Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Cinema

Workers in a factory in pre-revolutionary Russia go on strike and are met by violent suppression.

A recalcitrant thief vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.

The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.

With an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess.

A lone prospector ventures into Alaska looking for gold. He gets mixed up with some burly characters and falls in love with the beautiful Georgia. He tries to win her heart with his singular charm.

A bully browbeats his wife and children until he meets his match in the woman who raised him.

Prince Danilo falls in love with dancer Sally O'Hara. However, his uncle, King Nikita I of Monteblanco, forbids the marriage due to her being a commoner. Thinking she's been jilted by her prince, Sally marries lecherous old Baron Sadoja, whose wealth has kept the kingdom afloat. When he suddenly dies, Sally must be wooed all over again by Danilo.

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Battleship Potemkin is the classic masterpiece silent film from director Sergej Eisenstein from 1925. The film is based on the true events of the Russian Revolution of 1905. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and was a masterful example of montage editing.

A man learns that he will inherit a fortune if he marries by 7PM that evening.

Young man shows his millionaire grandfather a film based on Molière's Tartuffe, in order to expose the old man's hypocritical governess who covets his own inheritance.

After a man kills two members of his Yukon gold prospecting team, the other two surviving members struggle to keep him subdued for the next several months until they can turn him over to the law.

God and Satan wager on the soul of a learned and prayerful alchemist as part of their eternal war over Earth.

Adam, a plumber, is happily married to Eve, a wardrobe-obsessed housewife, until she accidentally meets a supercilious fashion designer. At the prompting of her neighbor, who has secret designs on Adam, Eve secretly becomes a fashion model by day, knowing that her husband would disapprove.

Robert J. Flaherty’s follow-up to Nanook of the North shifts from the Arctic to the South Seas, portraying Samoan village life with a painterly eye.

A story about a family torn apart by a worker's strike. At first, the mother wants to protect her family from the troublemakers, but eventually she realizes that her son is right and the workers should strike.

A man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.

On the day of Fadinard's wedding, his horse eats a lady's hat on a bush at the roadside, while the lady is hidden behind the bush with her lover Lieutenant Tavernier.

Also known as "Charleston Parade"

The General is an American silent film comedy from Buster Keaton from 1927. The film was in its time a flop yet now days is regarded as the height of silent film comedy. The film is based on events from America’s civil war.

A wealthy young businessman consecutively falls in love with a classy English woman (Pearl), a Russian sculptress (Athalia), and a naive working-class girl (Lucie).

A flapper shopgirl woos her rich boss with animal magnetism -- the captivating personal quality otherwise known as "it."

Okjabre was supposed to create a film about the tenth anniversary of the Russian October Revolution yet he created a lot more than just that; through historical montages Director Eisenstein created a part documentary part intellectual film.

Jack Saunders and Bob Corby are two boxers in love with Nellie. Jack and Nellie are married but their marriage is flat so she starts to look to Bob for comfort

In 1910s Paris, a sewer worker disillusioned with Christianity feels his prayers have been answered when he chances upon a street waif and they fall in love.

The first film from director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau to be finished in the States. The film has the tangible elements of German expressionism. Murnau received a big budget from Fox and the ability to make all the filmmaking decisions. The film has been called the greatest silent film of all time.

Adapted from the novel L'Argent by Émile Zola, the film portrays the world of banking and the stock market in Paris in the 1920s.

A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.

Convinced that his family is tainted by generations of evil, Roderick Usher is hellbent on stopping his sister Madeline’s wedding to prevent the cursed Usher bloodline from expanding. When her fiancé Allan arrives at the crumbling estate to claim his bride, Roderick goes to ruthless—even deadly—lengths to keep them apart.

The film centers on ambitious but undisciplined New York City office worker John who meets and marries Mary. They start a family, struggle to cope with marital stress, financial setbacks, and tragedy, all while lost amid the anonymous, pitiless throngs of the big city.

The Docks of New York was one of the last successful silent films before cinemas turned towards sound. The film received excellent reviews and is today known as a classic conversation from the silent film era.

Stan complains of a toothache and he and Ollie visit the dentist. Ollie gets his teeth pulled by mistake. Under the influence of laughing gas, they leave and cause much commotion on the road annoying a traffic cop.

The Passion of Joan of Arc is the masterpiece from Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer that depicts the story of French martyr Joan from Orleans seven years after her canonization from the catholic church.

An impoverished girl tries to sell matches on New Year's Eve. Shivering with cold and unable to sell her wares, she sits in a sheltered nook. Striking a match to keep warm, the flame shows her what's beyond.

In Kronberg, Ruritania, the planned wedding of Queen Regina and Prince Wolfram is disrupted when the prince falls in love with Patricia Kelly, a beautiful orphan at the convent. The prince kidnaps Patricia and takes her to the palace, but the queen drives her out.

The mastermind behind a ubiquitous spy operation learns of a dangerous romance between a Russian lady in his employ and a dashing agent from the government's secret service.

Two sailors on shore leave rent a car and go on a drive with their dates, but soon get involved in a huge traffic jam with dozens of ill-tempered motorists. A minor collision sets off an escalating series of retaliations.

Set in the bleak aftermath and devastation of the World War I, a recently demobbed soldier, Timosh, returns to his hometown Kiev, after having survived a train wreck. His arrival coincides with a national celebration of Ukrainian freedom, but the festivities are not to last as a disenchanted.

Duke Ellington plays hot jazz in a fictional story that finds him down on his luck; he tries in vain to dissuade his friend, dancer Fredi Washington, from working with heart trouble even though it means work for his band. Sure enough, she collapses on stage...

The 1929 Blackmail film was one of the earliest signs of Alfred Hitchcock’s genius as a director.

Wealthy Cynthia is in love with not-so-wealthy Roger, who is married to Marcia. The threesome is terribly modern about the situation, and Marcia will gladly divorce Roger if Cynthia agrees to a financial settlement. But Cynthia's wealth is in jeopardy because her trust fund will expire if she is not married by a certain date.

A celebration of the collectivization of agriculture, as championed by old-line Bolshevik Leon Trotsky.

A black laborer turns preacher after accidentally killing a man.

Two lonely people in the big city meet and enjoy the thrills of an amusement park, only to lose each other in the crowd after spending a great day together. Will they ever see each other again?

The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying.

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

In the short-lived Commune of Paris, a conscripted soldier falls in love with a Communard saleswoman. As the army cracks down on the revolutionaries, the soldier is forced to fight against the Commune, and the pair's love is put to the test.

A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.