Film industry

The film industry or motion picture industry includes all the work that goes into making movies. This includes making the films, showing them, and all the people who help create them, like writers, directors, and actors. It also covers places where movies are made, festivals where they are shown, and how they get to viewers.

Even though making movies can be very expensive, new technology has made it easier for people to create films without big companies.

The film industry is very big and important around the world. Hollywood is the oldest and biggest film industry for money made from ticket sales. Meanwhile, the cinema of India makes the most number of feature films and has the most people buying tickets.

Modern film industry

The worldwide theatrical market had a box office of US$42.2 billion in 2019. The top three continents/regions by box-office gross were Indo-Pacific with US$17.8 billion, the U.S. and Canada with US$11.4 billion, and Europe, the Middle East and North Africa with US$10.3 billion. As of 2019, the largest markets by box office were, in decreasing order, the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, and India. As of 2019, the countries with the largest number of film productions were India, and the United States. In Europe, significant centres of movie production are France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

China

Main article: Cinema of China

The cinema of China is one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan. Cinema was introduced in China in 1896 and the first Chinese film, Dingjun Mountain, was made in 1905, with the film industry being centered on Shanghai in the first decades. China is the home of one of the largest film studios in the world, the Hengdian World Studios, and in 2010 it had the third largest film industry by number of feature films produced annually.

In 2012 the country became the second-largest market in the world by box office receipts. China has also become a major hub of business for Hollywood studios.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 China overtook North America as world's biggest box office, being the first country to achieve this status. China retained this status in 2021. However, in 2022, North America once again overtook China as the global box office's biggest market.

United States

Main article: Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, often generally referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. The United States cinema (Hollywood) is one of the oldest film industry in the world and also the largest film industry in terms of revenue. Hollywood is the primary nexus of the U.S. film industry with established film study facilities such as the American Film Institute, LA Film School, and NYFA being established in the area. However, four of the six major film studios are owned by East Coast companies. The major film studios of Hollywood including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Century Studios, and Paramount Pictures are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world, including movies such as The Sound of Music (1965), Star Wars (1977), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009).

American film studios today collectively generate several hundred films every year, making the United States the most prolific producers of films in the world. Most shooting now takes place in California, New York, Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina. New Mexico, especially in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas, had been an increasingly popular state for filming; the television show Breaking Bad was set there, and movies such as No Country for Old Men and Rust were shot there.

On 27 October 1911, Nestor Film Company established Hollywood's first permanent film studio. The California weather allowed for year-round filming. In 1912, Universal Studios was formed, merging Nestor and several other motion picture companies, including Independent Moving Pictures (IMP).

India

Main article: Cinema of India

Further information: Hindi cinema, Telugu cinema, Tamil cinema, Malayalam cinema, and Kannada cinema

India is the largest producer of films in the world and the second-oldest film industry in the world. The country is home to some of the most important cities in the global film industry: Mumbai (previously Bombay), Hyderabad and Chennai (Madras). Indian film industry is multi-lingual and the largest in the world in terms of ticket sales. The industry is viewed mainly by a vast film-going Indian public. Indian film industry is also the dominant source of films and entertainment in its neighboring countries of South Asia. The three largest film industries in India are Hindi cinema, Telugu cinema and Tamil cinema.

Besides the mainstream commercial movies, India also offers a different approach to cinema: the parallel cinema. The parallel cinema movement originated in West Bengal around the 1950s. It later gained prominence in other film industries in India. Parallel cinema is a blanket term designated to a certain type of films that stray away from the conventions of popular mainstream cinema.

Indian films have garnered popularity not only in the domestic market but also in the international markets. In India, they have over 400 production houses with 32 corporate houses; also supporting the livelihood of more than 6 million people.

The other largest film industries are Malayalam cinema, Kannada cinema, Bengali cinema (cinema of West Bengal) and Marathi cinema, primarily located in Kochi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Mumbai, respectively.

By 1986, India's annual film output had increased from 741 films produced annually to 833 films, making India the world's largest film producer. As of 2014, Bollywood represents 45% of Indian net box office revenue, while Tamil and Telugu cinemas together represent 36%, and the rest of the regional film industries constitute 21% of Indian cinema.

