What This Page Contains.
On this page you will find a list of all 4 American silent feature films of 1912 that can be viewed online, mostly on YouTube. For each film on the list, you will find a link to the best online version of the film.
1912: The First American Feature Films.
Inspired by several European feature-length blockbusters, American studios hesitantly began to test the waters of producing and releasing feature length films – defined as 4 reels or longer – in 1912.
[Go to American Feature Films of: 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931]
Helen Gardner as Cleopatra (1912) 
Frederick Warde as Richard III (1912) 
R. Henderson Bland as Christ
in From the Manger to the Cross (1912)
1912 Statistics (from the Library of Congress database):
Number of feature-length movies released: 9
Number extant: 7
Number lost: 2
American Feature Films of 1912 Available for Viewing on YouTube
| Title | # Reels | Director | Stars | Genre | Youtube Link | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adventures of Lieutenant Petrosino, The | 4 | Sidney M. Goldin | Drama | Link | No music; intertitles in Dutch |
||
| Cleopatra | 6 | Charles L. Gastrill | Helen Gardner | Historical Drama | Link | ||
| From the Manger to the Cross, aka Jesus of Nazareth | 5 | Sidney Olcatt | Robert Henderson-Bland | Biblical Drama | Link | ||
| Richard III | 5 | André Calmettes, James Keane | Frederick Warde | Shakespearean Drama | Link |