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An interactive guide to every motion picture film format, soundtrack, 3-D and color process ever invented.

Take a tour of cinema’s technical evolution.

Experience the history of film as a physical medium
from the dawn of cinema to the present.

Designed for Experts, Open to Everyone
Whether you’re a film historian, archivist or curious enthusiast, Film Atlas makes advanced knowledge accessible.
Interactive Exploration at Your Fingertips
Manipulate, zoom and explore high-resolution visuals. History becomes hands-on, offering an immersive experience that goes beyond the traditional textbook.
Discover Connections
Follow the international adoption of movie technologies, compare formats side-by-side and trace the lineage of related inventions.
Comprehensive Knowledge, All in One Place
Access a rich collection of new scholarship and imagery on film innovation spanning decades and continents.

Film Atlas in numbers

123 entries

12 partner institutions

86 experts

Latest essays

This encyclopedic resource continues to expand
with new essays published regularly.

1912–1917
Ferdinand von Madaler / Rotary Photographic Company
Essay by
1967–1967
Colin Low, 1926-2016 / Roman Kroitor, 1926-2012 / Hugh O’Connor / National Film Board of Canada
Essay by
1896–1905
Henry William Short, 1865–1919 / R. W. Paul / The Anglo-French Filoscope Syndicate / British Mutoscope and Biograph Company
Essay by
1930–1938
E. D. Cooper / John Davies / Anthony Bernardi / The British Colour Development Syndicate / Omnicolor Ltd / Spectro Ltd
Essay by
1917–1918
William Van Doren Kelley, 1876-1934 / Prizma, Inc. / Panchromotion, Inc.
Essay by
1906–1917
George Albert Smith, 1864-1959 / Natural Color Kinematograph Company / Colorfilms / Comerio Films / Kinemacolor Company of America / Kinemacolor de France / Raleigh et Robert / Tenkatsu / Urban Motion Picture Industries
Essay by

Curated selections

Guest curators offer their personal highlights
from the hundreds of essays published on the site.

Reimaging Cinema: Immersive filmmaking at Expo 67

World Expositions have offered extraordinary opportunities for innovative film experiments. Expo 67 in Montreal featured over 5,000 films, including numerous multiscreen films. Filmmakers reimagined and expanded cinematic presentation with immersive configurations like Labyrinth and Polar Life, dramatically transforming traditional single-screen, fixed-seating filmgoing. These were in a lineage with earlier unique experiments such as panoramas, widescreen and immersive dome projections, which also aimed to transform the cinematic experience. A group of filmmakers exhibiting at Expo 67 – Roman Kroitor, Graeme Ferguson, Colin Low and others – would go on to develop the enduring, commercially viable IMAX 70mm format in 1970.

  • 1955–1998
    Philippe Jaulmes, 1927-2017 / Les Ateliers du cinéma total / PANRAMA / Association Les Amis du Panrama
    Essay by
  • 1964–Present
    Ub Iwerks, 1901-1971 / Walt Disney Productions
    Essay by
  • 1967–1968
    Nick Chaparos / Ann Chaparos / Chaparos Productions Ltd. / The Institute of Design, University of Waterloo
    Essay by
  • 1967–1967
    Colin Low, 1926-2016 / Roman Kroitor, 1926-2012 / Hugh O’Connor / National Film Board of Canada
    Essay by
  • 1970–Present
    Graeme Ferguson, 1929-2021 / Robert Kerr / Roman Kroitor, 1926-2012 / William C. Shaw / Multiscreen Corporation / Imax Systems Corporation / IMAX Corporation
    Essay by

The Colour Fantastic

The 10th Eye International Conference in May 2025 revisits the theme of colour in film, thirty years after the seminal Amsterdam workshop Disorderly Order: Colours in Silent Film. That gathering inspired the 2015 conference The Colour Fantastic: Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema, a milestone in Eye’s long-standing engagement with colour. This year, we explore the global dimensions of film colour – its aesthetics, technologies, and archival legacies– foregrounding voices and geographies that have long been underrepresented. Under the title The Colour Fantastic Revisited: Across Global Histories, Theories, Aesthetics, and Archives, the programme highlights how archives and broader cultural factors shape the ways we understand and preserve colour in film.

In line with one of the field’s most ambitious mapping efforts, the Film Atlas project, we reflect on how global contexts inform both research and practice. The following essays offer a preview of the themes at the heart of this year’s conference.

Curated by Giovanna Fossati
  • 1895–Present
    Essay by
  • 1898–1955
    Auguste Lapierre (1848–1960) / Ignaz & Adolf Bing (1863–1933) / Johann Falk (1895–1934) / Ernst Plank (1866–1934) / Hans & Fritz Schaller / Georges Carette (1886–1917)
    Essay by
  • 1933–1942
    Sadatomo Tachibana, 1902-1971
    Essay by
  • 1962–1980s
    Chinese Research Institute for Film Science and Technology / Mosfilm / Lenfilm / Leningrad State Optical Institute / Shanghai Film Technology Plant / Shanghai Film Machinery Plant / Beijing Film Laboratory / Baoding Film Stock Plant
    Essay by
  • 1966–2012
    Baoding Film Stock Plant / Shantou Gongyuan Photographic Chemical Plant / Tianjin Photosensitive Film Plant / Shanghai Photosensitive Film Plant / Wuxi Film Stock Plant / Liaoyuan Film Stock Plant
    Essay by
  • 1978–1993
    Bernard Happé / Wang Peifang / Technicolor Ltd. / Beijing Film Laboratory / Beijing Film & Video Laboratory
    Essay by
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Our funders

Film Atlas is a collaboration between the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and the George Eastman Museum, with generous funding provided by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation, the George Eastman Museum Publishing Trust Endowment, and FIAF (Eileen Bowser Memorial Fund).