Russian Federation

Main article: Cinema of Russia

The cinema of Russia refers to the film industry in Russia, engaged in producing motion pictures in the Russian language. It began in the Russian Empire, widely developed in the Soviet Union, and the years following its dissolution. The Russian film industry would remain internationally recognized. In the 21st century, Russian cinema has become known internationally with films such as Hardcore Henry (2015), Leviathan (2014), Night Watch (2004) and Brother (1997). The Moscow International Film Festival began in Moscow during 1935. The Nika Award is the main annual national film award in Russia.

The first films seen in the Russian Empire were brought in by the Lumière brothers, who exhibited films in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 1896. That same month, Lumière cameraman Camille Cerf made the first film in Russia, recording the coronation of Nicholas II at the Kremlin. Aleksandr Drankov produced the first Russian narrative film Stenka Razin (1908), based on events told in a folk song and directed by Vladimir Romashkov.

Animation pioneer Ladislas Starevich made the first Russian animated film (and the first stop motion puppet film with a story) in 1910 – Lucanus Cervus.

United Kingdom

Main article: Cinema of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has had a significant film industry for over a century. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors David Lean, Michael Powell, (with Emeric Pressburger) and Carol Reed produced their most highly acclaimed work. Many British actors have achieved worldwide fame and critical success, such as Maggie Smith, Roger Moore, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, and Kate Winslet. Some of the films with the largest-ever box-office returns have been made in the United Kingdom, including the third- and fourth-highest-grossing film series (Harry Potter and James Bond).

The first moving picture was shot in Leeds by Louis Le Prince in 1888, and the first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London, in 1889 by British inventor William Friese Greene, who patented the process in 1890.

Two of the top eight-highest-grossing films worldwide of all time have some British historical, cultural or creative dimensions: Titanic (1997), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006).

British influence can also be seen with the 'English Cycle' of Disney animated films, which include Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), and The Jungle Book (1967).

In the 1970s and 1980s, British studios established a reputation for great special effects in films such as Superman (1978), Alien (1979), and Batman (1989).

The London-based visual effects company Framestore, with Tim Webber the visual effects supervisor, have worked on the films The Dark Knight (2008) and Gravity (2013).

France

Main article: Cinema of France

France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its significant contributions to the art form and the film-making process itself. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle Vague, began in the country. It is noted for having a particularly strong film industry, due in part to protections afforded by the French government.

French cinema is sometimes intertwined with the cinema of foreign nations. Directors from nations such as Poland (Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Andrzej Żuławski), Argentina (Gaspar Noé and Edgardo Cozarinsky), Russia (Alexandre Alexeieff, Anatole Litvak), Austria (Michael Haneke), and Georgia (Géla Babluani, Otar Iosseliani) are prominent in the ranks of French cinema. Conversely, some French directors have had careers in other countries, such as Luc Besson, Jacques Tourneur, or Francis Veber in the United States.

Another element supporting this fact is that Paris has the highest density of cinemas in the world, measured by the number of movie theaters per inhabitant, and that in most "downtown Paris" movie theaters, foreign movies which would be secluded to "art houses" cinemas in other places are shown alongside "mainstream" works.

In 2015, France saw a record-breaking 300 feature-length films produced.

Japan

Main article: Cinema of Japan

Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2010, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived.

In a Sight & Sound list of the best films produced in Asia, Japanese works made up eight of the top 12, with Tokyo Story (1953) ranked number one.

Japan has won the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film four times (Rashomon, Gate of Hell, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, and Departures), more than any other Asian country.

Iran

Main article: Cinema of Iran

The cinema of Iran (Persian: سینمای ایران) or cinema of Persia refers to the cinema and film industries in Iran which produce a variety of commercial films annually. Iranian art films have garnered international fame and now enjoy a global following.

Along with China, Iran has been lauded as one of the best exporters of cinema in the 1990s. Some critics now rank Iran as the world's most important national cinema, artistically.

