“Cinema will perhaps have to wait centuries more before finding another genius whose childlike soul will, like Méliès, make light of its phantasmagorias.”—Henri Langlois

The father of cinema, the delicate clockmaker of so many subtle mechanisms, the inventor of all the special effects and processes, fascinated by extravaganzas and miraculously freed from the laws of gravity, was a marvelous draughtsman and an admirable colorist . . . (Georges Méliès) was the genius who managed to conjure cinematographic art out of nothing, transforming a machine intended for recording reality into a box of magic from which gushed the impossible. 

—Samantha Leroy, La Cinémathèque française

Après le bal, le tub 1897, 1 min, Silent, Hand-painted color, DCP
L’illusionniste fin de siècle 1899, 1:30 mins, Silent, Hand-painted color, DCP
La chrysalide et le papillon d’or 1900, 2:30 mins, Silent, Hand-painted color, DCP
Le royaume des fées 1903, 17 mins, Silent, Hand-painted color, DCP 
Le merveilleux éventail vivant 1904, 5 mins, Silent, Hand-painted color, DCP
Le raid de Paris-Monte-Carlo en automobile 1905, 11 mins, Silent,Hand-painted color, DCP
Le bourreau turc 1904, 3 mins, Silent, Hand-painted color, DCP
La fée carabosse 1906, 12 mins, Silent, Hand-painted color, DCP
Parlons cinema—A propos du cinéma dans la résistance (excerpts) Harry Fischbach, Canada, 1976, 5 mins

The films come from private collections and those of Madeleine Malthête-Méliès, who generously donated her husband’s nitrate films to La Cinémathèque française. The handpainted films were restored by La Cinémathèque française in 2013 with the Eclair Group.