Critics
Silent Era's The Top 300 Silent Era Films
Easy Street
A derelict, huddled under the steps of a missionary church, feels enlightened by the sermon of a passionate preacher and infatuated by the beauty of the congregation's pianist, in such a way that he tries to improve his life of poverty by becoming a policeman. His first assignment will be to patrol along Easy Street, the turf of a vicious bully ...
Why Worry?
Harold Van Pelham (Lloyd) is a hypochondriac, rich businessman who sails to the tropics for his 'health.' Instead of the peace and seclusion he is seeking, he finds himself in the middle of a revolution. He is imprisoned where he befriends the friendly giant, Colosso (Aasen), and they engineer an escape. Together, they quell the revolution.
Scaramouche
A law student becomes an outlaw French revolutionary when he decides to avenge the unjust killing of his friend. To get close to the aristocrat who has killed his friend, the student adopts the identity of Scaramouche the clown.
A poet is hired by the owner of a wax museum in a circus to write tales about Harun al Raschid, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper. While writing, the poet and the daughter of the owner, Eva, fantasize the fantastic stories and fall in love for each other.
Don Juan
If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical B...
City Girl
Lem goes to Chicago to sell the wheat his family has grown on their farm in Minnesota. There he meets the waitress Kate.
Hindle Wakes
A young working-class girl causes a stir when she sneaks off for a romantic getaway with the wealthy heir of the mill where she works.
Tumbleweeds
William S. Hart stars in this 1925 silent film as a cowboy intent on claiming land during the 1889 land rush in the Oklahoma Territory. Though hardened from years of taming the new frontier, he falls in love with a beautiful woman. Before he settles down, however, he must contend with men who wish to bring him harm. In the prologue of the 1939 A...
Lilyhammer
After Frank The Fixer Tagliano testifies against his Mafia boss in New York, he enters the Witness Protection Program and makes an unusual demand: he wants to be set up with a new life in the Norwegian small town of Lillehammer or as he calls it, Lilyhammer.
Two Tars
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.
Jûjiro
After falling in love with a courtesan, Rikiya is blinded by ash during a fight in a brothel. Believing the blindness permanent and his opponent dead, Rikiya goes back home to his sister. Okiku, desperate to protect her brother who thinks himself a murderer, wants to sacrifice herself for him and become a prostitute to pay for Rikiya's treatment.
The Cure
An alcoholic checks into a health spa and his antics promptly throw the establishment into chaos.
Lonesome
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?
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.
Daddy-Long-Legs
Wealthy Jarvis Pendleton acts as benefactor for orphan Judy Abbott, anonymously sponsoring her in her boarding school. But as she grows up, he finds himself falling in love with her, and she with him, though she does not know that the man she has fallen for is her benefactor.
What Price Glory
U.S. Marine sergeants Quirt and Flagg are inveterate romantic rivals on peacetime assignments in China and the Philippines. In 1917, W.W. I brings them to France, where Flagg, now a captain, takes up with flirtatious Charmaine, inn-keeper's daughter. Of course, Quirt has to arrive and spoil his fun. But the harsh realities of war and the threat ...
The Sea Hawk
The adventures of Oliver Tressilian, who goes from English gentry to galley slave to captain of a Moorish fighting ship.
Der brennende Acker
When farmer Rog dies, his eldest Peter takes over the farm while his youngest Johannes is determined for a better life: he becomes secretary to Count Rudenberg and starts courting his daughter Gerda. When he learns that the Count, who is terminally ill, has bequeathed a piece of land under which lies a petroleum field to his second wife, he cour...
Entr'acte
Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most 'dada' film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and chased by its pallbearers) and a dizzying roller coaster finale. A film of contradictions and agre...
Three Ages
The misadventures of Buster in three separate historical periods.
Asphalt
Starring Betty Amann in her most famous leading role, Joe May's Asphalt is a luxuriously produced German Expressionist classic where tragic liaisons and fatal encounters are shaped alongside the constant roar of Berlin traffic.
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 Eagle
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. He dons a black mask, and becomes the outlaw The ...
