The Big Parade
The harrowing story of a young man's front-line experiences in World War I. The film fiercely captures the heroism of the ordinary foot soldier struggling to survive, and how James' determination to return to the village girl he loves faces the ultimate test.
The Birth of a Nation
Nearly 100 years after its initial release, this film remains one of the most controversial films ever made and a landmark achievement in film history that continues to fascinate and enrage audiences. It is the epic story of two families, one Northern and one Southern, during and after the Civil War. D.W. Griffith's masterful direction combines brilliant battle scenes and tender romance with a vicious portrayal of African-Americans.
Broken Blossoms
A fifteen-year-old street urchin who longs to escape her miserable existence. Emotionally scarred by the torment and neglect of her abusive father, the girl collapses outside the shop of the lonely and disillusioned 'yellow man'. As he tenderly nurtures her back to health, an unspoken romance flowers between them, awakening in each of them feelings of love.
The Cameraman
Keaton plays a lovestruck tintype photographer who falls for a pretty girl, an employee of MGM News service. Buying an antiquated movie camera, he sets out to film news events in the streets of New York so he can win a job and the girl's affection.
The Dragon Painter
Hayakawa plays Tatsu, a wild youth living in the mountain forests of Japan, spending all his time painting. Although Tatsu creates beautiful art, local villagers believe that he is insane, as he claims that he has a beloved princess fiancée who has been turned into a dragon. When a renowned-but-aging artist hears of the young hermit's talent, Tatsu is brought to civilization with the hope that he will both become the student of the old artist and marry the elderly man's daughter to continue the family lineage and traditions.
The Epic of Everest
When George Mallory and Sandy Irvine set out to reach the summit of Everest in 1924 they came closer than any previous attempt. Inspired by the work of Herbert Ponting (the Great White Silence) Captain Noel filmed in the harshest of conditions, with specially adapted equipment, to capture the drama of the fateful expedition.
The Gold Rush
Classic Chaplin (the Little Tramp) prospects for gold, gets involved with a dance hall girl, and deals with a burly competitor during the Yukon gold rush.
The Half-Breed
In The half-Breed, a man is ostracized for his mixed ethnicity. In The good bad man, a sentimental outlaw helps others.
He Who Gets Slapped
Slap him once, slap him 100 times, the Big Top crowd roars. The clown known to delighted throngs as HE has made a comedic art of getting batted around. Life has battered him even more. Behind the mask, HE hides the torment of once being a brilliant scientist whose research and wife were stolen by a colleague. And behind the mask, when the time comes, HE realizes his revenge.
Intolerance: Love's Struggles Through the Ages
Comprised of four separate, interwoven stories, unified by the common theme of man's inhumanity to man. The Babylonian story deals with the fall of Babylon in 538 B.C. The Judean story features the life of Christ. The French story centers on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572. The modern story is set in an American mill town and the slum area of an American city.
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
A rash of murders causes a family to be suspicious of their tenant, a man who seems fascinated with their daughter.
The Man Who Laughs
Gwynplaine is doomed to live life wearing a perpetual grin. Carved on his face because his father, Lord Clancharlie, had offended England's king. Gwynplaine grows up alongside the beautiful, but blind, Dea and they fall in love.
The Marriage Circle
Ernst Lubitsch's first American comedy masterpiece, the film that kept him in the States. His influential silent comedy effortlessly follows the love and lust, flirtations and phoniness among several upper-crust citizens of Vienna. In Lubitsch's deft hands, the film continues the tradition of manners comedy and shows the 'touch' the director was famous for. Lubitsch knew that in an atmosphere of hushed whispers and discretion, a kiss can carry quite an erotic charge. English intertitles.
Moana
Director Robert J. Flaherty journeyed with his wife, Frances, and their children to the South Seas island of Savai'i to capture on film the exotic lifestyles of the Samoan people. In doing so, they resurrected and dramatized the recently vanished customs and struggles of the people just before modernization permanently altered the cultural landscape of the island.
Modern Times
When his boss demands more speed and efficiency, Chaplin goes crazy from his repetitious assembly line job.
Monte Cristo
A sailor is unjustly imprisoned for twenty years, time he spends acquiring education and finesse. He then reinvents himself as Dante, the Count of Monte Cristo, and dishes out revenge to all that have wronged him.
Piccadilly
Wong is mesmerizing as Shosho, the Chinese dishwasher who overnight becomes the toast of the town and the object of every man's desire. The camera adores Wong her beauty glows in every frame.
Safety Last!
The comic genius of silent star Harold Lloyd is eternal. He plays a small-town bumpkin trying to make it in the big city, who finds employment as a lowly department-store clerk. He comes up with a wild publicity stunt to draw attention to the store, resulting in an incredible feat of derring-do on his part that gets him started on the climb to success.
The Sheik / Son of the Sheik
The Sheik: A desert sheik, Sheik Ahmed, kidnaps an English girl, the Lady Diana, and holds her captive. Lady Diana resists the advances of her abductor but is then kidnapped by desert bandits.
