The makers of early movies quickly discovered a market for narrative film and adaptations of popular Victorian and Edwardian stage melodramas. Film studios of various sizes, from 1901-1928 (the ‘silent era’), worked their way through the theatrical repertoire with continuing success proving that the taste for these dramas remained alive. Even as modern cinema technology emerged, filmmakers were still resorting to theatrical artifice. The author’s intent is to offer the reader a loose chronology of the practices of turning stage melodramas into popular enduring motion pictures and their variants (such as serials). The author charts the evolution of the music hall dramatic sketch into a film feature and thence to screen melodrama. These surviving films not only permit viewing a range of 19th century theatrical melodramas but also allow scrutiny of the theatre’s means, resources, and methods. From Edison and Porter, through Selig and Biograph (with Griffith), Pathé with Capellani, Collins with Metro, Tourneur with the Shuberts, Gillette with Essanay, Nielsen with Gad, Martin-Harvey with Wilcox, the melodramas unfold. The essay indicates how these films might be readily accessed.