Turkey

Main article: Cinema of Turkey

The Turkish film market stands out in the pan-European landscape as the only market where national films regularly outperform US films. In 2013, it had 1.2 million number of admissions and 87 feature films were released. Between 2004 and 2014, the estimated 12.9 million admissions generated on non-national European markets only accounted for 7% of total admissions to Turkish films in Europe (including Turkey).

In 2014, Kış Uykusu (Winter's Sleep) won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Film.

Cinema going is comparatively cheap in Turkey. In 2013 a cinema ticket cost an average of EUR 4.0 in Turkey, and this was estimated to be the lowest average ticket price – measured in Euro – in Europe.

Egypt

Main article: Cinema of Egypt

Karim Abdel Aziz

Ahmed Ezz

Mona Zaki

Menna Shalabi

A limited number of silent films were made in Egypt beginning in 1896; 1927's Laila was notable as the first full-length feature. Cairo's film industry became a regional force with the coming of sound. Between 1930 and 1936, various small studios produced at least 44 feature films. In 1936, Studio Misr, financed by industrialist Talaat Harb, emerged as the leading Egyptian equivalent to Hollywood's major studios, a role the company retained for three decades. Of the more than 4,000 short and feature-length films made in MENA region since 1908, more than three-quarters were Egyptian films. Egyptian films are typically spoken in the Egyptian Arabic dialect.

Since 1976, Cairo has held the annual Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which is accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Association.

The 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s are generally considered the golden age of Egyptian cinema.

Since the 1990s, Egypt's cinema has gone in separate directions. Smaller art films attract some international attention but sparse attendance at home. Popular films, often broad comedies battle to hold audiences.

Korean Peninsula

Main article: Cinema of Korea

Further information: Cinema of South Korea and Cinema of North Korea

The term cinema of Korea (or Korean cinema) encompasses the motion picture industries of North and South Korea. As with all aspects of Korean life during the past century, the film industry has often been at the mercy of political events. While both countries have relatively robust film industries today, only South Korean films have achieved wide international acclaim. North Korean films tend to portray their communist or revolutionary themes.

South Korean films enjoyed a "Golden age" during the late 1950s and 1960s. By 2005 South Korea had become one of few nations to watch more domestic than imported films in theaters due largely to laws placing limits on the number of foreign films able to be shown per theater per year.

The cinema of South Korea had a total box office gross in the country in 2015 of ₩884 billion and had 113,000,000 admissions, 52% of the total admissions.

Poland

Main article: Cinema of Poland

Further information: Polish Film School and HollyŁódź

The history of Cinema of Poland is almost as long as the history of cinematography, and it has universally recognized achievements, even though Polish films tend to be less commercially available than films from several other European nations.

After World War II, the communist government built an auteur-based national cinema, trained hundreds of new directors, and empowered them to make films. Filmmakers like Roman Polański, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland, Andrzej Wajda, Andrzej Żuławski, Andrzej Munk, and Jerzy Skolimowski impacted the development of Polish film-making.

The Polish Film School was under the heavy influence of Italian neorealists. It took advantage of the liberal changes in Poland after 1956 Polish October to portray the complexity of Polish history during World War II and German occupation.

The Polish Film School was the first to underline the national character of Poles and one of the first artistic movements in Central Europe to openly oppose the official guidelines of Socialist realism.

Indonesia

Main article: Cinema of Indonesia

The biggest film studio in Southeast Asia was soft opened on 5 November 2011 on 10 hectares of land in Nongsa, Batam Island, Indonesia. Infinite Frameworks (IFW) is a Singapore-based company (close to Batam Island) which is owned by a consortium, 90 percent of which is held by Indonesian businessman and film producer Mike Wiluan.

Pakistan

Main article: Cinema of Pakistan

Further information: Lollywood

The cinema of Pakistan, or simply Pakistani cinema (Urdu: پاکستانی سنیما), refers to Pakistan's film industry. Most of the feature films shot in Pakistan are in Urdu, the national language, but may also include films in English, the official language, and regional languages such as Punjabi, Pashto, Balochi, and Sindhi. Lahore has been described as the epicenter of Pakistani cinema, giving rise to the term "Lollywood" as a portmanteau of Lahore and Hollywood.

