. Gilton and his long-suffering wife live right next door to the harmonious Bilton family. After months of enduring their neighbor’s bad temper, the Biltons are settling down for their modest Christmas Eve festivities.

“Santa Claus is poor this year,” says Mr. Bilton, explaining to his children why they’re not getting a turkey. But what to their wondering eyes should appear? Why, Mr. Gilton, blown by a snowstorm right into their home—with a turkey under his arm. Do I smell reconciliation… and stuffing?

The Insects’ Christmas – Vladislav Starevich – 1913

Vladislav Starevich. Now there’s a name even film geeks don’t mention much—but they should. This enthusiastic amateur entomologist produced some of the most creative and elaborate early examples of stop-motion animation.

In his surreal works, anthropomorphic insects often move around in a world like our own. They go to the movies, conduct secret love affairs, and, yes, even celebrate Christmas. Heartwarming or horrifying? I’ll let you be the judge.

Bonus film: for more unusual holiday entertainment courtesy of our friend Vladislav, watch his live-action film The Night Before Christmas (1913), based on a story by Nikolai Gogol, not the quaint poem by Clement Clarke Moore.

The Adventure of the Wrong Santa Claus – Charles M. Seay – 1914

In 1914, comical amateur sleuth Octavius bumbled through a series of short one-reel films produced by Thomas Edison. In the final series installment, our hapless hero shows up at a party to dress as Santa for his friend’s children. Needless to say, holiday mayhem ensues.

No sooner does Octavius don the bushy white beard and red suit then he gets conked on the noggin by a burglar. Dressed up in a different Santa suit, the villain steals the children’s gifts from under the tree and flees with Octavius in hot pursuit.

Of course, all this improbable exposition merely serves as an excuse to show two men in Santa costumes chasing after each other and brawling. Fortunately, as the intertitles tell us, “Octavius never fails.” The detective ends up returning the Christmas presents and gets to canoodle behind a curtain with a pretty girl while some weirdly voyeuristic children watch. (And a merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. Edison…)

Though clearly filmed on a set, this movie tenderly documents the customs of a middle class Christmas on the brink of WWI. Plus, it started the Santa suit mix-up plot device that seasonal comedies have been recycling ever since.

Have a very cinephile Christmas, everyone!

Film History for Free: 10 Entertaining Early Cinema Trick Films

“I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. Because the very earliest people who made film were magicians. One of the aspects of it was the idea of an illusion, a magical illusion, in the early days of movies.”

—Francis Ford Coppola (from an interview you can watch here)

Admittedly, not all of these films are pure trick films, that is, they don’t exist purely to show off visual pyrotechnics. But enjoy watching the evolution of early special effects in the selections below.

Démolition d’un mur (1896) — the Lumière brothers

A wall being knocked down by a bunch of laborers doesn’t sound like much of a premise for special effects. Like many of the Lumières’ films, the strong documentary quotient of what we’re seeing (real workers, a real neighborhood) would suggest that we’re just supposed to kick back and appreciate what life, once removed, looks like.

And yet, only after the film was printed, magic happened. During exhibitions, the quaint actualité was played once through, then shown backwards, with the strip fed in reverse through the projector. Miraculously, the wall jolted back to its original position as particles of dirt and dust were sucked back into place. This groundbreaking idea turned an everyday sight into a spectacle of the fantastic. Although there’s technically no camera or editing trick, the cinema itself becomes a trick for its ability to manipulate time and weave fragments of truth into an impossible fake reality. Indeed, the surrealists would later tap the power of reversed footage (most spectacularly in Cocteau’s Orphée). But the trick was never more startling than it is here.

The X-Rays (1897) — George Alfred Smith

Call me morbid, but trick films often seem to focus on death. Cinema, of course, is a close cousin of death. In her spooky realm, the long departed can still amuse and delight us. The X-Rays, a whimsical entry in the trick film canon, displays a sardonic, typically British gallows humor. After all, it was Webster who, according to T.S. Eliot always saw “the skull beneath the skill.” Well, this short follows in the same vein. When shot through with “X-rays,” a wooing couple suddenly appear as two skeletons. Really, it’s just a well-timed cut, a change of lighting, and black body suits decorated with white bones that provide the illusion.

Once reduced to posturing wraiths, the cute couple acquire a new level of comic irony. It’s hard to believe in love and romance when you can see that, under it all, we’re nothing more than bags of bones. Under the surface of this charming trick film, you’ll find a genuinely chilling memento mori.

Un Homme de têtes (1898) and L’homme à la tête au caoutchouc (1901) — Georges Méliès

In this pair of similar shorts, Georges Méliès gets a head. Several, in fact. Because he was the master of the trick film, I have to include two shorts from this infectiously enthusiastic trailblazer.

Not only was Méliès a true visionary who understood the importance of shaping cinema into entertainment medium, but he was also one hell of an energetic guy! I find that watching him star in his own short films provides a fool-proof pick-me-up. He’s like Prozac with a Belle Époque beard. Unlike some early cinema performances, which show that the actors did not yet grasp that you need to move in the movies, Méliès’s appearances remain as exuberant and joyful as they were a century ago. Rather than “acting” all of the time, Méliès miraculously manages to cultivate a similar presentational relationship to what you get between a magician and his audience. In one of my favorite Méliès films, we can savor the spectacle of not one Méliès… but up to five of him at any given time. Bask in his energy.