J'accuse!
The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.
Ménilmontant
A pair of sisters leave the country for the city after their parents are slaughtered in a mysterious axe murder.
Peter Pan
Peter Pan enters the nursery of the Darling children and, with the help of fairy dust, leads them off to Never Never Land, where they meet the nefarious Captain Hook.
Behind in the mortgage on Sunnybrook Farm and barely managing to feed seven hungry mouths, mother sends young Rebecca off to Riverboro to be raised by her wealthy Aunt Miranda. The little girl is treated like a prisoner by her strict Aunt, yet she gamely does her best to get an education. When spoiled girls at school mock the spirited Rebecca as...
Within Our Gates
Abandoned by her fiancé, an educated negro woman with a shocking past dedicates herself to helping a near bankrupt school for impoverished negro youths.
The Trail of '98
Fortune hunters from all over the country rushing to the Klondike in 1897 to seek their fortunes in the gold are tested by hardships of the journey.
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp
A poor cobbler's son enters a $25,000 cross-country hiking contest sponsored by the footwear company that has nearly bankrupted his father. He also has fallen in love with the girl on the company's billboards, the competition's daughter, and her sweet inspiration keeps him tramping along.
Brown of Harvard
Tom Brown shows up at Harvard, confident and a bit arrogant. He becomes a rival of Bob McAndrew, not only in football and rowing crew, but also for the affections of Mary Abbott, a professor's daughter.
Hot Water
Lloyd's look at married life and the issues of the in-law. Adventures include a ride on a crowded trolley with a live turkey; A wild spin in a new auto with the in-laws in tow. Finally, a sequence in which Hubby accidentally chloroforms his mother-in-law and becomes convinced that he's killed her!
Herr Tartüff
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.
The Finishing Touch
Stan and Ollie are hired to build a house in just one day. When they are done, a bird lands on the house and it collapses. Naturally, the owner wants his money back.
Po zakonu
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.
An alcoholic doctor on a Polynesian island, disgusted by white exploitation of the natives, finds himself marooned on a pristinely beautiful island.
A society woman believes her husband is having an affair, a misconception which may have dire personal consequences for all involved.
John Trimble has embezzled and obtains another identity by having a mutilated body buried in his place. He is later arrested for murdering himself. During the trial his mother, before dying from shock, asks him to keep his identity secret since his wife is now married to the Governor and expecting a child.
A pampered American oyster tycoon decides to buy a husband for his daughter, but things don’t go quite as planned. Along the way there are mishaps, misunderstandings and a foxtrot sequence that must be seen to be believed.
Casanova
Republic of Venice, 1760. Pursued by a vengeful husband, the intrepid womanizer Casanova, who symbolizes the decline of the city and its fall into debauchery, manages to escape and, by a circuitous route, arrives in Saint Petersburg, where he will be involved in the many plots that threaten the throne of Czar Peter III…
L'argent
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.
The Rink
After amusements working in a restaurant, a waiter uses his lunch break to go roller skating.
Behind the Screen
During the troubled shooting of several movies, David, the prop man's assistant, meets an aspiring actress who tries to find work in the studio. Things get messy when the stagehands decide to go on strike.
La Bohème
A group of starving artists try to survive in 1830s Paris, including a seamstress and the would-be playwright she loves.
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
Cobra
Rodrigo, an impoverished Italian nobleman takes a job with a New York antique dealer he met overseas. Swearing off women, Rodrigo focuses on his job. But complications arise when he falls in love with his friend's secretary-- and his friend's wife looks to make a date with him.
A live-action film adaptation of the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. This silent short film follows the established theme: the “Rarebit Fiend” gorges himself on rarebit and thus suffers spectacular hallucinatory dreams.
The Electric House
Botany major Buster mistakenly graduates in electrical engineering and is hired to wire a new home.
A silent documentary which follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia as they and their herds make their seasonal journey to better pastures.
Laugh, Clown, Laugh
A professional clown and a self-indulgent count learn to help each other with their problems, but then become romantic rivals.