Before the separation of Bangladesh, Pakistan had three main film production centers: Lahore, Karachi and Dhaka.

However, the boom in the Television Industry in Karachi which gave rise to bigger privately owned media houses led to a revival of the Pakistan Film Industry in the early 2010s. Karachi, now the biggest production center of the Film Industry in Pakistan produces Urdu, English, and Sindhi language Pakistani movies. Lahore is the second big film producer now (mostly Punjabi movies) followed by Peshawar where mostly Pashto films are produced. Films are also being produced on a very small scale from Islamabad (Urdu and English movies) and Quetta (Balochi movies).

Pakistani films are gaining market in the local circuit and international markets like Gulf countries, UK-Europe, US-North America, and Far-East.

Philippines

Cinema of the Philippines began with the introduction of the first moving pictures to the country on August 31, 1897, at the Salón de Pertierra in Manila. The following year, local scenes were shot on film for the first time by a Spaniard, Antonio Ramos, using the Lumiere Cinematograph. While most early filmmakers and producers in the country were mostly wealthy enterprising foreigners and expatriates, on September 12, 1919, Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden), a movie based on a popular musical play, was the first movie made and shown by Filipino filmmaker José Nepomuceno.

Israel

Main article: Cinema of Israel

Films have been made in Israel since before independence in 1948. The industry is relatively small economically but Israeli films have been nominated for more Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film than any other country in the Middle East.

Hong Kong

Main article: Cinema of Hong Kong

Further information: Cinema of China and East Asian cinema

Hong Kong is a filmmaking hub for the Chinese-speaking world (including the worldwide diaspora) and East Asia in general. For decades it was the third-largest motion picture industry in the world (after India and the US) and the second-largest exporter of films. Despite an industry crisis starting in the mid-1990s and Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997 Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity and continues to play a prominent part on the world cinema stage.

It has always been a thoroughly commercial cinema, concentrating on crowd-pleasing genres, like comedy and action, and heavily reliant on formulas, sequels, and remakes. Typically of commercial cinemas, its heart is a highly developed star system, which in this case also features substantial overlap with the pop music industry

Trinidad and Tobago

Further information: List of Trinidad and Tobago films

The Trinidad and Tobago Film Company is the national agency that was established in 2006 to further the development of the film industry. Trinidad and Tobago puts on several film festivals which are organized by different committees and organizations. These include the Secondary Schools Short Film Festival and Smartphone Film Festival organized by Trinidad and Tobago Film Company. There is also an annual Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival which runs for two weeks in the latter half of September.

Trinidad and Tobago's film sector began emerging in the late 1950s to early 1960s and by the late 1970s, there were a handful of local productions, both feature film and television. The first full-length feature film to be produced in Trinidad and Tobago was The Right and the Wrong (1970) by Indian director/writer/producer, Harbance Kumar.

Rim Bim (1974), being singled out by Bruce Paddington as "one of the most important films to be produced in Trinidad and Tobago ...  and one of the classics of Caribbean cinema."

There was a rise in Trinidadian film production in the 2000s. Films such as Ivan the Terrible (2004), SistaGod (2006), I'm Santana: The Movie (2012), and God Loves the Fighter (2013) were released both locally and internationally.

Nepal

Main article: Cinema of Nepal

Nepali film does not have a very long film history, but the industry has its place in the cultural heritage of the country. It is often referred to as 'Nepali Chalchitra' (which translates to "Nepali films" in English). The terms Kollywood and Kallywood are also used, as a portmanteau of "Kathmandu" and "Hollywood"; "Kollywood" however is more frequently used to refer to Tamil cinema.^{[citation needed]} Chhakka Panja has been considered the highest-grossing film of all time in Nepali film industry and Kohinoor the second highest.

The Nepali feature film White Sun (Seto Surya) received the Best Film award at the 27th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) in 2016.

Sri Lanka

Main article: Cinema of Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan film industry is a relatively young industry that began in 1947 with the film Kadawunu Poronduwa and has seen growth and development, particularly with the establishment of the State Film Corporation in 1971.

Sri Lankan films are usually made in Sinhala and Tamil, the dominant languages of the country.

