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Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.

Film is an important art form; films entertain, educate, enlighten, and inspire audiences. The visual elements of cinema need no translation, giving the motion picture a universal power of communication. Films are also artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and in turn, affect them.

Traditional films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to a combination of physiological and psychological effects. One in known as persistence of vision — whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers also perceive motion due to psychological effects called beta movement and the phi phenomenon.

The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, photo-play, flick, and most commonly, movie. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema, and the movies.

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The Mummy is a 1999 American adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, with Arnold Vosloo in the title role as the reanimated mummy. The movie features substantial dialogue in ancient Egyptian language, spoken with the assistance of a professional Egyptologist. It is a loose remake of the 1932 film of the same name which starred Boris Karloff in the title role. Originally intended to be part of a low-budget horror franchise, the movie was eventually turned into a blockbuster adventure film. The Mummy opened on May 7, 1999 and grossed $43 million in 3,210 theaters; the movie went on to gross $415 million worldwide. Reception to the film was mixed, with reviewers alternatively praising or complaining about the special effects, the slapstick nature of the story and characters, and the stereotyped villains. The box-office success led to a 2001 sequel, The Mummy Returns, as well as The Mummy: The Animated Series, and the spin-off film The Scorpion King. Another sequel, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, will open on August 1, 2008. Universal Studios also opened a roller coaster, Revenge of the Mummy, in 2004. The movie and its sequel's novelizations were written by Max Allan Collins.

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The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud.

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Did you know...

...that 1971's Out of the Darkness was the first Thai science fiction film?
...that benshi were the people who narrated Japanese silent films until the 1930's?
...that the 1927 silent film The Scar of Shame is an early example of a "race movie," in which a feature film was made by a black cast exclusively for black audiences?
...that Tanaz Eshaghian's film Be Like Others explores the experiences of transsexuals in Iran, a country that outlaws homosexuality but sanctions sex-reassignment surgery?

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Diane Keaton is an American film producer, director, and actor. Keaton began her career as a stage actor, and made her screen debut in 1970. Keaton's first major film role was as Kay Adams in The Godfather (1972), but the films that shaped her early career were those with director and co-star Woody Allen. Her films with Allen such as Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), and her Academy Award-winning performance in Annie Hall established her as a comic actor. Keaton has claimed that she is "tailor-made for comedy". Keaton ceased collaborating with Allen in 1979, and took on new roles to avoid becoming typecast as her Annie Hall persona. She became an accomplished dramatic actor, starting with Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and received Academy Award nominations for Reds (1981) and Marvin's Room (1996). Some of her popular recent films include Father of the Bride (1991), The First Wives Club (1996), and Something's Gotta Give (2003). Keaton's films have earned a cumulative gross of over $1.1 billion USD in North America.

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..I never write a play with an eye to film. And I don't like losing the words, as you have to, when I'm asked to turn a play into a movie. It's not a matter of ego . . . I'm just better able to create the character for an audience through words rather than through actions. I much prefer writing an original movie with the screen in mind to transferring a play to the screen.

— Neil Simon, 1999

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