The Son of the Sheik: Valentino plays a dual role of father and son in this story of the young Ahmed, who falls in love with Yasmin, a dancing girl, but is then captured and tortured by renegades.
Sherlock Jr
A projectionist who is studying to be a detective falls in love with a beautiful girl. After he proposes, his rival steals her father's watch and incriminates him. While at work he falls asleep and dreams of being the detective of the story.
Sparrows
Deep in the Southern swamps, the Grimes family operates a baby farm where unwanted or "lost" children are cruelly underfed and overworked. When the children are threatened, Mama Mollie, the oldest of the kids, leads her troop through an alligator-infested swamp in one of the most harrowing escapes in cinema history.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
The love and loyalty of a farmer and his wife are put to the ultimate test in this classic silent film.
Undergrounf
Anthony Asquith masterfully balances the light and dark sides of city life to evoke the daily existence of the average Londoner, telling the story of an electrician and a porter who both fall in love with the same shop girl.
Wagon Tracks
Buckskin Hamilton guides a wagon train across the wasteland, caring well for the pioneers he escorts, but hoping to solve the murder of his brother by one of the travelers.
Wings
Two young men, one rich, one middle class, are in love with the same woman, but must leave her behind when they become fighter pilots in World War I.
Within Our Gates
Created as a response to The Birth of a Nation which depicted southern whites in need of the Ku Klux Klan to protect them from blood thirsty blacks, Micheaux shows the reality of Dixie racism in 1920, where a black man could be lynched for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carrot Top / Revelation
Carrot Top: François' mother, Madame Lepic, hates him and she nicknames him "Poil de Carotte" (carrot hair). His father is more interested in politics and hunting than he is in him. In spite of the affection of his godfather and his friend Mathilde, whom he calls his "fiancé," young Poil de Carotte contemplates suicide. On a particularly difficult day, he attempts to hang himself. Mr. Lepic saves his life just in time and understands he is partly to blame.
Revelation: A man moves to Jerusalem with his disabled wife and his adopted daughter, Alice. His son remains in Paris and beomces the leader of a revolutionary anarchrist movement who loses his sight and must rejoin his family in the Holy Land.
The Divine Voyage / The Miraculous Life of Teresa of Lisieux
The Divine Voyage: A captain of the merchant vessel La Cordillère is secretly in love with Simone, the daughter of the cooked owner of the ship. The latter, blinded by greed, has forced the captain on a doomed voyage, when the shop sinks, Simone charters another boat to go in search of her missing love.
The Miraculous Life of Teresa of Lisieux: The life of Saint Teresa of Lisieux.
The Marriage of Mademoiselle Beulemans / The Maelstrom of Paris
The Marriage de Mademoiselle Beulemans: Albert and Séreaphim fight over the heart of the beautiful Suzanne.
Maelstrom of Paris: Singer Lady Abenston is trapped in a whirlwind of Parisian life.
Mother Hummingbird / Ladies' Paradise
Mother Hummingbird: A woman falls in love with her son's friend and moves to Algeria to live out her passion with the one she loves.
Ladies' Paradise: A young orphan arrives in Paris and becomes a saleswoman in her uncle's rivals department store.
The Mystery of the Eiffel Tower
When a man receives a substantial inheritance, terrorists knows as "Brotherhood of Antenna" seems desperte to get to the money first.
À Propos de Nice
Jean Vigo was twenty-five when he made this, his debut film, a silent cinematic poem that reveals, through a thrilling and ironic use of montage, the economic reality hidden behind the facade of the Mediterranean resort town of Nice.
La Roue
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.
Les Vampires
An intrepid reporter and his loyal friend battle a bizarre secret society of criminals known as The Vampires.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed
Taken from 'Arabian Nights', the film tells the story of a sorcerer who tricks Prince Achmed into mounting a magical flying horse which sends the rider off on a flight to his death. But the prince foils the evil plan and soars headlong into a series of adventures, joining forces with Aladdin and the Witch of the Fiery Mountains, doing battle with the sorcerer's army of monsters and demons, and falling in love.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Two men on a park bench discuss the story of Cesare, a sleep-walking circus performer under the control of the murderous Dr. Caligari. But all, of course, is not quite as it seems.
Diary of a Lost Girl
The naive daughter of a prosperous pharmacist is made pregnant by her father's assistant. To preserve family honor, she is sent to a repressive reform school from which she escapes. On her own, she is directed to a brothel where she becomes liberated.
Metropolis
In 2026, the rich rule over the poor, who live underground. One man tries to bridge the gap between the two classes. In July 2008 a complete 16mm copy of the film was discovered with an additional 25 minutes of lost footage that had not been seen since the film's premiere in 1927. In restoration, the text of the intertitles was taken from German censorship records and translated into English. Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung in co-operation with ZDF and ARTE supported the restoration, and the sci-fi epic was re-released in 2010.
