Edwin S. Porter
Known for
Not every screen career happens in front of the lens: Edwin S. Porter is an American director with a filmography built off camera. The filmography runs to 139 credits. 'The Great Train Robbery' is where the largest audience encountered this work. 'Life of an American Fireman' sits alongside it on the filmography. Whatever else appears, action runs through the filmography.
Edwin S. Porter
76 Directed
Not every screen career happens in front of the lens: Edwin S. Porter is an American director with a filmography built off camera. The filmography runs to 139 credits. 'The Great Train Robbery' is where the largest audience encountered this work. 'Life of an American Fireman' sits alongside it on the filmography. Whatever else appears, action runs through the filmography.
Movies
Director
The Great Train Robbery
1903
Director
College Chums
1907
Director
Laughing Gas
1907
Director
Electrocuting an Elephant
1903
Director
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
1910
Director
Life of an American Fireman
1903
Director
Rivals
1907
Director
The Night Before Christmas
1905
Director
Terrible Teddy, the Grizzly King
1901
Director
How the Office Boy Saw the Ball Game
1906
Director
The Little Girl Who Did Not Believe in Santa Claus
1907
Director
The 'Teddy' Bears
1907
Director
A Suburbanite's Ingenious Alarm
1908
Director
The White Caps
1905
Director
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
1906
Director
The Trainer’s Daughter, or A Race for Love
1907
Director
The Twentieth Century Tramp; or, Happy Hooligan and His Airship
1902
Director
The Messenger Boy's Mistake
1903
Director
"Weary Willlie" Kisses the Bride
1904
Director
Jack and the Beanstalk
1902
Director
Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel
1900
Director
Uncle Josh's Nightmare
1900
Director
The Count of Monte Cristo
1913
Director
Uncle Tom's Cabin
1903
Director
The Price
1911
Director
The Seven Ages
1905
Director
The Life of an American Policeman
1905
Director
Tale the Autumn Leaves Told
1908
Director
Tess of the Storm Country
1914
Director
I.B. Dam and the Whole Dam Family
1905
Director
The Kleptomaniac
1905
Director
The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog
1905
Director
The Unappreciated Joke
1903
Director
Another Job for the Undertaker
1901
Director
The Watermelon Patch
1905
Director
The Train Wreckers
1905
Director
Appointment by Telephone
1902
Director
The Miller’s Daughter
1905
Director
Cohen’s Fire Sale
1907
Director
The Little Train Robbery
1905
Director
Life of a Cowboy
1906
Director
An Artist's Dream
1900
Director
European Rest Cure
1904
Director
How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the 'New York Herald' Personal Columns
1904
Director
The Tramp's Unexpected Skate
1901
Director
Getting Evidence
1906
Director
A Dull Razor
1900
Director
Love by the Light of the Moon
1901
Director
The Ex-Convict
1904
Director
The Strenuous Life; or, Anti-Race Suicide
1904
Full Filmography
The Prince and the Pauper
Director
1915
Film
Bella Donna
Director
1915
Film
Zaza
Director
1915
Film
The White Pearl
Director
1915
Film
The Eternal City
Director
1915
Film
When We Were Twenty-One
Director
1915
Film
Niobe
Director
1915
Film
The Morals of Marcus
Director
1915
Film
The Crucible
Director
1914
Film
Photos
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Edwin S. Porter still alive?
Edwin S. Porter passed away on April 30, 1941 at age 71.
What are the most famous roles of Edwin S. Porter?
Edwin S. Porter is best known for directing The Great Train Robbery, Life of an American Fireman, Electrocuting an Elephant.
How many movies has Edwin S. Porter directed?
Edwin S. Porter has directed/written 76 films and worked on 0 TV shows.
What was Edwin S. Porter's first movie?
The career of Edwin S. Porter began with Strange Adventure of New York Drummer (1899).
What is Edwin S. Porter's most recent movie or series?
Edwin S. Porter's most recent release is The Prince and the Pauper, which premiered on November 29, 1915.
Edwin S. Porter
1870-04-21 · Connellsville, Pennsylvania, USA
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American film pioneer, most famous as a producer, director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Famous Players Film Company. Influenced by both the "Brighton school" and the story films of Georges Méliès, Porter went on to make important shorts such as Life of an American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903). In them, he helped to develop the modern concept of continuity editing, paving the way for D.W. Griffith who would expand on Porter's discovery that the unit of film structure was the shot rather than the scene. Porter, in an attempt to resist the new industrial system born out of the popularity of nickelodeons, left Edison in 1909 to form his own production company which he eventually sold in 1912.
Porter remains an enigmatic figure in motion picture history. Though his significance as director of The Great Train Robbery and other innovative early films is undeniable, he rarely repeated an innovation after he had used it successfully, never developed a consistent directorial style, and in later years never protested when others rediscovered his techniques and claimed them as their own. He was a modest, quiet, cautious man who felt uncomfortable working with the famous stars he directed starting in 1912.
He has directed four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Life of an American Fireman (1903), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) and Tess of the Storm Country (1914).