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A Trip to the Moon (1902)

Premise: A group of scientists plan a rocket trip to the moon, where they encounter hostile moon-men.

Rating: Short enough to watch as an educational tool to understand the evolution of film, but not entertaining on its own merits.

This is thought to be the first sci-fi film.  It's black and white, silent, and only lasts 13 minutes.  It's kinda cool to see really basic concepts that we still use today in their inception.  Ideas like overlays and matte paintings, miniatures, and quick cutting to remove an object in the frame are used pretty effectively.

The plot is essentially that the lead scientist, though I read them more as a group of magicians, proposes a trip to the moon, gets some pushback from his colleagues, but ultimately convinces them to go.  Then, they construct this giant bullet and shoot into the eye of the moon, which is represented as a human face (you've probably seen this image before -- it's really famous).  There, they encounter a weird fantasy world with aliens, are brought to their leader, and then discover that they can beat them up into a cloud of smoke.  They return home, have a party, and then there's an alien dancing around Earth.  ...that's at least what I think happens -- it's not that easy to understand since there's no dialogue and everything has to be conveyed with really grandiose movements like you'd see in someone playing charades.

There is one special effect that I thought was pretty cool where this dude's umbrella was turned into a mushroom, as well as a couple of matte painting shots that cheated perspective a little bit.

If you're interested, you can watch it for free here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVChRVfZ74

I've watched this short several times in the past...it's a mind-blower, no doubt about it.