Answer :
Final answer:
The Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, are credited with the first projection of a movie to a paying audience, at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris on December 28, 1895. Their Cinématographe Lumière was instrumental in showing films like 'Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory' and 'The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat'.
Explanation:
The correct answer to who is credited with the projection of the first movie to a paying audience is the Lumiere brothers. Auguste and Louis Lumière are renowned for their invention of the Cinématographe Lumière, a groundbreaking film mechanism that functioned as both a movie camera and projector. Their first commercial public screening, often referred to as the birth of European cinema, took place on December 28, 1895, at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris, where they presented several short films.
While Thomas Edison was indeed a significant figure in the U.S. film industry for producing many silent short films in the early twentieth century, it was the Lumière brothers who held the first paid public screening, marking an important milestone in film history. Their films included titles such as 'La Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon' (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory) and 'L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat' (The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat), which captured the attention of audiences with their realism and comedic elements.