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"
Faust (1926)
8.1/10
Director: F W Murnau
Starring: Emil Jannings, Warner Fuetterer, Gosta Ekman
F.W. Murnau's last German film features astonishing photography, magnificent art direction, and special effects which retain the power to amaze. Freed... 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
Haxan - Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922)
Director: Benjamin Christensen
Starring: Maren Pedersen, Emmy Schoenfield, Oscar Stribolt, Narrated by, William Burroughs
This semi-documentary opens with a series of medieval prints and follows with re-enactments of old legends concerning crones, evil-minded monks and th... Read more
Melies the Magician (1997)
Director: Jacques Meny
A documentary on pioneering French filmmaker Georges Melies along with fifteen of his rarely seen restored films from 1898-1905. Included are the leg... Read more
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)
Director: Robert Weine
Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover
Set in a little village on the Dutch border, fairground hypnotist Dr Caligari puts on show a somnambulist called Cesare who has been asleep for 23 yea... 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 Last Laugh (1924)
8.1/10
Director: F W Murnau
Starring: Emil Jannings, Kurt Hiller
The crowning achievement of the German expressionist movement and one of the most notable artworks to arise from the Weimar Republic is Friedrich Wilh... Read more
A Home Of Your Own (1964)
6.8/10
Starring: Ronnie Barker, Richard Briers, Peter Butterworth, Bernard Cribbins, Bill Fraser
This wordless, though noisy comedy is a satire on Britain's building industry and stars Ronnie Barker as the put-upon cement mixer, Peter Butterworth... Read more
Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 30s (2005)
5.7/10
Culled from the collection of noted movie archivist Raymond Rohauer, this two-disc set features more than 20 artistically diverse experimental short f... Read more
The Ten Commandments (1956 and 1923 versions) (1956)
7.9/10
Director: Cecil B DeMille
Starring: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo, D...
For sheer pageantry and spectacle, few motion pictures can claim to equal the splendor of Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 remake of his epic "The Ten Commandm... Read more