Lester James Peries, often considered the "father" of Sri Lankan cinema, directed influential films like Rekava (1956) and The God King (1974).

Vimukthi Jayasundara's Sulanga Enu Pinisa won the Camera d'Or for best first film at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

In recent years, high-budget films like Aloko Udapadi, Aba and Maharaja Gemunu based on Sinhalese epic historical stories have gained huge success. Furthermore, following the drastic impact on the film industry by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Adaraneeya Prarthana has emerged as one of the highest-grossing films of 2022, and Gajaman is the highest-grossing Sri Lankan film of 2023.

Chanaka Perera's film Gajaman is the first three-dimensional (3D) animation movie in Sri Lanka using motion capture technology.

Sri Lankan director Ilango Ram's film Tentigo is the first Sri Lankan film to be remade into other languages including Spanish, Italian, English, Hindi, Telugu, and Malayalam, and France and Belgium in the future.

History

Main article: History of film

Les frères Lumière released the first film showing in Paris on 28 December 1895. The French film industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s was the most important in the world. Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinématographe and their film L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat in Paris in 1895 is seen as the start of filmmaking. The first feature film was the 1906 Australian silent The Story of the Kelly Gang, about the famous gang led by Ned Kelly. It was directed and made by the Melburnians Dan Barry and Charles Tait. It played for eighty minutes.

In the early 1910s, the film industry grew with D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation. Around this time, film companies from New York and New Jersey moved to California because of the good weather and longer days. Even though electric lights existed, they were not bright enough to film with; natural sunlight was the best light for making movies. Besides the nice, dry weather, they also liked California because of its open spaces and many different landscapes.

Introduction of film industry

In 1900, Charles Pathé began making films under the Pathé-Frères brand, with Ferdinand Zecca making the films. By 1905, Pathé was the biggest film company in the world, a position it kept until World War I. Léon Gaumont started making films in 1896, supervised by Alice Guy.

From 1904 until the First World War, the Pathé group led the world in films, well ahead of American companies. At its peak, Charles Pathé's company had almost 50% of the world film market, including the United States.

Besides American Mutoscope, there were also many smaller film makers in the United States, and some of them became important in the new century. American Vitagraph, one of these smaller companies, built studios in Brooklyn and grew in 1905.

The first successful movie theater showing only films was "The Nickelodeon", opening in Pittsburgh in 1905. By then, there were enough short films to fill a program for at least half an hour, and it could be changed weekly when people got bored with it. Other movie theaters in the United States followed, and within two years, there were 8,000 of these nickelodeons across the United States. The American growth led to a worldwide increase in making and showing films from 1906 onwards.

Movie theaters became popular places for fun and social meetings in the early 1900s, like cabarets and other theaters.

By 1907, purpose-built movie theaters for films were opening across the United States, Britain, and France. The films were often shown with music played by a pianist, though there could be more musicians. There were also only a few larger theaters in some big cities. At first, most films shown were Pathé films, but this changed quickly as American companies made more films. The program had just a few films, and the show lasted around 30 minutes. The film reel, of maximum length 1,000 feet (300 m), which usually had one film, became the standard for making and showing films at this time. The program was changed two or more times a week but went up to five changes a week after a couple of years. In general, theaters were set up in the main entertainment areas of cities. In 1907, Pathé began renting their films to theaters instead of selling the films.

The lawsuits over patents between all the big American film companies continued, and at the end of 1908, they decided to combine their patents and form a group to control the American film business. The companies were Pathé, Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Lubin, Selig, Essanay, Kalem, and the Kleine Optical Company, a big importer of European films. The George Eastman company, the only maker of film in the United States, was also part of the group, called the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), and Eastman Kodak agreed to only sell film to the members. Fees were charged to all film distributors and theaters. The companies in the group were given limits on how many films they could make (two films a week for the biggest ones, one film a week for the smaller ones), which were supposed to be enough to fill the programs of the theaters with permits. But the market was bigger than that, for although 6,000 theaters signed with the MPPC, about 2,000 others did not. A small number of the film sellers (distributors) stayed outside the MPPC, and in 1909 these independent sellers immediately began to support new film companies. By 1911 there were enough independent and foreign films to fill all the shows of the independent theaters, and in 1912 the independent theaters had almost half of the market. The MPPC had effectively been beaten in its plan to control the whole United States market, and the government antitrust action, which only now started against the MPPC, was not needed to beat it.

