THE ZAPRUDER FILM is not only the most important home movie ever made, but also the most thoroughly analyzed 26 seconds of film in existence. Shortly after noon on Friday, 22 November 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Atleast 32 people filmed or photographed some aspect of the event, but Abraham Zapruder captured the assassination itself more clearly and completely than anyone eise. His film was a key item of evidence in the government's investigation of the assassination, and the subject of lasting controversy, at least in part because copyright made it largely unavailable to the public until 1998.

Abraham Zapruder was a 51-year-old Russian-Jewish immigrant and the coowner of Jennifer Juniors, Inc., a women's clothing Company headquartered in the Dal-Tex Building on Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas. He was also a Kennedy fan and an avid amateur filmmaker. The morning of 22 November was dark and rainy, so Zapruder left his movie camera at home, but when the rain stopped and the clouds broke, he went home to get it. Zapruder's camera was a Bell & Howell Zoomatic Model 414PD, loaded with Kodachrome II daylight 8mm roll film. Typically, 8mm film is sold as 25 foot rolls of 16mm film perforated for 8mm. A filmmaker first exposes one half of the width of the film, then reloads and exposes the other half. After processing the film, the lab splits it down the middle, creating two Strips of 8mm film, which the lab splices together, creating a 50 foot reel of film. A roll of 8mm film is usually exposed to light when it is loaded and unloaded, so a reel of processed 8mm film typically has light flares at its beginning, middle, and end.

The Zapruder film consists of486 frames (about 6 feet) of 8mm film exposed over the course of 26.6 seconds at 18.3 frames per second. Actually, it was part of a longer film. Zapruder used the first half of a roll of film at home and at the office. He then reloaded the camera, intending to use the second half of the roll to film the presidential motorcade.