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The decade of the 1870s in film involved some significant events.
- 1874 – French astronomer Pierre Janssen used his Janssen revolver to photograph the transit of the planet Venus across the Sun.
- 1877 – French inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud improved on the Zoetrope idea by placing mirrors at the center of the drum. He called his invention the Praxinoscope. Reynaud developed other versions of the Praxinoscope, too, including a Praxinoscope Theatre (where the device was enclosed in a viewing box) and the Projecting Praxinoscope. Eventually he created the "Théâtre Optique", a large machine based on the Praxinoscope, able to project longer animated strips. In the United States, the McLoughlin Bros. from New York released in 1879 a simplified (and unauthorized) copy of Reynaud's invention under the name "Whirligig of Life".
- 1877–1878 – Thomas Edison's announcement of his phonograph invention inspired Scientific American to suggest combinations with stereoscopic photographs and projection. Wordsworth Donisthorpe replied that his Kinesigraph (patented in 1876) would soon produce moving life-size photographs with the motion of lips and gestures corresponding to the words from the phonograph.
- 1878 – Eadweard Muybridge records his famous chronophotographic series of pictures of the phases of The Horse in Motion, the result of an assignment by railroad tycoon Leland Stanford who wanted to see proof of the real positions of the horse's gait. The pictures had a huge impact, because the recorded positions were very different (and often less gracious) than most people imagined; many drawings and paintings turned out to be incorrect.
| Year | Month | Date | Name | Country | Profession | Died | |
| 1870 | March | 13 | Henri Étiévant | France | Actor, Director | 1953 | |
| May | 2 | Lewis J. Selznick | US | Producer | 1933 | ||
| 1871 | March | 23 | Heinrich Schroth | Germany | Actor | 1945 | |
| April | 16 | Henry Stephenson | US | Actor | 1956 | ||
| April | 21 | Jaro Fürth | Austria | Actor | 1945 | ||
| May | 30 | Olga Engl | Austria | Actress | 1946 | ||
| July | 7 | Richard Carle | US | Actor, Playwright | 1941 | ||
| 1872 | January | 25 | Robert McWade | US | Actor | 1938 | |
| February | 12 | Oscar Stribolt | Denmark | Actor | 1927 | ||
| April | 26 | William Desmond Taylor | Ireland | Actor, Director | 1922 | ||
| December | 22 | Georg Blomstedt | Sweden | Actor | 1933 | ||
| 1873 | January | 7 | Adolph Zukor | US | Founder of Paramount Pictures | 1976 | |
| March | 7 | Madame Sul-Te-Wan | US | Actress | 1959 | ||
| June | 10 | Vera Lewis | US | Actress | 1956 | ||
| June | 13 | Karin Swanström | Sweden | Actress, Director | 1942 | ||
| July | 1 | Alice Guy-Blaché | France | Director, Producer, Screenwriter | 1968 | ||
| November | 24 | John St. Polis | US | Actor | 1946 | ||
| 1874 | March | 19 | Arthur Hoyt | US | Actor | 1953 | |
| April | 28 | Sidney Toler | US | Actor, Writer | 1947 | ||
| June | 2 | E. Alyn Warren | US | Actor | 1940 | ||
| November | 13 | Henry Kolker | US | Actor, Director | 1947 | ||
| November | 22 | Elizabeth Patterson | US | Actor | 1966 | ||
| November | 30 | Lloyd Ingraham | US | Actor, Director | 1956 | ||
| 1875 | January | 15 | Claude King | UK | Actor | 1941 | |
| January | 22 | D. W. Griffith | US | Filmmaker | 1948 | ||
| February | 26 | Emma Dunn | UK | Actress | 1966 | ||
| March | 25 | Spencer Charters | US | Actor | 1943 | ||
| April | 4 | Samuel S. Hinds | US | Actor, Lawyer | 1948 | ||
| June | 6 | J. Farrell MacDonald | US | Actor, Director | 1952 | ||
| June | 11 | Gilbert Emery | US | Actor | 1945 | ||
| September | 12 | Matsunosuke Onoe | Japan | Actor | 1926 | ||
| November | 10 | Maude Eburne | Canada | Actress | 1960 | ||
| December | 8 | Frederik Buch | Denmark | Actor | 1925 | ||
| 1876 | February | 26 | Amy Veness | UK | Actress | 1960 | |
| March | 18 | Frank Darien | US | Actor | 1955 | ||
| June | 20 | Romuald Joubé | France | Actor | 1949 | ||
| 1877 | June | 19 | Charles Coburn | US | Actor | 1961 | |
| November | 8 | Robert Homans | US | Actor | 1947 | ||
| 1878 | January | 16 | Harry Carey | US | Actor | 1947 | |
| April | 12 | Lionel Barrymore | US | Actor | 1954 | ||
| May | 25 | Bill Robinson | US | Actor, Dancer | 1949 | ||
| June | 26 | Ernest Torrence | Scotland | Actor | 1933 | ||
| July | 14 | Donald Meek | Scotland | Actor | 1946 | ||
| 1879 | January | 1 | William Fox | Hungary | Founder of Fox Film Corporation | 1952 | |
| January | 1 | Paul Porcasi | Italy | Actor | 1946 | ||
| February | 12 | Urban Gad | Denmark | Director | 1947 | ||
| June | 9 | Dudley Digges | US | Actor | 1947 | ||
| August | 15 | Ethel Barrymore | US | Actress | 1959 | ||
| October | 15 | Jane Darwell | US | Actress | 1967 | ||
| October | 22 | Karl Hoblitzelle | US | Movie theater owner | 1967 | ||
| November | 4 | Will Rogers | US | Actor, Comedian | 1935 | ||
| November | 15 | Lewis Stone | US | Actor | 1953 | ||
| December | 27 | Sydney Greenstreet | UK | Actor | 1954 | ||
| December | 27 | Robert Greig | Australia | Actor | 1958 | ||
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