"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"
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
Hopelessly in love with a woman working at MGM Studios, a clumsy man attempts to become a motion picture cameraman to be close to the object of his de... Read more
One of the great ghost stories and the prototype of all haunted house mysteries. Director Paul Leni's silent masterpiece is set in a creepy mansion wh... Read more
Born on the fourth of July, 1900, the future holds unlimited potential for newborn John Sims. But dreams soon fade with the death of his father when J... Read more
Based on a Pushkin novel, 'The Eagle' stars Rudolph Valentino as a Russian cossack who is the special favourite of the formidable Catherine the Great... Read more
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
Toni Le Brun, a beautiful Viennese singer, becomes the ward of the wardrobe mistress of a Monte Carlo nightclub. Her benefactor, however, is actually... Read more
Considered by many to be Chaplin's finest comedy: Charlie is the gold prospector in the Yukon near starvation and treacherous villains. Many great sce... Read more
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
The first motion picture to be shot with a coherent narrative celebrates a century with this release featuring the original silent print as well as a... Read more