<P> The first sound feature film to receive near - universal critical approbation was Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel); premiering on April 1, 1930, it was directed by Josef von Sternberg in both German and English versions for Berlin's UFA studio . The first American talkie to be widely honored was All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Lewis Milestone, which premiered April 21 . The other internationally acclaimed sound drama of the year was Westfront 1918, directed by G.W. Pabst for Nero - Film of Berlin . Historian Anton Kaes points to it as an example of "the new verisimilitude (that) rendered silent cinema's former emphasis on the hypnotic gaze and the symbolism of light and shadow, as well as its preference for allegorical characters, anachronistic ." Cultural historians consider the French L'Âge d'Or, directed by Luis Buñuel, which appeared late in 1930, to be of great aesthetic import; at the time, its erotic, blasphemous, anti-bourgeois content caused a scandal . Swiftly banned by Paris police chief Jean Chiappe, it was unavailable for fifty years . The earliest sound movie now acknowledged by most film historians as a masterpiece is Nero - Film's M, directed by Fritz Lang, which premiered May 11, 1931 . As described by Roger Ebert, "Many early talkies felt they had to talk all the time, but Lang allows his camera to prowl through the streets and dives, providing a rat's - eye view ." </P> <P> "Talking film is as little needed as a singing book ." Such was the blunt proclamation of critic Viktor Shklovsky, one of the leaders of the Russian formalist movement, in 1927 . While some regarded sound as irreconcilable with film art, others saw it as opening a new field of creative opportunity . The following year, a group of Soviet filmmakers, including Sergei Eisenstein, proclaimed that the use of image and sound in juxtaposition, the so - called contrapuntal method, would raise the cinema to "...unprecedented power and cultural height . Such a method for constructing the sound - film will not confine it to a national market, as must happen with the photographing of plays, but will give a greater possibility than ever before for the circulation throughout the world of a filmically expressed idea ." So far as one segment of the audience was concerned, however, the introduction of sound brought a virtual end to such circulation: Elizabeth C. Hamilton writes, "Silent films offered people who were deaf a rare opportunity to participate in a public discourse, cinema, on equal terms with hearing people . The emergence of sound film effectively separated deaf from hearing audience members once again ." </P> <P> On March 12, 1929, the first feature - length talking picture made in Germany had its premiere . The inaugural Tobis Filmkunst production, it was not a drama, but a documentary sponsored by a shipping line: Melodie der Welt (Melody of the World), directed by Walter Ruttmann . This was also perhaps the first feature film anywhere to significantly explore the artistic possibilities of joining the motion picture with recorded sound . As described by scholar William Moritz, the movie is "intricate, dynamic, fast - paced...juxtapos (ing) similar cultural habits from countries around the world, with a superb orchestral score...and many synchronized sound effects ." Composer Lou Lichtveld was among a number of contemporary artists struck by the film: "Melodie der Welt became the first important sound documentary, the first in which musical and unmusical sounds were composed into a single unit and in which image and sound are controlled by one and the same impulse ." Melodie der Welt was a direct influence on the industrial film Philips Radio (1931), directed by Dutch avant - garde filmmaker Joris Ivens and scored by Lichtveld, who described its audiovisual aims: </P> <P> To render the half - musical impressions of factory sounds in a complex audio world that moved from absolute music to the purely documentary noises of nature . In this film every intermediate stage can be found: such as the movement of the machine interpreted by the music, the noises of the machine dominating the musical background, the music itself is the documentary, and those scenes where the pure sound of the machine goes solo . </P>

When was the first movie with sound invented