MoMA Presents: Lumière, Le Cinéma!

Witness the birth of cinema with Thierry Frémaux’s Lumière, Le Cinéma! (2025), about the pioneering achievements of the French entrepreneurs Auguste and Louis Lumière in the late 19th century. Journey back to the 1890s, when the Lumière Company, with their astonishing new invention, the cinematograph, made it possible for audiences to voyage around the world in moving pictures for the first time. Featuring gorgeous new restorations of more than 100 comedies, dramas, and travelogues—some famous, some forgotten, and some never before seen—and set to an evocative score of period music by Gabriel Fauré, this wondrous documentary enables contemporary viewers to imagine an entirely new language of storytelling unfolding film by glorious film. Lumière, Le Cinéma! has been conceived and narrated by Thierry Frémaux, the director of the Cannes Film Festival, the Institut Lumière, and the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France, the birthplace of these remarkable brothers.

Organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film, MoMA, with Olivia Priedite, Film Program Coordinator, Department of Film, MoMA.

Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.

Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Agnes Gund through The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), and The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.