1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

A Trip to The Moon is a science fiction film from the French film pioneer Georges Méliès from the year 1902 about a trip to the moon. The film was the first film with a self-contained plot and was the beginning of the Science Fiction genre.

After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.

Les Vampires is a 10-part silent film serial. It was written and directed by Louis Feuillade and stars Musidora as "Irma Vep" a femme fatale whose name is a suspicious anagram of "vampire." The serial is set in Paris, France and follows the exploits of a gang of master criminals who call themselves "Les Vampires."

The Birth of A Nation is a silent film from 1915 and the highest grossing film in film history. The film tells a romance story during the American civil war.

Four historical tales depict the ongoing human struggle against prejudice and inhumanity.

Broken Blossoms is an American silent film from director D. W. Griffith. This melodrama tells the love story of an abused English woman and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

Abandoned by her fiancé, an educated negro woman with a shocking past dedicates herself to helping a near bankrupt school for impoverished negro youths.

An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.

France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.

Arch-criminal Dr. Mabuse sets out to make a fortune and run Berlin. Detective Wenk sets out to stop him.

"Count" Karanzim, a Don Juan is with his cousins in Monte Carlo, living from faked money and the money he gets from rich ladies, who are atracted by his charmes and his title or his militaric aristocratic behaviour. He tries to have sucess by Mrs Hughes, the wige of the new US ambassador, but he has bad luck.

Haxan is a study about how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases and mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. The film was made as a documentary but contains dramatized sequences that are comparable to horror films.

Nanook Of The North is Robert J. Flaherty’s beautiful film about an Inuit man named Nanook and his family. Filmed during one year of their life in the icy desolation of Northern Canada. The film was an enormous success and is the founder of the documentary film genre.

Although the critics in 1922 didn’t find the film to be anything special, a few years after it’s release it was called innovative and a landmark in cinema history. German director Murnau’s vampire film holds claim to one of the most, if not the most important German expressionist film and a foundation for horror films.

Sisif, a railwayman, and his son Elie fall in love with the beautiful Norma (whom Sisif rescued from a train crash when a baby and raised as his daughter), with tragic results. Originally running over nine hours, its recent editions have been cut to about four hours.

An unhappily married woman devises a scheme to get rid of her husband.

Our Hospitality is a silent film from 1923, starring Buster Keaton. The film is about a family feud that begins a young mans journey…

An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel, is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.

The sudden fortune won from a lottery fans such destructive greed that it ruins the lives of the three people involved.

Sherlock Jr. is an American silent film comedy starring and directed by Buster Keaton from 1924. The film is about a film demonstrator who must fight for his life.

Herbert Ponting travelled to Antarctica as part of Captain Scott's ill-fated South pole expedition and shot the footage that makes up this extraordinary documentary.

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

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.

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

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.

Vladimir Dubrouvsky, a lieutenant in the Russian army, catches the eye of Czarina Catherine II. He spurns her advances and flees, and she puts out a warrant for his arrest, dead or alive. Vladimir learns that his father's lands have been taken by the evil Kyrilla Troekouroff, and his father dies.

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.

The Phantom of the Opera is a silent film by Rupert Julian from 1925 that is based on a novel from French writer Gaston Leroux.

Taken from The Arabian Nights, a wicked sorcerer and the beautiful prince Achmed battle one against the other during a series of wondrous adventures.

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.

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.

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

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.

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.

The Jazz Singer is the first full length feature film to use sound. Director Alan Crosland created the precursor of musical films.

The timid youngest son of the most important family in town must use his wits to win the respect of his strong father and the love of a beautiful new woman in town.

Lon Chaney is carnival knife thrower Alonzo the Armless and Joan Crawford is the scantily clad carnival girl he hopes to marry.

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.

In 1918 a young and simple Mongol herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes to the hills after brawling with the trader who cheated him.

The effete son of a cantankerous riverboat captain comes to join his father's crew.

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.

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

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

Die Büchse der Pandora, meaning Pandora’s Box, is a classic German silent film from director Pabst. This is the third film about the Lulu-Stoffes character from Frank Wedekind and is deemed a masterpiece.

Two neighboring kings addicted to gambling, kind Ranjit and his wicked cousin Sohan, vie for the same beautiful woman, Sunita. Ranjit loses his kingdom and his love and becomes Sohan's slave through a crooked game of dice.

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

A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I. Together with several other young German soldiers, he experiences the horrors of war, such evil of which he had not conceived of when signing up to fight. They eventually become sad, tormented, and confused of their purpose.

The Blue Angel / Der Blaue Engel is a 1930 German film from Josef von Starnberg. An adaptation of the 1905 novel “The Blue Angel: Small Town Tyrant.”