Die Nibelungen
In part one, Siegfried wins the hand of Kriemhilde by slaying the dragon and defeating Brunhilde. When Brunhilde learns that magic has been used to conquer her, she has Siegfried murdered. In part two, Kriemhilde seeks revenge for Siegfried's death and marries Attila, king of the Huns, in order to further her purpose.
Nosferatu
Rather than depict Dracula as a shape-shifting monster or debonair gentleman, Murnau's Graf Orlok is a nightmarish, spidery creature with a bulbous head and taloned claws.
People on Sunday
An effervescent, sunlit silent film about a handful of city dwellers enjoying a weekend outing that offers a rare glimpse of Weimar-era Berlin. A unique hybrid of documentary and fictional storytelling, the film was both an experiment and a mainstream hit that would influence generations of film artists around the world.
Woman in the Moon
Two years after revolutionizing the science fiction film with his epic Metropolis, director Fritz Long revisited the genre with an ambitious spectacle that dramatizes the first lunar expedition. Rather than a flight of pure fantasy, Lang, screenwriter Thea von Harbou and a group of technical consultants conceived a modernized 'Trip to the Moon' grounded in state-of-the-art astrophysics.
Master of the House
A heartfelt story of a housewife who, with the help of a wily nanny, turns the tables on her tyrannical husband.
Cabiria
An 8-year old Sicilian princess is kidnapped by pirates, eventually becoming a slave in Carthage. When she reaches adulthood, she attempts to win her freedom again, whatever the costs. Set in the third century B.C. during the Punic Wars.
Apart from You / Every-Night Dreams
Apart from You: An aging geisha is resented by her humiliated teenage son.
Every-Night Dreams: A dockside bar hostess must contend with the return of her long-gone lay-about husband.
Dragnet Girl
A no-nonsense gangster's moll is troubled by the growing attraction between her man and a virtuous woman.
Flunky, Work Hard / No Blood Relation
Flunky, Work Hard (1931, 28 min): An atypical breezy comedy about a poor insurance salesman trying to provide for his family.
No Blood Relation (1932, 79 min.): A maternal-instinct melodrama about an actress desperate to reclaim the daughter she left behind.
Street Without End
An absorbing character and class study about a carefree waitress who, after a series of dramatic events, ends up in a stifling marriage.
That Night's Wife
Under the cover of darkness, a thief commits a robbery but the criminal turns out to be less than evil.
Walk Cheerfully
A seemingly no good guy reveals his softer side when he loses his heart to a secretary.
Limite
Inspired by a haunting Andre Kertesz photograph on the cover of a French magazine, this avant-garde silent masterpiece centers on a man and two women lost at sea, their pasts unfolding through flashbacks.
Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a movie commemorating the failed uprising of 1905, a mere 20 years after the actual incident. Eisenstein duly hails as heroes the people whose actions were regarded as traitorous in 1905. It began when sailors on the Potemkin protested that the meat they were being fed was maggot infested. In response, the commander ordered that ten random sailors to be executed by firing squad, at which the crew turned on the officers and killed them all. The oppressed people of Odessa joined the revolt to show their rejection of the czarist regime--which sent Cossack troops--who then mowed down both rioters and innocent citizens without mercy. The film was banned at various times in the US and France, and for a longer time than any other film in British history; even Stalin banned it, at a time when mutiny was against the party line. It remains remarkable for the way it builds tension over a brisk 69 minutes, and in the right setting with the right audience, can still reveal its inflammatory power.
Man with a Movie Camera / Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass / Three Songs About Lenin / Kino-Eye
A collection of Russian experimental documentary films by Dziga Vertov, who used in his films several cinematic techniques (split screens, multiple superimpositions, variable speeds, et cetera) to present urban life from dawn to dusk.
Mother / The End of St Petersburg
Mother: Based on the novel by Maxim Gorky, this edition is presented with English intertitles and features a piano score by Antonio Coppola.
The End of St. Petersburg: Created to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, this edition is presented with original Russian intertitles with English subtitles, and features an orchestral score composed by Vladimir Yurovsky.
Storm Over Asia
Set in a fictional British-occupied Mongolia, Storm Over Asia follows a young Mongolian fur trapper (Valeri Inkizhinov) who skirts a death sentence by falsely claiming to be a descendent of the great warrior Genghis Khan.
Strike
Triggered by the suicide of a worker unjustly accused of theft, a strike is called by the laborers of a Moscow factory. The managers, owner, and Czarist government dispatch infiltrators in an attempt to break the workers' unity. Unsuccessful, they hire the police and, in the film's most harrowing and powerful sequences, the unarmed strikers are slaughtered in a brutal confrontation.
Häxan
In a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that witches of the middle ages and turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients suffer from the same type of hysteria. Its a witches brew of the scary, the gross and the darkly humorous.
W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films
This compilation of films pays tribute to America's cantankerous comedy genius, W. C. Fields. Legendary one-liners and slapstick routines are preserved in these early shorts that chronicle the development of Fields' irascible screen persona.
