Who Invented the Projector?

By Staff WriterLast Updated December 08, 2023

The first projector was invented by Thomas Edison and his partner, William Dickinson, in 1892, while the movie projector was invented in 1895 by Louis Lumiere and Auguste Lumiere, two brothers living in France. Edison and Dickinson’s version of the projector could not take a film recording and put it on the big screen.

The Lumiere brothers’ movie projector was named the “Cinematographe.” It was light, small, hand-powered and was even able to record pictures. It soon became known as “the first viable film camera” to have ever been made. In fact, the reason that the word “cinema” is used to describe going to the movie theater is because of the “cinema” word in the brother’s “cinematographe” machine.