The first machine patented in the United States that showed animated pictures or movies was a device called the "wheel of life" or "zoopraxiscope".

However, this was a far cry from motion pictures as we know them today. Modern motion picture making began with the invention of the motion picture camera. The Frenchman Louis Lumiere is often credited as inventing the first motion picture camera in 1895. What Lumiere invented was a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit and projector called the Cinematographe, three functions covered in one invention. In 1895, Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic, pictures to a paying audience of more that one person.