Silent Films
"Our invention can be exploited for a certain time as a scientific curiosity, but apart from that, it has no commercial future whatsoever."
- Auguste Lumiere, early film maker who, with his brother Louis, organized the first public performance of motion pictures in December 1895.
A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the motion picture itself, but before the late 1920s, most films were silent.
The years before sound came to the movies are known as the "silent era" among film scholars and historians. The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity before silent films were replaced by "talking pictures" or "talkies", and a number of film buffs believe the quality of the cinema actually decreased for a few years, before the new medium of sound was adapted to the movies.
The glorious early days of cinema are represented here in this collection with many titles still acknowledged as classics of the cinema to this day.
"Slapstick Comedy" found as a subhead of "Comedy" may also be worth a browse...
Right: Scene from Fritz Lang's 1927 "Metropolis"
The Thief (aka Ladron) (1952)
6.8/10
Director: Russell Rouse
Starring: Ray Milland
A chance accident causes a nuclear physicist selling top secret material to the Russians to fall under FBI scrutiny and go on the run. This film is n... Read more
The Thief of Bagdad (Fairbanks) (1924)
7.6/10
Director: Raoul Walsh
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Snitz Edwards, Charles Belcher, Anna May Wong
A classic silent film with roguish pickpurse Douglas Fairbanks setting out on a dangerous quest to battle an evil warlord for the hand of beautiful pr... Read more
The Three Ages (1923)
8.8/10
Director: Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Margaret Leahy, Wallace Beery
Keaton's first independently produced film sends up DW Griffith's 1916 epic 'Intolerance', only instead of greed and hatred through the ages, Buster t... Read more
The Wizard of Oz Collection (1914)
Starring: Oliver Hardy, Larry Semon, Violet Macmillan
Not the famous 1939 film with Judy Garland, instead, these are earlier films, all silent, based on the Oz books by L Frank Baum. The author himself st... Read more
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926)
5.8/10
Director: Frank Capra, Harry Edwards
Starring: Harry Langdon, Joan Crawford
When baby-faced comedian Harry Langdon left Mack Sennett Studios to make features for First National, he wisely brought along the two Sennett staffers... Read more
Un Chien Andalou / Land Without Bread ( Las Hurdes ) (1929)
Director: Luis Bunuel
Luis Bunuel's first film, the surrealistic masterpiece "Un Chien Andalou" ("An Andalusian Dog"), was based after an exchange of dreams with co-writer... Read more
Way Down East (1920)
7.9/10
Director: D W Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Lowell Sherman
D.W. Griffith's Victorian pastoral stars Lillian Gish as an eager though exploited young woman abandoned by her obsessive, cavalier husband when he le... Read more
Wings (Copy) (1927)
7.5/10
Director: William A Wellman
Starring: Clara Bow, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Richard Arlen
The complete, uncut, WWI action drama that won the first Best Picture Academy Award. Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers are friends who enlist in the Army... Read more