Introduction
- Saving Private Ryan (1998) dir. Steven Spielberg – First scene was shot in ireland
- Three Colors: Blue (1993) dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski – eyes closed to make you feel warmth
- Casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz – Too romantic to be classical
- The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) dir. Yasujirō Ozu – pause in the story with no rush
- Odd Man Out (1947) dir. Carol Reed
- Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
- Taxi Driver (1976) dir. Martin Scorsese – Uses bubbles to show something is wrong and can see their own roubles
- The French Connection (1971) dir. William Friedkin
1895-1918: The World Discovers a New Art Form or Birth of the Cinema
- Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888) dir. Louis Le Prince
- The Kiss (1896 film) (a.k.a. May Irwin Kiss) (1896) dir. William Heise – a moment that everyone can understand
- Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) dir. Louis Lumière
- Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896) dir. Louis Lumière
- Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894-1896 ?) dir. William Kennedy Dickson or William Heise
- Sandow (1894) dir. William Kennedy Dickson
- What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City (1901) dir. George S. Flemingand Edwin S. Porter
- Cendrillon (1899) dir. Georges Méliès
- Le voyage dans la lune (1902) dir. Georges Méliès
- La lune à un mètre (1898) dir. Georges Méliès
- The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) dir. George Albert Smith
- Shoah (1985) dir. Claude Lanzmann
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) dir. Stanley Kubrick
- The Sick Kitten (1903) dir. George Albert Smith – close ups were born
- October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
- Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) dir. Sergio Leone
- The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897) dir. Enoch J. Rector – the wide shot was born
- 1903-1918: The Thrill Becomes Story or The Hollywood Dream
- Life of an American Fireman (1903) dir. Edwin S. Porter
- Sherlock Jr. (1924) dir. Buster Keaton
- The Horse that Bolted (1907) dir. Charles Pathé
- The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (a.k.a. The Assassination of the Duc de Guise) (1908) dir. Charles le Bargy and André Calmettes
- Vivre sa vie (1962) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
- Those Awful Hats (1909) dir. D. W. Griffith
- The Mended Lute (1909) dir. D. W. Griffith
- The Abyss (1910) dir. Urban Gad
- Stage Struck (1925) dir. Allan Dwan
- The Mysterious X (1914) dir. Benjamin Christensen
- Häxan (1922) dir. Benjamin Christensen
- Ingeborg Holm (1913) dir. Victor Sjöström
- The Phantom Carriage (1921) dir. Victor Sjöström
- Shanghai Express (1932) dir. Josef von Sternberg
- The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) dir. Charles Tait
- The Squaw Man (1914) dir. Oscar Apfel and Cecil B. DeMille
- The Empire Strikes Back (1980) dir. Irvin Kershner
- Falling Leaves (1912) dir. Alice Guy-Blaché
- Suspense (1913) dir. Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber
- The Wind (1928) dir. Victor Sjöström
- Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest (1908) dir. J. Searle Dawley
- The House with Closed Shutters (1910) dir. D. W. Griffith
- Way Down East (1920) dir. D. W. Griffith
- Orphans of the Storm (1921) dir. D. W. Griffith
- The Birth of a Nation (1915) dir. D. W. Griffith
- Rebirth of a Nation (2007) dir. DJ Spooky
- Cabiria (1914) dir. Giovanni Pastrone
- Intolerance (1916) dir. D. W. Griffith
- Souls on the Road (a.k.a. Rojo No Reikan) (1921) dir. Minoru Murata