In the early 1900s, before Hollywood, the United States film industry was mainly based in Fort Lee, New Jersey across the Hudson River from New York City. Needing a winter home, filmmakers were drawn to Jacksonville, Florida because of its warm weather, interesting places, good train access, and cheaper workers, earning the city the name of "The Winter Film Capital of the World". New York-based Kalem Studios was the first to open a permanent studio in Jacksonville in 1908. Over the next decade, more than 30 silent film companies opened studios in town, including Metro Pictures (later MGM), Edison Studios, Majestic Films, King-Bee Film Company, Vim Comedy Company, Norman Studios, Gaumont Studios and the Lubin Manufacturing Company. The first movie made in Technicolor and the first long color movie made in the United States, The Gulf Between, was also filmed in Jacksonville in 1917.

Jacksonville was especially important to the African American film industry. One notable person in this area is the European American producer Richard Norman, who made a series of films starring black actors in the style of Oscar Micheaux and the Lincoln Motion Picture Company. Unlike the bad roles offered in some white films such as The Birth of a Nation, Norman and his colleagues tried to make positive stories featuring African Americans in many different roles.

Jacksonville's mostly conservative residents, however, did not like the signs of the early movie industry, such as car chases in the streets, fake bank robberies and fire alarms in public places, and even the occasional riot. In 1917, conservative Democrat John W. Martin was elected mayor on a promise to control the city's movie industry. By that time, southern California was becoming the main movie making place, partly because of the move of film pioneers like William Selig and D.W. Griffith to the area. These factors quickly ended Jacksonville as a major film spot.

Another reason for the industry's move west was that until 1913, most American film making was still done around New York, but because of the monopoly of Thomas A. Edison, Inc.'s film patents and its legal efforts to keep it, many filmmakers moved to Southern California, starting with Selig in 1909. The sunshine and scenery was important for making Westerns, which became a major American film type with the first cowboy stars, G.M. Anderson ("Broncho Billy") and Tom Mix. Selig was the first to use (fairly) wild animals from a zoo for a series of adventure films, with the actors being threatened or saved by the animals. Kalem Company sent film crews to places in America and abroad to film stories in the actual places they were supposed to have happened. Kalem also started the female action hero in 1912, with Ruth Roland playing leading roles in their Westerns.

In France, Pathé kept its leading position, followed by Gaumont, and then other new companies that appeared to meet the film boom. A film company with a different approach was Film d'Art. Film d'Art was started at the beginning of 1908 to make films of a serious artistic nature. Their plan was to make films using only the best playwrights, artists, and actors. The first of these was L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise (The Assassination of the Duc de Guise), a historical story set in the court of Henri III. This film used leading actors from the Comédie-Française and had a special music score written by Camille Saint-Saëns. The other French companies followed this, and this wave led to the English-language description of films with artistic aims for a clever audience as "art films". By 1910, the French film companies were starting to make films as long as two, or even three reels, though most were still one reel long. This trend was followed in Italy, Denmark, and Sweden.

In Britain, the Cinematograph Act 1909 was the first primary legislation to specifically control the film industry. Film showings often happened in temporary places and the use of very flammable cellulose nitrate for film, combined with limelight lighting, created a big fire danger. The Act set a strict building code which required, among other things, that the film projector be inside a fireproof case.

The Babelsberg Studio near Berlin in Germany was the first large film studio in the world, founded in 1912, and the forerunner to Hollywood with its several big studios in the early 1900s.

Hollywood

Further information: Cinema of the United States

The first movie studio in the Hollywood area, Nestor Studios, was founded in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley. Other East Coast studios had already moved production to Los Angeles. Over time, Hollywood became so closely linked with the film industry that the word "Hollywood" is now used to mean the whole American film industry.

