RONNIE KAO
Interactive cinema genealogy · 1895–2025 · curated research atlas

The Genealogy
of Film

Move through cinema history as a field of transmissions: filmmakers, movements, techniques and production conditions. This is a curated genealogy, not a ranking and not a claim that cinema descends from one line.

52 nodes41 promoted edges6 time windows
A selective international atlas, with substantial attention to American cinema. Coverage remains uneven by region, practice, and labor role.
Line style indicates evidence groupingSolid — acknowledged / explicit evidenceDashed — historical reconstructionDotted — industrial / technical contextSelect a node to see the specific relationship type. Time windows are navigation only; historical currents overlap and coexist.
Dataset v0.4.0 · 52 nodes · 41 claims12/41 claims with checked source passages · Research & downloads ↓
Start with a story

Follow American independent cinema from Cassavetes toward digital filmmaking, or choose another route below. Routes are editorial readings; each connection retains its own evidence.

More guided routes
Guided routes

Timeline is easier to scan on a small screen; the full map remains available.

How to read the field: horizontal position ≈ historical emergence. Vertical position identifies an editorial tradition; distance is not a quantitative measure of similarity or influence. Current ribbons are interpretive historical ranges. Circles = people; diamonds = movements, practices, technologies, and systems. Select a node to inspect its documented connections.
1895–1930
1931–1958
1959–1976
1977–1994
1995–2007
2008–2025
REALITY / OBSERVATION
NARRATIVE / PERFORMANCE
FORM / MONTAGE / TIME
PRODUCTION / TECHNOLOGY
Drag or use arrow controls · wheel / buttons zoom · keyboard arrows pan · [ / ] follow last / first connection
Film Genealogy dataset v0.4.052 nodes · 41 promoted edges · coverage 1895–2025 · last reviewed 2026-10-04
JSONNodes CSVEdges CSVSources CSVData dictionary
Method

What the lines mean

Each line now records two different things: relation type describes the historical relationship being asserted, while evidence type describes why the atlas is willing to draw it. A remake, explicit influence, movement affiliation, production model, formal lineage, and technological enablement are no longer collapsed into one semantic field.

No confidence scores.

Evidence type is more useful here than a fake numerical certainty.

No single wave at a time.

Realism, studio classicism, modernism, genre traditions, national cinemas and production movements overlap for decades.

Open edges stay open.

Claims that are only suggestive remain research questions instead of being promoted to lines.

Selection protocol
  • A node is included when it represents a historically significant transmission that can be supported by at least one high-quality source.
  • A node should materially connect parts of the atlas or clarify one of the project’s research questions.
  • Inclusion does not signify rank, canon status, or overall historical importance.
  • A promoted edge requires direct acknowledgement, defensible historical/formal transmission, or a material production/technology relationship. Similarity alone is insufficient.
Research backlog

This atlas is selective. A known omission is not the same thing as an actively researched expansion.

  • African cinemas · queued — A coherent branch with multiple internal relationships and claim-level sources; not a token attachment to an existing European line.
  • Latin American cinemas · partial — Expand beyond the current Third Cinema abstraction with researched national/transnational branches and specific claims.
  • Arab cinemas · queued — A scoped corpus, explicit historiographic framing and claim-level sources.
  • Indigenous cinemas · queued — Community-aware and scholarly framing established before graph inclusion.
  • Animation · queued — Adapt the taxonomy to studios, techniques, labor systems, schools and technological lineages rather than auteur tokens.
  • Postwar experimental / avant-garde cinema · queued — A branch with its own institutions, practices and transmissions.
  • Documentary lineages · partial — Expand beyond broad nonfiction currents with specific documentary practices and source-backed transmissions.
  • Queer film histories · queued — Multiple researched lineages rather than representative token inclusion.
  • Below-the-line labor · queued — Schema and evidence support editors, cinematographers, sound, performers, production design and producers as historical agents.
Selected sources

Evidence behind the promoted edges

The v0.4 JSON explicitly separates research records from visualization metadata. Source records are structured, but claim-level locators remain incomplete: every promoted edge now records either a verified locator or an explicit reason that a locator is still unavailable. Missing locators are not silently treated as complete provenance.

scholarly_monograph · film-history

David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson, Film History: An Introduction, 4th ed.

primary_writing · eisenstein-griffith

Sergei Eisenstein, “Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today” (1944).