A 45-second film that represents "the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot" has been rediscovered at the Library of Congress after being lost for more than a century.
"Gugusse and the Automaton", made around 1897 by pioneering French filmmaker Georges Méliès, depicts a magician (Méliès himself) battling a wind-up automaton dressed as the clown Pierrot. The film features the kind of inventive trick photography that made Méliès the godfather of visual effects—the magician shrinks, the robot explodes, chaos ensues.
The film arrived at the Library in September 2025 when Bill McFarland donated a collection of deteriorated nitrate film reels from his great-grandfather's traveling exhibition business. Archive technician Courtney Holschuh carefully stabilized and digitized the fragile print, making it viewable in 4K online.
According to the Library of Congress, the discovery is historically significant because Méliès is essentially the inventor of narrative cinema as we know it. He pioneered the jump cut, double exposure, forced perspective—basically every trick that makes movies feel like magic rather than just recorded theater.
Méliès made over 500 films between 1896 and 1913, but most were destroyed after World War I when his studio went bankrupt and his film negatives were melted down for their silver content. It's one of the great tragedies of cinema history—imagine if most of Alfred Hitchcock's films had been lost, and you get a sense of the scale.
Every rediscovered Méliès film is a gift. "Gugusse and the Automaton" is particularly special because it shows his fascination with artificial life, a theme that would echo through Metropolis, Blade Runner, Ex Machina, and every other robot movie ever made.
The film is now available to view for free on the Library of Congress website in stunning 4K. It's 45 seconds long. It's 125 years old. It's the birth of science fiction on film.
