“A scene representing Southern plantation life before the war. A jig and a breakdown by three colored boys.”

Divers go to work on a wrecked ship (the battleship Maine that was blown up in Havana harbour during the Spanish-American War), surrounded by curiously disproportionate fish.

“A file of Spanish soldiers line up the Cubans against a blank wall and fire a volley. The flash of rifles and drifting smoke make a very striking picture.” (Edison film catalog)

The stubborn resistance of the Boers is shown by the activity and persistency with which they fire the two large field pieces immediately in the foreground. It seems, indeed, a hopeless matter to attempt to capture and overthrow such an invulnerable position. The British lancers are seen advancing, urged on by their officers, with the Royal colors flying in the air.

Showing the attacking forces drawn up in line of battle. They immediately commence firing on the shore batteries. The batteries return the fire with telling effect, but are at last silenced by the overwhelming forces of the enemy. In the distance can be seen the ruins of a bridge destroyed by the invading forces. The smoke thickens as the firing becomes general, and the effect is superb.

A gilded saloon, with a fancy bar, forms the background. A nobby bartender with white coat and apron is dispensing drinks to customers. Behind him are polished plate glass mirrors. A comical Irishman enters, sets a huge pail on the bar to be filled, and while he is drinking a glass of foam beer, Mrs. Nation and her followers enter with their hatchets. One of the women jams the Irishman's stiff hat down over his eyes and another one douses him with his own pail of beer. They then wreck the saloon and smash the mirrors, bottles, cash register and bar fixtures. The bartender plays a stream of seltzer water on Mrs. Nation, and as she backs away from behind the counter, a policeman enters and hustles everybody out. Full of comedy from start to finish. (Edison Catalog)

This early docudrama shows Auburn Prison and recreates the electrocution of Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley of the United States.

Our presidential hunter runs across the landscape and falls down in the snow, gets up with his rifle, and gazes upward at a treed animal which isn't in the camera's view. He fires a shot into the tree, then leaps on the ground to grab the fallen prey, a domestic cat, finishing it off with wild blows of his hunting knife while his companions, a photographer and a press agent, record the event that will be reported far and wide as a manly moment. Teddy then rides out of the forest followed by two companions afoot, never mind that they all originally arrived afoot. Perhaps it was funnier in its day than it is now, but apparently shooting cats was regarded as funny in those days. The larger point was to use a minor whimsy as a political criticism, in this case of Teddy Roosevelt's easy manipulations of the press. It was based on two frames of a political cartoon that had appeared in the paper a mere week before the film was made.

This picture depicts the eruption of the volcano by which over 30,000 souls were hurled into eternity. The numerous explosions which took place during the eruption are plain to be seen. Thousands upon thousands of tons of molten lava, sand, rocks and steam are thrown high in the air and descend with crushing force upon the unfortunate inhabitants of the doomed city of St. Pierre. This is the worst calamity which occurred since a similar eruption by Mt. Vesuvius when Pompeii was destroyed. (Lubin Catalog)

Japanese pose as coolies, blow up a train, are caught and shot.

A dramatization of the uprising in Odessa, Russia in 1905: A ship's crew, tired of being mistreated, mutinies and takes over their ship. When they reach land, a sailor who died during the mutiny is made a martyr, inspiring an uprising in the city. Then the authorities decide to repress the revolt with a brutal show of force.

It's a busy day at the office, and the stenographer is exhausted from trying to keep up with the demands on her skills. Even when she stays late, she cannot catch up with all of the work. But then a man comes into the office to demonstrate the many advantages of the Edison System, his company's new business phonograph.

Short dramatised documentary showing the ups and downs of daily life on a circus farm. “The only light comes from the flames of the funeral pyre that consumes a dead circus elephant shortly after its corpse has been unceremoniously dragged across a field by 50 carthorses.” (BFI)

Fictionalized look at life on a ranch

A re-enactment of the Jules Durand case. “In 1910 [leader of the French socialist movement Jean] Jaurès took the lead in defending a working-class coal miner, Jules Durand, accused of complicity in and condemned to death for the murder of a labor leader. As in the Dreyfus Affair, a false dossier had been used to convict Durand. Jaurès proclaimed it was the memory of the Dreyfus Affair that saved Durand. The case was the Dreyfus Affair of the working class.” (http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/03/french_profiles_in_courage.html)

A docudrama aimed at propagandizing the prevention of venereal disease

Conrad Veidt plays a famous musician who is blackmailed for being gay. Eventually he stands trial and is convicted. At the end the film pleads for the abolition of §175 (the paragraph which punishes homosexuality).

In the summer of 1920, Shanghai was scandalized by a sensational murder, a high-profile case and subsequent trial that was the ongoing topic of conversation in the city's numerous cafes, clubs and teahouses. Among the various reasons for its notoriety, two stand out: first, the victim was a high-class prostitute, well known in Shanghai; second, the murderer had been a mid-level manager in a respected foreign firm, a playboy who in Manhattan might have been termed a "prominent young man about town." There were detailed press reports daily as the case wound its way through the judicial system.

This film shows contrasting views of women with problematic pregnancies and the outcomes resulting when they seek out a back-alley abortionist, a trained and licensed abortion provider in a clinic, or an obstetrician capable of performing a Caesarian Section. The full film appears to be lost, but shortened versions, including one with dialogue scenes added in Germany in 1935, can be found on the internet. Additionally, Eisenstein's role in making the picture remains unclear: did he direct some or all of it, just edit it, or merely leave it to Alexandrov and Tisse to make? Released in the USA 1930 in a 65 minute (5800 ft.) version with English intertitles and a music track under the title BIRTH.

This was a news film with elements of reenactment. From December 1927 to 1932, 2,000 bus and train drivers were fired, provoking a strike. This film was edited out of footage shot from that strike over a long period.