Black-and-White era 

In the first years of the cinematography arts

path -due to lack of the means and technological
advancement- the filming was restricted to Black-and-
White with using variation in the intensity to try and
represent other colors. So while some color film
processes (including hand coloring) were
experimented in limited use from the earliest days of
motion pictures, the switch from most films being in
Black-and-White to most being in color was gradual,
taking place during (1930 - 1960). 

Even when most studios had the capability to

make color films they were not heavily utilized as
using the at-the-time known processes was Figure 1 the effect of the variation in
intensities of the black color
expensive. For many years it was not possible for
films in color to provide realistic shades, so its use was restricted to historical films or
musicals until the 1950s. 

Some of the films produced at the Black-and-White era that helped in the
evolution to the full colored movies used a mix between color/Black-and-White; The
Wizard of Oz (1939), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and Wings of Desire (1987).  The
mentioned movies all shared the ideology of using the colored world when expressing
the bright side of the movie like the main character's favorite place, or a new beginning,
thus paving the way for the evolution of the art to the colored movie era. 

Color motion picture film

The first color cinematography was by
additive color systems which appeared to the
world as since the 1909s, when a simplified
additive system was successfully
commercialized. These systems used Black-and-
White film to photograph and project two or
more component images through different
color filters.

Around 1920, subtractive color system

Figure 2 snap from test film made by Edward Turner in 1902
emerged which also use black-and-white film to
photograph multiple color-filtered source images, but the final product was a multicolored print
that did not require special projection equipment. In 1935, Kodachrome was introduced,
followed by Agfacolor in 1936, with the intention of amateur home movies and slides usage.
These were the first films of the "integral tripack" type, coated with three layers of differently
color-sensitive emulsion, which is usually what is meant by the words "color film" as commonly
used. The few color films still being made in the 2010s are of this type.