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.
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Genres / Fantasy / Magic
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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...Watch Movie
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Belladonna of Sadness
One of the great lost masterpieces of Japanese animation, never before officially released in the U.S., BELLADONNA OF SADNESS is a mad, swirling, psychedelic light-show of medieval tarot-card imagery with horned demons, haunted forests and La Belle Dame Sans Merci, equal parts...Watch Movie
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The Adventures of Prince Achmed
When THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED premiered in Germany on September 23, 1926 it was hailed as the first full-length animated film. More than seventy-five years later, Lotte Reiniger's enchanting film (made in collaboration with Carl Koch, Reiniger's husband) still stands as...Watch Movie
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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...Watch Movie
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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...Watch Movie
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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...Watch Movie
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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...Watch Movie
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM is one of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies yet still resounds with the brilliance and charm of his later works. Directed by Sir Peter Hall using The Royal Shakespeare Academy’s cast of actors, this 1968 version is one of the wittiest and wildest of all...Watch Movie
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Transfigurations
A showman invites patrons to step up to his Kinetoscope-style magic box and glimpse the answers to their most burning questions. Émile Cohl’s irreverent animation takes over from here, painting less than flattering portraits of futures in marriage and business. The only...Watch Movie
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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...Watch Movie
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The Return of Chandu
Three years after his legendary first screen appearance as Dracula (a role he'd already played on stage), Bela Lugosi got one of his rare chances to play the hero in this twelve-part serial. He plays Frank Chandler (aka "Chandu the Magician") who becomes embroiled in intrigue...Watch Movie
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Another Job for the Undertaker
This peculiar Thomas Edison short makes use of trick photography to show a man magically shorn of his belongings and clothes (as though the room in which he is sleeping is possessed). A warning about the gas lamps on the painted flat that comprises his room telegraphs the end...Watch Movie
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Mandrake the Magician
The Wasp, the crafty head of an underworld gang, is on the hunt for a radium-energy machine developed by Professor Houston. The Wasp will stop at nothing to steal the scientist's invention. His evil machinations to obtain the device include blowing up a radio station, a power...Watch Movie
