Porter's 1903 film The Great Train Robbery. In fact, the film is still considered to be the "mother of all American film narratives" (Auerbach 122)
He easily moves the audience from station to train, to the bandits, back to the train without having to give the audience any further explanations. The cutting back and forth from scene to scene throughout the film showed that audiences would be able to follow a film even when scenes were juxtaposed in various places and times -- now known as crosscutting (Corrigan 38)
In fact, the film is still considered to be the "mother of all American film narratives" (Auerbach 122). The film may be considered primitive to modern audiences with its 14 scenes and length of only a mere 10 minutes -- however, the film was commercially very successful and it established the belief that film could be a commercially-feasible medium (Dirks 2010)