What Was The First Cartoon Feature Film Released In Cinemas?

It's wild to trace the family tree of feature-length cartoons because the title of "first" splits depending on how you define things. If you mean the very earliest feature-length animated film released in cinemas anywhere, that crown goes to 'El Apóstol' (1917), made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani. It was a roughly hour-long political satire using cutout animation and played in Buenos Aires — a startlingly bold piece given its time and subject matter. Sadly, the film no longer exists; most copies were destroyed in a fire, which is why so many people outside scholarly circles have never seen it. That loss makes the history feel a little haunted: we know it happened and changed the medium, but we can't actually watch it to judge for ourselves.

If you care about which early film you can still sit down and watch today, then 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed' (1926) by Lotte Reiniger is the earliest surviving feature-length animated film. It's gorgeously made with silhouette cutouts and stop-motion techniques, and it runs about an hour. Watching it feels different from later cel animation — it's more like watching a shadow-puppet epic, but the storytelling and visual inventiveness are unquestionably cinematic. Then there's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (1937), which often gets pointed to in popular conversation as the first major cartoon feature because it was the first full-length cel-animated feature from Hollywood and the one that cemented animation’s commercial potential worldwide.

I love how the story of the first cartoon feature film is really three parallel stories: pioneers like Cristiani quietly breaking ground, artists like Reiniger preserving a fragile visual tradition that survived, and studios like Disney turning the medium into a global powerhouse. Every time I read about 'El Apóstol' I get nostalgic for lost films and grateful for restorations of things like 'Prince Achmed' — they let us peek at what filmmaking felt like when animation was still inventing its grammar. It's a little bittersweet, but also thrilling to realize those early filmmakers were experimenting in ways that still influence animators today.

Okay, quick and enthusiastic take: if you want the literal first cartoon feature to hit cinemas, that honor goes to 'El Apóstol' from Argentina in 1917 by Quirino Cristiani — a satirical, hour-long cutout animation that premiered in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, it’s a lost film because the negatives and prints were destroyed, so modern audiences can’t watch it. The earliest surviving feature is 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed' (1926) by Lotte Reiniger, which uses intricate silhouette animation and still looks magical; it’s often shown at festivals and restorations have kept it alive.

For many people, however, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (1937) is the landmark that made animated features mainstream in the United States and beyond. I love the mix of obscure pioneers and beloved classics in this story — it feels like a treasure hunt through film history, and I always get excited sharing these discoveries with friends.