Director

Georges Méliès

Directing

Career Snapshot

Explained

These indicators come from TMDB. They are relative signals, not review ratings.

Directed credits

221

Prolific

Very extensive directing filmography.

TMDB popularity

1.0

Low visibility

TMDB internal trend index. Higher usually means more searches and page activity now.

Directed movies: 221Directed series: 0All crew credits: 243

TMDB ID: 11523

IMDb ID: nm0617588

Known for: Directing

Born: December 8, 1861

Died: January 21, 1938

Age: 76

Place of birth: Paris, France

Gender: Male

Adult content flag: No

Career span: 1896 - 2025

Years active: 130

Average TMDB rating: 5.8

Wikidata: Q152272

Also known as

Жорж Мельес • 조르주 멜리에스 • Marie Georges Jean Méliès • ジョルジュ・メリエス • マリー・ジョルジュ・ジャン・メリエス

Frequent jobs

Director (221)Producer (10)Production Design (5)Screenplay (3)Adaptation (1)Additional Photography (1)Original Film Writer (1)Thanks (1)

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Biography

Georges Méliès (December 8, 1861 - January 21, 1938), full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French illusionist and filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. One of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, tracking shots, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his work, Méliès pioneered effects that would define cinematic special effects for decades to come. A prolific innovator in the use of special effects, Méliès accidentally discovered the substitution stop trick in 1896, a method of creating seamless disappearing and/or appearing effects used throughout both films and television for decades to come. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality through cinematography, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the first "Cinemagician". Two of his best-known films are A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904). Both stories involve strange, surreal voyages, somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy. Méliès was also an early pioneer of horror cinema, which can be traced back to his Le Manoir du diable (1896). In early 1909 Méliès stopped making films to protest Thomas Edison's Motion Pictures Parents Company monopoly, and presided over the first meeting of the International Filmmakers Congress in Paris. Further financial hardships created by his opposition to Edison and diminishing influence, Méliès disappeared from public life. By the mid-1920s he made a meager living as a candy and toy salesma in Paris, with the assistance of funds collected by other filmmakers. Although he was recognized for his contributions in cinema, Méliès spent most of his later years in poverty before being accepted into La Maison du Retraite du Cinéma, the film industry's retirement home in Orly.