1894 in film

Events

• January 7 – W.K. Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.
• January 7 – Thomas Edison films his assistant, Fred Ott sneezing with the Kinetoscope at the "Black Maria."
• February 13 – Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector.
• April 14 – The first commercial presentation of the Kinetoscope took place in the Holland Brothers' Kinetoscope Parlor at 1155 Broadway, New York City.
• Thomas Edison experiments with synchronizing audio with film; the Kinetophone is invented which loosely synchronizes a Kinetoscope image with a cylinder phonograph.
• Kinetoscope viewing parlors begin to open in major cities. Each parlor contains several machines.

Films released

• Fred Ott's Sneeze (Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze)
• Fred Ott Holding a Bird

Births

• January 3 – Zazu Pitts, actress
• September 15 – Jean Renoir, director
• October 7 – Del Lord, pioneer Hollywood director (d. 1970)
• October 20 – Olive Thomas, actress (d. 1920)