An early filmstrip device developed and devised by Thomas Edison and W. K. L. Dickson.

The kinetoscope is the progenitor of today's modern movie projectors. Edison, inspired by Eadweard Muybridge's failed Zoopraxiscope, sought to build "an instrument which does for the Eye what the Phonograph has done for the Ear." It was basically a device that simulated motion by moving a continuous loop of standard 35mm film over a light source with a rapid shutter. The spectator would look inside the kinetoscope through a magnified porthole, and he or she would experience the illusion of live action through the motion of the film. A later model, the kinetophone, tried to link sound and motion, but film breaks and poorly trained operators kept this technology from gaining popularity.

The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. Though not a movie projector—it was designed for films to be viewed individually through the window of a cabinet housing its components—the Kinetoscope introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video: it creates the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter. First described in conceptual terms by U.S. inventor Thomas Edison in 1888, it was largely developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892.