When it comes to the first film, one image comes into the minds of many. The Galloping Horse or The Horse in Motion. These iconic images were one of a series of photographs shot by Eadward Muybridge. In 1872, the governor of California, Leland Stanford hired Muybridge, a famous photographer known for his photos of California, to settle a $25,000 bet about how horses stride. Stanford argued that horses stride with all four feet off the ground at full speed. [1]

Photo Courtesy from the Library of Congress.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a45870/