IMDb title #0000012: 'L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat' (1896, Auguste & Louis Lumière)
Perhaps the most iconic film of the great many films that the Lumière brothers made, 'The Arrival of a Train' is surrounded in legend. Namely, that on its initial exhibition, audiences became so overwhelmed with the sight of the oncoming train depicted in the film, that they flocked to the back of the room in terror as it pulled into the station as it passed the frame. This very myth was depicted in Martin Scorcese's 2011 love letter to the magic of cinema, 'Hugo'.
As for the film itself, it's actually shot in a relatively sophisticated - if simple - way. The Lumières have angled their camera towards the oncoming train in such a fashion that creates a forced perspective and almost a 3-D effect as the train passes by the frame. It's easy to believe the aforementioned urban myth if you watch this and imagine it projected on a big screen in front of such a naive audience.
Like several early films of this time (including 'Roundhay Garden Scene' from 1888 which we posted a few weeks back), 'The Arrival of a Train' has recently been upscaled to 4K and 60fps. You can view both versions below.