10 Best Silent Movies
Since The Artist, a mostly silent import from France, is the frontrunner to take home the Best Picture Oscar later this weekend (as well as possibly Best Director and Actor), I thought it would be a particularly good time to put forth a list of some of the best and brightest of the silent era of cinema. It is a sad fact but many, if not most of the moviegoers today have never even seen a silent film, so I would like to point out some of the better ones, hoping that perhaps this may inspire the current generation of film lovers to take that first step toward an appreciation of a very interesting and very experimentally daring period in film history.
Before I get started though, I would like to toss out a few titles that ended up not making the list, but films that are still quite worthy of praise and recognition. These films are, in no particular order: Birth of a Nation (Griffith); Greed (von Stroheim); The Kid (Chaplin); The Unknown (Browning); Nosferatu (Murnau); Intolerance (Griffith); Les Vampires (Feuillade); The Iron Horse (Ford); Show People (Vidor); Underworld (von Sternberg); Variety (Dupont); Seventh Heaven (Borzage); The Man Who Laughs (Leni); The Marriage Circle (Lubitsch); Modern Times (Chaplin); Our Hospitality (Keaton/Blystone); Earth (Dovzhenko); The Mark of Zorro (Niblo); The Crowd (Vidor); Flesh and the Devil (Brown); The Thief of Bagdad (Walsh); Napoleon (Gance); Pandora’s Box (Pabst); Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein); The Big Parade (Vidor); Safety Last (Newmeyer/Taylor); Nanook of the North (Flaherty).
And now, without further ado, I give you my choices for the ten best silent films.
Special Mentions: A Trip to the Moon / The Great Train Robbery
Two of the most influential motion pictures ever made, and they are just fourteen and twelve minutes respectively. Georges Méliès’ 1902 film A Trip to the Moon is considered the granddaddy of science fiction and helped shape the adventure films of the 1920′s – several of which are on the upcoming list proper. It was also the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s Oscar nominated 3D spectacle of cinematic love, Hugo. As for the 1903 Edwin S. Porter classic, The Great Train Robbery, it is considered the first western as well as the first truly narrative film produced in America. The image above is the final shot of the film and legend has it that many audiences fled in terror thinking they would get shot. This too influenced the aforementioned Scorsese as he would have Joe Pesci pull the same act at the end of Goodfellas.
10. The Phantom Carriage (1921)
Back in the silent era, after the US, Germany and Italy, Sweden had the largest output of films, and this haunting supernatural film from master director Victor Sjöström is the best of an already full slate of world class cinema. Telling the story of a man who has laughed at death and paid the price, Sjöström’s harrowing film is a horror classic recently rediscovered with a restored print making the rounds last year.
9. Metropolis (1927)
At the onset of Hitler’s Germany, Fritz Lang would be one of the many European directors to make their way to Hollywood, but years before that the great director would create a work of anti-fascist bravura. Taking place in a dystopian future society, Metropolis is an audacious creature of cinematic bravado that even today is as powerful and as bold as it ever was.
8. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Directed by Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer, this French language film is one of about two dozen or so renditions of the life of France’s most famous martyr, and with its brazen close-ups and demented angles, and with the hauntingly strange beauty of Maria Falconetti’s face as the doomed former maid, it is the most dangerously bedeviling of them all.
7. The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1927)
While much of Weimar era German cinema was busy making expressionistic masterpieces, Arnold Fanck, with the help of G.W. Pabst, was quietly creating a series of beautifully photographed mountain climbing films, culminating in this, the greatest of them all. Referenced several times in Tarantino’s WWII masterpiece Inglourious Basterds, this gorgeous film would also star Leni Riefenstahl, the woman who would become the most infamous director in film history – but that is a story for another day.
6. The Last Laugh (1924)
The first of two F.W. Murnau films to make the list, this tale of a hotel doorman who loses his job, and therefore, in his mind, his prestige and dignity, and stumbles into a downward spiral, is a remarkable feat of filmmaking. As Murnau’s camera spins and weaves and follows its protagonist around with voyeuristic glee, and once and a while even doing the seemingly impossible, and giant Emil Jannings creates the most brutish yet most sympathetic character, the viewer cannot fail to become mesmerized by the images.
