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 Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
7.9/10
Director: Lotte Reiniger
German director Lotte Reiniger spent three years making this silent animated film based on the Arabian Nights legends. The dashing Prince Achmed saves... Read more
Laurel & Hardy: Someone's Ailing (1932)
4.7/10
Starring: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel
A collection of classic Laurel & Hardy shorts on the theme of ailments, plus the only example of a direct sequel in L&H history. In 'County Hospital'... Read more
Intolerance (1916)
8/10
Director: D W Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, Bessie Love
After the storm of controversy that followed "The Birth of a Nation", D.W. Griffith followed up with this profound comment on intolerance through the... Read more
Orphans of the Storm (1921)
7.8/10
Director: D W Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Schildkraut, Creighton Hale, Monte Blue
DW Griffith's epic tale of two sisters caught up in the French Revolution, played by two sisters. Henriette (Lillian Gish) brings her blind sister (D... Read more
Tartuffe (1926)
7.3/10
Director: F W Murnau
Starring: Hermann Picha, Rosa Valetti, Lil Dagover, Werner Krauss, Emil Jannings
Famous German filmmaker FW Murnau's interpretation of Moliere's satirical play about a devious housekeeper who convinces her master to cut his son out... 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
The Lost World (1925)
7.1/10
Director: Harry Hoyt
Starring: Bessie Love, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone
The original silent film version of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic adventure story about a group of travellers who are transported to a world populated... Read more
Mad Love: Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913) / After Death (1915) / The Dying Swan (1916)
5.3/10
Director: Evgenii Bauer
The films of Russian cinema pioneer Evgenii Bauer were thought to be lost until the dying days of the Soviet regime when 20 of his 80 films were recov... Read more
The First Kings of Comedy Collection (1957)
Director: Robert Youngson
Starring: Ben Turpin, Buster Keaton, Carole Lombard, Charley Chase, Charlie Chaplin, Harry...
Famed documentarian Robert Youngson presents a pair of documentaries that celebrate the era of silent slapstick comedy. First, "The Golden Age of Come... Read more
The Artist (Blu-ray) (2011)
7.9/10
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Starring: James Cromwell, John Goodman, Penelope Ann Miller, Berenice Bejo, Jean Dujardin
Five Academy Awards--including Best Picture, Director, and Actor--went to this magical, mostly silent seriocomedy set in 1927 Hollywood. As screen ido... Read more