Exposing Muybridge

The story of Eadweard Muybridge is one of adventure, invention, treachery, and triumph. Brilliant, ambitious, and mischievous, Muybridge lived the lives of a dozen men before his breakthrough photographs of running horses set the course for the development of cinema and transformed the camera into a machine of unmatched perception and persuasion. But hiding in Muybridge's work are clues that provoke an enduring question: Can we believe what we see in a photograph?

With remarkable intimacy, this well-researched retrospective, and winner of the 2022 Writers Guild Award (WGA) for best Documentary Screenplay, reveals the fascinating life of an uncontainable man whose far-reaching legacy preserved Native American history and inspired scientific advancement and artistic innovation.

Before his motion photography breakthrough, Muybridge produced one of the most celebrated early landscape catalogues of the American West. He made the first photographs of winemaking in Northern California, produced the first photographs of native Tlingit people and of Southeast Alaska, was the fourth to photograph Yosemite, the first to be hired by the U.S. government to photograph an Indian War and his photographs of Central America are widely considered the most important early images of the region.

Featuring Muybridge collector (and actor) Gary Oldman.