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21 Comments
Wow, great list.
I would like to offer three additions for your considerations:
Un Chien Andalou, Man With A Movie Camera and Safety Last!
Thanx!
I am not a fan of Un Chien. AS for Man With A Movie Camera, it was on my short list and was one of the final ones cut from the list. Safety Last is fun but not enough in my opinion to include other than as a runner-up.
An interesting list, especially considering that I watched and reviewed Sunrise last night. Anyway…I’d lose The Last Laugh and would absolutely add Sherlock Jr. And no inclusion of Nosferatu is a real miss.
Some great choices here, though. Passion of Joan of Arc and The Phantom Carriage are fantastic additions.
I would never lose the Last Laugh, but Sherlock Jr. is one that almost made the grade.
Battleship Potemkin and Intolerance. Both invented the grammar of the new medium.
As great as Potemkin is (it places 11th if I were to extend this list) the use of montage that Eisenstein put into effect, for better and/or for worse has been put to the wayside in most cinema.
A wonderfully assembled list. I am about 3/4 a way through the latest ‘complete’ version of Metropolis. Quite impressive so far.
When I was working on an Academy Awards project recently, I started to read a bit more about Sunrise. I am definitely going to watch that. It looks epic.
I liked a couple of your Honorable Mention list including Greed and Safety Last.
I have the Criterion for Modern Times (yet to be watched). Surprised that Birth of a Nation did not crack the top 10. I know it is a very controversial film (heck I have not seen it), but I have heard that technical aspects of the film are groundbreaking.
Besides that I have seen a bunch of Chaplin shorts which I guess do not technically count, eh
Thanx.
As per Birth of A Nation – it is quite controversial today but that does not stop its power as a motion picture. Actually though, if any Griffith were to break the top ten, it would be Intolerance – a bolder, braver film indeed.
Think I will catch as a double bill.
That is going to be one looong double bill.
Sunrise is one of my absolute favourite movies of all time! It is so beautiful. City Lights will probably feature quite high up in my top 100…that final scene is just precious.
The finale of City Lights is one of the reasons one could give to an alien civilization when asked to explain or defend the cinema.
Excellent list! As soon as I got to the Phantom Carriage, I smiled because I knew it’d be a solid list. And when I saw that Keaton hadn’t been sacrificed at the altar of Chaplin, my expectations for the list were met. Even your honorable mentions are great choices.
Glad you approve. I figured my somewhat questionable choices (no Potemkin or Intolerance or Nosferatu / including Pitz Palü) would start some arguments – canonically speaking that is – but no such “luck”.
My tastes in film tends to go towards the fantastical side, so I would nominate two films you didn’t mention- Haxan (1922)- Benjamin Christensen’s powerful look at witchcraft, and I would also add Murnau’s Nosferatu. Otherwise, as always, this is a great list!
Nosferatu just missed out. It would surely make a top twenty list. As for Haxan – I have not seen that one (yes, there are a few films I have yet to see) so I could not include it. It is one I plan on seeing within the next few months though.
Great feature! Being a great fan of Murnau I would have had Nosferatu somewhere but not loose the two others… Ten choices isn’t easy when it comes to Silent films… I’m planning on doing a revisit of Victor Sjöström’s films soon on my blog, for those interested!
Yes, narrowing this list down to just ten proved quite difficult indeed.
This list just re-reminds me I haven’t seen anywhere near enough silent cinema.
You mentioned Riefenstahl. I recently read an in depth article about her and talked about “The Blue Light” which sounded fascinating. I’m curious, have you seen that one?
I am on a German Mountain Film kick lately and actually just watched The Blue Light for the first time last week. Riefenstahl, despite her soiled reputation (perhaps unfairly so to a point) was one of the finest and bravest directors to ever work in cinema.
I’m familiar with a few of these but this is a really comprehensive overview of silent era film. Sunrise is a film I haven’t seen so I’m going to have to check that out! Very interesting read. Good stuff Kevyn.
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