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Magic
see all genres ›Fantastical images and stunts invested some of the earliest cinema with its “magic.” The arrival of the movies was bad news for professional magicians, overall because the medium could make a fair maiden disappear or hover in the air with a mere edit. As a result, cinema's earliest days were full of fascinating parlor tricks.
Discover Magic Films
Genres / Fantasy / Magic
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Black Racklin has everything one could dream of in life (success, respect, money) but he's dead emotionally. He has a recurring dream of a train passing by with a passenger beckoning him to "hop on." But Black hesitates and the train moves on. Consumed with the pressures of his profession as a movie producer in Hollywood,...Start your free trial to watch
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Cinderella
French film pioneer Georges Méliès found the tale of Cinderella irresistible, producing a five-minute, full-color version in 1899 and this twenty four-minute version in 1912. Abandoning his earlier approach of hand-tinting each figure in favor of full-frame color tinting, he lavishes his attention on elaborate invention,...Start your free trial to watch
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Death Trance
Grave steals a mysterious coffin from a holy temple, a coffin said to contain a great and dangerous power. Imprisoned inside the coffin is the Goddess of Destruction, confined and held at bay from laying destruction to this world! Grave fearlessly travels the haunted forests dragging the coffin behind him, unaware of what...Start your free trial to watch
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Devil Doll
Grab a good seat and don't look away from the stage, for the Great Vorelli (Bryant Haliday) is about to dazzle London with his eerie mixture of hypnotism and ventriloquism. However, there may be something a little too lifelike about his dummy, Hugo, who has the ability to walk across the stage all by himself. Now Vorelli has...Start your free trial to watch
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Disappearing Act
DISAPPEARING ACT represents, as you might suspect, a magic act. Not any ordinary act, however. More of a "metamorphosis" in the hands of director Alice Guy. In the parlance of the era, the short is an example of a "trick" film (in that the magic performance is a result of camera trickery and not by any...Start your free trial to watch
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Excelsior! Prince of Magicians
French stage magician and illusionist Georges Méliès began filmmaking in 1896. He worked in many genres but is especially remembered for short trick films such as this one from 1901, EXCELSIOR! PRINCE OF MAGICIANS. Melies wrote, designed and directed his films and often (as here) performed the principal...Start your free trial to watch
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The Fairy
Dom works as a night clerk at a small hotel in the industrial port city of Le Havre. One night, a strangely dressed woman named Fiona arrives and claims she is a fairy. She grants Dom three wishes, and makes his first two wishes come true before mysteriously vanishing. By now, Dom has fallen in love with Fiona, and he...Start your free trial to watch
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The Genii of Fire
A royal couple, heedless of the warnings of a holy man, enters the temple of the "Genii of Fire" where they are captured and blinded by the awesomeness of Georges Méliès' pyrotechnics and special effects. A showcase for the wonders of the moving image, this film features dazzling costumes and sets that...Start your free trial to watch
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Kabala
Magic spells lend a helping hand in this debut feature about a young man's troubled relationship with his native village in Mali. Because of ancient prejudices, Hamalla was banished. He returns four years later versed in modern technology at a time when the village's future is precarious because the holy well of the...Start your free trial to watch
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The Last Trick
Jan Svankmajer’s debut film extends the madcap spirit of his Prague-based Theatre of Masks. Two magicians perform an escalating series of tricks, most of which involve strange objects entering or exiting their plaster heads. Once pried open, they resemble surrealist cabinets stuffed with grinding gears, violins and insects....Start your free trial to watch
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The Magic Hoop
Émile Cohl mixes live-action and stop-motion animation in this charming evocation of the power of imagination. A magician shapes his cane into a hoop with strange properties for a young girl. Costume changes and city promenades give way towards greater abstraction as the film becomes absorbed by what goes on inside the ring.Start your free trial to watch
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Mixed Magic
Not only is the idea of Buster Keaton as a magician's assistant a good one, ]much of the film is done without dialogue and is all the better for it. In its best moments, MIXED MAGIC reminds the viewer of one of Keaton's finest short films: THE PLAY HOUSE, in which he wreaked havoc behind the scenes of a vaudeville house....Start your free trial to watch
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The New Lord of the Village
An imperious lord of the manor in 18th century France is taught a lesson in humility when a Gypsy woman entices him to an enchanted forest and sets up a trial that will see his fortunes change when a lowly blacksmith and tailor who accompany him become his betters. Georges Méliès is at his magical best,...Start your free trial to watch
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Opera no.1
Two charming but inept agents of the supernatural (sort of like cupid goddesses) decide to interfere in human affairs. Mini Musical Comedy. Like one of those Shakespeare situation comedies in the woods. Or the Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour." A mini-opera with some sort of dense but ultimately meaningless plot. There's a young...Start your free trial to watch
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Riddles for a Candy
In Jiří Barta’s imaginative debut, a magic book poses three riddles to an anteater-like creature. His reward for answering, a wrapped piece of candy, proves elusive. Barta's animation revels in the possibilities of transformation and symbolic logic.Start your free trial to watch