<P> A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film . The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures were made commercially practical . Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound - on - disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate . Innovations in sound - on - film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923 . </P> <P> The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid - to late 1920s . At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "talking pictures", or "talkies", were exclusively shorts . The earliest feature - length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects . The first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927 . A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound - on - disc technology . Sound - on - film, however, would soon become the standard for talking pictures . </P> <P> By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon . In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's most powerful cultural / commercial centers of influence (see Cinema of the United States). In Europe (and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere), the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of soundless cinema . In Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root . Conversely, in India, sound was the transformative element that led to the rapid expansion of the nation's film industry . </P>

First popular name for movies with sound in hollywood