An animatograph is an early form of motion-picture projector which is an older name for a movie projector, a machine, combining magic lantern and kinetoscope features, for projecting on a screen a series of pictures, moved rapidly (25 to 50 frames per second) and intermittently before an objective lens, and producing by persistence of vision the illusion of continuous motion; a moving-picture projector; also, any of several other machines or devices producing moving pictorial effects.

Other older terms for the movie projector are animatograph, biograph, bioscope, electrograph, electroscope, kinematograph, kinetoscope, veriscope, vitagraph, and vitascope