56 articles
The Black Pirate
The Black Pirate (1926) is a Douglas Fairbanks silent swashbuckler directed by Albert Parker, the first major feature shot in two-strip Technicolor, famous for its sail-slide stunt and 2023 4K restoration.
The Cheat
The Cheat is Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 silent melodrama starring Fannie Ward and Sessue Hayakawa, in which a socialite who embezzles Red Cross funds borrows from a Japanese art dealer who brands her; a National Film Registry selection remade several times.
The Eagle (1925 film)
The Eagle (1925) is a Clarence Brown silent adventure film for United Artists, loosely based on Pushkin's Dubrovsky, starring Rudolph Valentino as masked Russian outlaw Vladimir Dubrovsky opposite Vilma Bánky and Louise Dresser; released 8 November 1925, extant, public domain.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Los Cuatro Jinetes del Apocalipsis) is Rex Ingram's 1921 Metro silent epic adapted from Vicente Blasco Ibanez's 1916 novel, the top-grossing film of 1921 that made Rudolph Valentino a star and entered the National Film Registry in 1995.
The Freshman (1925 film)
The Freshman (1925), also released in the UK as College Days, is a Harold Lloyd silent comedy directed by Sam Taylor and Fred Newmeyer, about freshman Harold "Speedy" Lamb at Tate University; it was the silent era's highest-grossing comedy feature.
The General (1926 film)
The General (1926) is a Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman silent Civil War comedy, based on the 1862 Andrews Raid, filmed in Cottage Grove, Oregon; a box-office failure that later ranked among the greatest films.
The Gold Rush
The Gold Rush (1925) is Charlie Chaplin's silent Klondike comedy-drama, his first starring United Artists feature, inspired by the Donner Party, starring Georgia Hale, re-released with narration in 1942 and restored in 4K for its 2025 centenary.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923 film)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) is Universal's silent adaptation of Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, directed by Wallace Worsley with Lon Chaney as Quasimodo and Patsy Ruth Miller as Esmeralda; a $1.25 million epic that made Chaney a legend.
The Kid (1921 film)
The Kid (1921) is Charlie Chaplin's first feature-length film, a silent comedy-drama in which the Tramp raises an abandoned child (Jackie Coogan); premiered January 21, 1921 at Carnegie Hall, cost $500,000, and made Coogan the first major child star.
The Last Laugh
The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann, 1924) is F.W. Murnau's German silent film for UFA, starring Emil Jannings as a hotel doorman demoted to washroom attendant; landmark for Karl Freund's unchained camera and near-absence of intertitles.
The Last of the Mohicans (1920 film)
The Last of the Mohicans (1920) is a silent American adventure film, the first feature-length adaptation of Cooper's novel, co-directed by Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown, starring Wallace Beery as Magua and Harry Lorraine as Hawkeye.
The Love Light
The Love Light (1921) is a silent melodrama, Frances Marion's directorial debut, starring and produced by Mary Pickford as an Italian lighthouse keeper who unknowingly marries a German spy; restored by UCLA in 4K.
The Mark of Zorro
The Mark of Zorro (1920) is a silent adventure film directed by Fred Niblo, starring Douglas Fairbanks as Don Diego Vega/Zorro, adapted from Johnston McCulley's The Curse of Capistrano, released 5 December 1920 by United Artists.
The Merry-Go-Round
The Merry-Go-Round (1923), also Merry-Go-Round, is a Universal silent drama set in prewar Vienna, begun by Erich von Stroheim, fired by Irving Thalberg, and completed by Rupert Julian with Norman Kerry and Mary Philbin.
The Page of Madness
The Page of Madness (狂った一頁, Kurutta ichipeiji, aka A Page of Madness) is a 1926 Japanese silent avant-garde film by Kinugasa Teinosuke with a script by Kawabata Yasunari, set in an asylum, shown without intertitles, lost for 45 years and rediscovered in 1971.
The Pilgrim
The Pilgrim (1923) is Charlie Chaplin's silent comedy, also titled At Large, in which an escaped convict poses as a Texas pastor; his final First National film, starring Edna Purviance, later reissued in The Chaplin Revue.
The Pleasure Garden (1925 film)
The Pleasure Garden (1925) is Alfred Hitchcock's first feature as sole director, a British-German silent drama starring Virginia Valli and Carmelita Geraghty, shot in Munich and Italy, and restored to 92 minutes by the BFI in 2012.
The Scarlet Letter (1926 film)
The Scarlet Letter (1926) is an MGM silent drama directed by Victor Sjöström (Seastrom), starring Lillian Gish as Hester Prynne with Lars Hanson and Henry B. Walthall, adapted by Frances Marion from Hawthorne's novel after Gish lifted a censorship ban.
The Sheik (1921 film)
The Sheik (1921) is an American silent romantic drama directed by George Melford, starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres, adapted from E. M. Hull's 1919 novel; a Paramount hit that made Valentino a star and founded the Hollywood sheik-film genre.
The Ten Commandments (1923 film)
The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American silent epic directed by Cecil B. DeMille, telling the Exodus story and a modern morality tale set in San Francisco.
The Thief of Bagdad (1924 film)
The Thief of Bagdad (1924) is Raoul Walsh's silent Arabian Nights fantasy starring and produced by Douglas Fairbanks, released by United Artists in March 1924, famed for its Art Nouveau sets, magic-carpet spectacle, and 1996 National Film Registry induction.
The Whispering Chorus
The Whispering Chorus is Cecil B. DeMille's 1918 silent drama, also known by no other title, in which embezzler John Tremble fakes his death and is executed for his own murder; conscience appears as superimposed whispering faces.
Tillie's Punctured Romance
Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), Mack Sennett's six-reel Keystone slapstick feature starring Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin, and Mabel Normand, adapted from Tillie's Nightmare; often called the first American feature-length comedy.
Way Down East
Way Down East, 1920 D.W. Griffith silent melodrama starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess, adapted from Lottie Blair Parker's play, famous for its real blizzard and ice-floe rescue sequence.
Why Change Your Wife?
Why Change Your Wife? is a 1920 Cecil B. DeMille silent marital comedy from Famous Players-Lasky, third in his marriage-film trilogy, starring Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, and Bebe Daniels, released May 2, 1920.
Within Our Gates
Within Our Gates is Oscar Micheaux's 1920 silent film, the oldest surviving feature by an African American director, starring Evelyn Preer as Sylvia Landry; censored for its lynching scene, lost until a Spanish print surfaced in Madrid in 1990, and a rebuttal to The Birth of a Nation.