newsreel, short motion picture of current events introduced in England about 1897 by the Frenchman Charles Pathé. Newsreels were shown regularly, first in music halls between entertainment acts and later between the featured films in motion-picture theatres. Because spot news was expensive to shoot, newsreels covered expected events, such as parades, inaugurations, sport contests, bathing beauty contests, and residual news, such as floods.
Among the best-known early newsreel series were the Pathé-Journal (1908), shown first in England and France, and the Pathé Weekly (1912), produced for American audiences. The March of Time (1935), produced in the United States by Time, Inc., illustrated the influence of the documentary film by combining filmed news with interpretive interviews and dramatizations. With the rising popularity of television news reports, documentaries, and specials, the number of newsreels declined markedly. By the late 1950s the last of the American weeklies, Fox Movietone News, had gone out of business.