电影(motion picture)，亦作movie。
将胶片上的一连串静态照片以很快的速度持续放映在银幕上。电影通常用电影摄影机拍摄，对行动中的人和事物迅速进行曝光；再由电影放映机放映，通常以同步的方法使影像与声音重现。发明电影机器的人主要是美国的爱迪生和法国的卢米埃兄弟。20世纪初，电影制作集中在法国，但到了1920年代美国成为电影业的主宰。导演和明星纷纷迁往好莱坞，电影摄影场一家家开设，在1930年代和1940年代达至颠峰，同时他们一般拥有广大的戏院连锁系统。1950年代和1960年代时，拍摄电影象徵了一种新的国际主义，独立制片也开始兴起。至今美国电影工业挟其庞大的技术资源仍继续主宰了全世界的市场。亦请参阅Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.、Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. (MGM)、Paramount Communications INC.、RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.、United Artists Corporation、Warner Brothers。
English version：
motion picture
Series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid succession onto a screen. Motion pictures are filmed with a movie camera, which makes rapid exposures of people or objects in motion, and shown with a movie projector, which reproduces sound synchronized with the images. The principal inventors of motion-picture machines were Thomas Alva Edison in the U.S. and the Lumière brothers in France. Film production was centered in France in the early 20th century, but by 1920 the U.S. had become dominant. As directors and stars moved to Hollywood, movie studios expanded, reaching their zenith in the 1930s and '40s, when they also typically owned extensive theater chains. Moviemaking was marked by a new internationalism in the 1950s and '60s, which also saw the rise of the independent filmmaker. The sophistication of special effects increased greatly from the 1970s. The U.S. film industry, with its immense technical resources, has continued to dominate the world market to the present day. See also Columbia Pictures, MGM, Paramount Communications, RKO, United Artists, Warner Brothers.
