The December 28, 1895 Lumière screening is often listed as the first.

Not really. It's an important and influential milestone but there were commercial screenings in Berlin and Atlanta prior to it.

However, it was key in establishing projected cinema as the future of movies.

And the Lumières themselves held a non-commercial projected screening in March of 1895.

The success of the Lumière affair put a bee in Edison's bonnet, though, and he pushed his own films onto he American screen in 1896 to get ahead of the French.

If there's one thing I've learned while looking into early film history, it's that firsts are difficult to pin down and sometimes they don't actually matter that much.

The fact remains, 1895 was probably the most important year in the history of film.