 The Big Swallow (1901) ­— James Williamson

This daft little film shows a distinctly ticked-off camera subject proceed to eat the cameraman! Clearly, this doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, but it sure is unexpected. Moral of the story? Ask permission before you start turning, or you’ll end up in some stranger’s stomach. This entry also contains the first extreme close-up in cinema history.

The Haunted Curiosity Shop (1901) — W. R. Booth 

Well, here’s some good, ol’ fashioned nightmare fuel for you! Because who hasn’t seen at least one horror movie about an antique shop where the objects come to life? From hidden cuts to superimposition, this atmospheric film uses practically the whole bag of then-available tricks to portray a possessed store. The proprietor of the curiosity shop even seems to cultivate these playful, if creepy gnomes, ghosts, and apparitions to pop up and vanish at will.

Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show (1902) — Edwin S. Porter

Hapless, roly-poly Uncle Josh holds the distinction of being the first recurring character in film history, providing fodder for a series of three surviving kooky adventures. In the most innovative Uncle Josh film, the hammy fellow goes to a program of movies (and, surprise, surprise, Edison movies!). Attempting to join an alluring Parisian dancer, Josh lurches onto the stage in front of the movie screen and starts to jig. The film soon changes to The Black Diamond Express.

When Uncle Josh tries to get a closer look at the oncoming train, he leans into the movie frame, entering the world of the film—or so he assumes. In a clever spoof of the hysterical reactions of early cinema audiences (who supposedly expected onscreen trains to come off the screen and hit them), Uncle Josh genuinely thinks he’s about to be run over by the locomotive as it appears to hurtle towards him! Again trying to interfere in onscreen events, Uncle Josh finally tears down the screen and starts a brawl with the projectionist.

This silly film is not actually a trick film. Sorry. (The first installment of the series, Uncle Josh’s Nightmare, is though.) It’s more about how cinema can trick us. But it foreshadows Sherlock Jr.—not to mention the many, many other movies to follow that featured people sliding into a filmic parallel universe. The “meta” elements of this film—especially the references to other Edison actualities—make this film one of the most modern and complex of the trick films I’m presenting, even if the double-exposure techniques don’t stun us as much as they perhaps could. The true paradox of this film lies in the fact that Uncle Josh both psychologically “enters” the diegesis of the films he’s watching and reveals the illusion inherent in cinema when he tears down the screen. His reactions parallel those of the audience—who, while somewhat absorbed in the movie tricks they were watching, still wanted to know how the filmmaker did it.

La charité du prestidigitateur (1905) — Alice Guy

Trick films may enchant and astound you, but when it comes to plot, they haven’t earned much of a reputation for warmth and well-developed characters. I mean, Méliès even observed, “As for the scenario, the ‘fable’ or ‘tale,’ I only consider it at the end. I can state that the scenario constructed in this manner has no importance, since I use it merely as a pretext for the ‘stage effects,’ the ‘tricks’ or for a nicely arranged tableau.”

While this emphasis on exhibition and flamboyance over story shouldn’t be held against the subset of early cinema (which wasn’t yet conceived of in terms of narrative cinema), I rejoice to find a trick film with a heart, directed by the sublime Alice Guy.

In this cozy, if cautionary fable, a magician encounters a beggar and, moved to compassion, he conjures a luxurious feast and a swank set of clothes for the vagrant. When the homeless man walks away feeling cocky and refuses to help another beggar, the unfeeling lout transforms back into his old self. The second beggar was just the magician in disguise—oh, snap! The message about sparing kindness for people in situations that you once suffered through elevates this convivial film among the rest. Alice Guy integrated the syntax of the trick film into a more narrative format with breathtaking ease and glorious humanity.

 Plongeur Fantastique (1905) — Segundo de Chomón

Admittedly, this film strikes me as a major one-trick horse. A man dives into a pond. Suddenly, the waters part and he flies backwards to the place where he had been standing a moment ago. He dives in again. And so it goes for almost two minutes. Yawn. I would  like to point out, though, how similar this repetitive film is to the modern phenomenon of the GIF, which fulfills our human desire to play certain interesting moments on an endless loop. When I watch early films, I often find them quite gif-able, because of their “money shots” or moments of total “LOOK AT THIS” spectacle. The silly reversibility of the short film also reminds me of what I call GIF mentality. (And if you don’t believe me, try Googling “reverse running gifs.” You’re welcome. Or maybe you want to hunt me down with a pitchfork. Which is why I blog anonymously, by the way.)

However, I choose to feature this film primarily because it brings us full circle back to the first film, Démolition d’un mur. The trick, accomplished through reverse projection, goes nuts with a technique not even a decade old at the time. And it’s boring! Because it’s all special effects and no plot… like a lot of movies made nowadays.

La Grenouille (1908) — Segundo de Chomón

Okay, I feel really bad about what I just wrote. I don’t mean to slight Segundo de Chomón, an exquisitely talented maker of elaborate, cuckoo-bananas trick films, which you totally need to watch. So, I’m including this late trick film fantasy, about a psychedelic frog. If you consider Méliès pretty wild, watching de Chomón is like watching Méliès while trippin’. Not that I’d know, of course…

Thanks to all the marvelous people who upload these films on YouTube. I also gratefully acknowledge Tom Gunning’s “The Cinema of Attraction”, which, in part, inspired this post.