In 1913 Cecil B. DeMille, together with Jesse Lasky, rented a barn with studio rooms in Hollywood where The Squaw Man (1914) was made. It is now the site of the Hollywood Heritage Museum.

The Charlie Chaplin Studios were built in 1917. The site was also used by Kling Studios, for the Superman TV series; Red Skelton, who used the sound stages for his CBS TV variety show; and CBS, which made the TV series Perry Mason there. From 1967 to 1999 it was the home of Herb Alpert's A&M Records and Tijuana Brass Enterprises. In 1969 The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board named it a historic cultural monument. In 2000 it became the home of the Jim Henson Company, home of the Muppets.

The famous Hollywood Sign originally said "Hollywoodland". It was put up in 1923 to advertise a new housing development in the hills above Hollywood. In 1949 the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in and removed the last four letters and fixed the others. It is a registered trademark and cannot be used without the permission of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on 16 May 1929.

The years from 1927 (the end of the silent era) to 1948 is known as the age of the "Hollywood studio system", or the Golden Age of Hollywood. In a landmark 1948 court decision, the Supreme Court ruled that movie studios could not own theaters and only show the movies from their studio and movie stars; thus an era of Hollywood history ended.

Hindi cinema

Main article: Hindi cinema

Bollywood is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), Maharashtra, India. The term is often wrongly used to mean all of Indian cinema; however, it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other places making films in many languages. Bollywood is the biggest film maker in India and one of the biggest centers of film making in the world.

Bollywood is formally called Hindi cinema. Bollywood films usually use everyday Hindustani, which people who speak Hindi or Urdu can understand, and modern Bollywood films also often add parts of Hinglish.

The Wrestlers (1899) and The Man and His Monkeys (1899), made and directed by Harischandra Sakharam Bhatawdekar (H. S. Bhatavdekar), were the first two films by Indian filmmakers, and both were short films. He was also the first Indian filmmaker to make and direct the first news-related documentary The Landing of Sir M.M. Bhownuggree.

The 1930s and 1940s were hard times: India faced the Great Depression, World War II, the Indian independence movement, and the violence of the Partition. Most Bollywood films were clearly for fun, but some filmmakers dealt with tough social issues or used the fight for Indian independence as a story background.

In 1937 Ardeshir Irani, known for Alam Ara, made the first color film in Hindi, Kisan Kanya. The next year, he made another color film, a version of Mother India.

After India's independence, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s is known by film historians as the "Golden Age" of Hindi cinema. Key figures at this time included Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Mehboob Khan, and Dilip Kumar.

The 1970s was when the name "Bollywood" was created, and when the main ideas of commercial Bollywood films were set. Important to this was the creation of the masala film type, which mixes many kinds of stories (action, comedy, romance, drama, melodrama, musical). The masala film was started in the early 1970s by filmmaker Nasir Hussain, with writers Salim–Javed, creating the Bollywood blockbuster style.

Tollywood is the Bengali language Film Industry of India. It began with Royal Bioscope Company in 1898 by Hiralal Sen, with Matilal Sen, Deboki Lal Sen, and Bholanath Gupta. Combining live theater acting, the Bengali industry was known for using sound as an important part of the drama in its Bioscope style, which was very different from Western silent films. This was followed by Jamshedji Framji Madan of the Elphinstone Bioscope Company who also controlled Madan Theatre Company. J J Madan became managing director of Madan Theatres after his father's death in 1923 and Madan Theatres grew to own 127 theaters and control half of the country's box office in the late 1920s. Madan Theatres made several popular and important films until 1937, along with works by '20s Bengali stars like Dhirendra Nath Ganguly who started the Indo-British Film Co. – the first Bengali-owned film company in 1918. The growth of the industry continued in the 1930s to 1940s when many different kinds of films were made. Many films from 1937 to 1947 were destroyed in fires, but this time in Bengal was very important for political films in India which greatly helped the fight for Indian Independence. After 1947, The industry saw a new time of creative studio-system workers who made films under the name of Agradoot. This brought a new time of popular films and musicals where stars like Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen amazed the audience with their screen presence and quiet acting. Ritwick Ghatak, Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha, Mrinal Sen, and Rituparno Ghosh were other famous directors whose work influenced world cinema greatly. The name of the industry came from Tollygunge, and it also paid a fun nod to Hollywood.

