Alice in Wonderland

The first screen adaptation of Lewis Carroll's beloved novel, and a remarkable feat for 1903. In just eight minutes, director Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow cram in the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, a deck of living playing cards, and Alice's impossible shrinking and growing — all achieved through camera tricks and theatrical ingenuity. The film was a sensation in its day, running longer than almost any British production to that point. What survives is incomplete, but the ambition is unmistakable: here was someone trying to put pure imagination on screen, years before the tools existed to do it properly.