The silent summit — when film grammar was invented shot by shot and cinema first believed it was an art.
A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.
The Kid
1921
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
Metropolis
1927
A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.
The Gold Rush
1925
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.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
1920
The mysterious Count Orlok summons a happily married real estate agent to his castle, located up in the Transylvanian mountains, to finalise a terrifying deal.
Nosferatu
1922
A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre.
Battleship Potemkin
During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.
The General
1926
A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.
The Passion of Joan of Arc
1928
Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.
Wings
A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meager skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.
Sherlock Jr.
1924
London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.
Un Chien Andalou
1929
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 Last Laugh
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.
The Cameraman
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
The Phantom of the Opera
Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.
The Circus
Mickey Mouse, piloting a steamboat, delights his passenger, Minnie Mouse, by making musical instruments out of the menagerie on deck.
Steamboat Willie
God and Satan wager on the soul of a learned and prayerful alchemist as part of their eternal war over Earth.
Faust
Newlyweds receive a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift—and the house can, supposedly, be built in "one week". A rejected suitor secretly re-numbers packing crates, and the husband struggles to assemble the house according to this new 'arrangement' of its parts.
One Week
Married people, fiction · American fiction (fictional works by one author)
The Great Gatsby
Fiction · Mystery
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Classic Literature · English language
The Secret Adversary
Fiction · English Detective and mystery stories
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Children and war · Juvenile fiction
Rilla of Ingleside
Fiction · Romance
This Side of Paradise
Fiction · Facsimiles
Lady Susan
Biography & Autobiography · Nonfiction
Saint Francis of Assisi
1923
Fiction · Married people
To the Lighthouse
Fiction · Inheritance and succession, fiction
The Beautiful and Damned
Eugenics · Literature, history and criticism
Eugenics and Other Evils
Fiction · Married women
Mrs. Dalloway
Fiction · Fantasy
Glinda of Oz
Nobility in fiction · Gender identity in fiction
Orlando
Fiction · Businessmen
Babbitt
Juvenile fiction · Child authors
Emily of New Moon
Fiction, westerns · Frontier and pioneer life
The Man of the Forest
Large type books · Ranchers
The Mysterious Rider