Cairo

Main article: Cinema of Egypt

The cinema of Egypt is the busy film industry based in Cairo, known as the Hollywood of the MENA area. In 1896, a small number of silent films were made in Egypt; 1927's Laila was important as the first full-length feature. Cairo's film industry grew into a regional leader with the arrival of sound. Between 1930 and 1936, many small studios made at least 44 feature films. In 1936, Studio Misr, supported by industrialist Talaat Harb, became the main Egyptian studio, a role it kept for three decades.

Historians differ on when cinema began in Egypt. Some say 1896 when the first film was seen in Egypt, while others say 20 June 1907 with a short film about the visit of Khedive Abbas Hilmi II to the Institute of Mursi Abul-Abbas in Alexandria. In 1917, director Mohammed Karim started a film company in Alexandria. The company made two films: Dead Flowers and Honor the Bedouin, which were shown in the city of Alexandria in early 1918.

Since 1976, the capital has held the yearly Cairo International Film Festival, which has been approved by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations. There are also 12 other festivals. Of the more than 4,000 short and full-length films made in the MENA region since 1908, more than three-quarters were Egyptian films.

Egyptian films are usually spoken in the Egyptian Arabic language. Since then, more than 4,000 films have been made in Egypt, three-quarters of all Arab films. Historian Samir Kassir says (2004) that Misr Studios in particular, "despite their good and bad times, made Cairo the third film capital of the world, after Hollywood and Bombay but ahead of Italy's Cinecittà." Egypt is the most productive country in the Middle East for film making, and the one with the most developed media system.

Nollywood

Main article: Nollywood

Nollywood is a nickname for the Nigerian film industry. The name started in the early 2000s, from an article in The New York Times. Because the meaning and use of the word has changed over time, there is no clear or agreed-upon meaning, and it has caused many debates. The start of the word "Nollywood" is unclear; Jonathan Haynes said the earliest use was in a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema. Charles Igwe said that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The name is still used in the media to mean the Nigerian film industry, and it was later taken to mean a portmanteau of "Nigeria" and "Hollywood", the main American film center.

The question of which films are part of Nollywood has always been debated. Alex Eyengho said Nollywood means "all the activities in the Nigerian film industry, whether in English, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Itsekiri, Edo, Efik, Ijaw, Urhobo or any of the over 300 Nigerian languages". He also said that "the history of Nollywood goes back to before and after independence Nigeria, with the theatrical (stage) and cinematic (celluloid) work of people like Chief Hubert Ogunde, Chief Amata, Baba Sala, Ade Love, Eddie Ugbomah and a few others". The Nigerian movie industry, called Nollywood, has affected all African countries.

By the end of 2013, the film industry reported a record revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$4.1 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion), making it the third most valuable film industry in the world after the United States and India. It made up about 1.4% of Nigeria's GDP; this was because of more quality films and better ways to sell them.

Economics

Main article: Economics of the arts and literature

Making a successful movie depends on many things, like picking a good story, actors, and team members. It also needs good marketing and careful money management. Big movie franchises can earn a lot from many places, not just from the films themselves.

The movie business is very competitive, and only a few films earn most of the money. It’s hard to guess which movies will be big hits, and the top movies can change fast.

Statistics

Countries with largest number of film productions

Here is a list of the top countries by the number of movies made.

Largest markets by box office revenue

These countries are the biggest markets for movie ticket sales. They made the most money from tickets in 2022. This information comes from the THEME Report by the MPA.

Largest markets by box office admissions

These countries sold the most movie tickets in 2022.

Criticism

Economic censorship happens when companies or countries change their stories to earn more money. They might avoid topics that could upset important groups. For example, for many years, Hollywood did not show negative things about certain groups to keep lots of viewers.

Another problem is hidden advertising. Shows or movies might include products or ideas in a way that feels natural but is really meant to persuade viewers. Sometimes, this means showing things in a very good light to help someone's image. There have been worries about product placement, like showing smoking in movies, which might influence young people.