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 Holy Mountain (1926)
7.9/10
Director: Arnold Fanck
Starring: Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Trenker, Ernst Petersen
In director Arnold Fanck's breathtaking silent drama, considered by many to be the epitome of the German "mountain film" genre, Leni Riefenstahl plays... 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
Harold Lloyd - The Definitive Collection: Volume 1 ( inc. Safety Last ) (1923)
Starring: Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd was one of the greatest and most loved comedians of the early film era. More sympathetic than Keaton, more prolific than Chaplin, Harold... Read more
Dr Mabuse, The Gambler (1922)
7.9/10
Director: Fritz Lang
Starring: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Aud Egede Nissen
This expressionist classic is the tale of a master criminal (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) planning to rule the world and the State Attorney trying to entrap hi... Read more
Grass (1925)
7.9/10
Director: Ernest B Schoedsack, Merian C Cooper
"King Kong" creators Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack risked their lives to make this monumental documentary about the Bakhtiari people of we... Read more
Chaplin - The Legend Lives On (1914)
Starring: Charlie Chaplin
This definitive five-disc collection from the legendary Charlie Chaplin includes: "Caught in a Cabaret", "Mabel's Busy Day", "By the Sea", "His New Jo... Read more
Asphalt (1929)
7.6/10
Director: Joe May
Starring: Betty Amann, Gustav Frohlich, Else Heller
One of the last great German Expressionist films of the silent era from acclaimed director Joe May. A by-the-book traffic cop (Gustav Frohlich) catche... 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
Foolish Wives (1922)
7.2/10
Director: Erich Von Stroheim
Starring: Erich Von Stroheim, Maud George, Mae Busch
Publicised as the first film to cost a million dollars, praised for it's extravagant visual design and condemned for it's portrayal of a rogue count's... Read more
The Golem (1920)
7.2/10
Director: Paul Wegener, Carl Boese
Starring: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrueck, Ernst Deutsch, Lyda Salmonova
Directed, produced by and starring Paul Wegener, "Der Golem" is a masterpiece of early cinema. The story centres on a Jewish community threatened with... Read more