Classics of the Silent Screen
by mcm1071989 | created - 21 Nov 2014 | updated - 21 Nov 2014 | PublicJoe Franklin (10/1/83)
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1. The Great Train Robbery (1903)
TV-G | 11 min | Short, Action, Adventure
A group of bandits stage a brazen train hold-up, only to find a determined posse hot on their heels.
Director: Edwin S. Porter | Stars: Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, A.C. Abadie, George Barnes, Justus D. Barnes
Votes: 21,000
2. The Perils of Pauline (1914)
Passed | 199 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Pauline, a young maiden, must protect herself from the treacherous "guardian" of her inheritance, who repeatedly plots to murder her and take the money for himself.
Directors: Louis J. Gasnier, Donald MacKenzie | Stars: Pearl White, Crane Wilbur, Paul Panzer, Edward José
Votes: 1,087
3. The Spoilers (1914)
110 min | Drama, Western
The first of many filmed adaptations of Rex Beach's adventure novel of the Alaskan gold-rush.
Director: Colin Campbell | Stars: William Farnum, Kathlyn Williams, Tom Santschi, Bessie Eyton
Votes: 104
4. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
TV-PG | 195 min | Drama, History, War
The Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper
Votes: 26,348 | Gross: $10.00M
5. Intolerance (1916)
Passed | 163 min | Drama, History
The story of a poor young woman separated by prejudice from her husband and baby is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, F.A. Turner
Votes: 16,727 | Gross: $2.18M
6. Hell's Hinges (1916)
Unrated | 64 min | Romance, Western
In the wayward western town known as Hell's Hinges, a local tough guy is reformed by the faith of a good woman.
Directors: Charles Swickard, William S. Hart, Clifford Smith | Stars: William S. Hart, Clara Williams, Jack Standing, Alfred Hollingsworth
Votes: 1,079
7. Broken Blossoms or the Yellow Man and the Girl (1919)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Romance
A frail waif, abused by her brutal boxer father in London's seedy Limehouse District, is befriended by a sensitive Chinese immigrant with tragic consequences.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Arthur Howard
Votes: 11,064
8. When the Clouds Roll by (1919)
85 min | Action, Comedy, Romance
Psychiatrist Dr. Ulrich Metz attempts to drive Daniel Brown to suicide.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Douglas Fairbanks, Albert MacQuarrie, Kathleen Clifford, Frank Campeau
Votes: 980
9. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (I) (1920)
Unrated | 69 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.
Director: John S. Robertson | Stars: John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, Brandon Hurst, Charles Lane
Votes: 6,047
10. Way Down East (1920)
Passed | 145 min | Drama, Romance
A naive country girl is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Mrs. David Landau, Lowell Sherman
Votes: 5,902 | Gross: $4.50M
11. The Mark of Zorro (1920)
Passed | 79 min | Adventure, Romance, Western
A seemingly idiotic fop is really the courageous vigilante Zorro, who seeks to protect the oppressed.
Director: Fred Niblo | Stars: Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite De La Motte, Noah Beery, Charles Hill Mailes
Votes: 2,786
12. Tol'able David (1921)
99 min | Drama
When three thuggish men are responsible for the death of his father and the crippling of his brother, young David must choose between supporting his family or risking his life and exacting vengeance.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Richard Barthelmess, Gladys Hulette, Walter P. Lewis, Ernest Torrence
Votes: 1,947
13. Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Not Rated | 150 min | Drama, History, Romance
Two orphaned sisters are caught up in the turmoil of the French Revolution, encountering misery and love along the way.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Schildkraut, Frank Losee
Votes: 5,480 | Gross: $0.79M
14. Nanook of the North (1922)
Passed | 78 min | Documentary
In this silent predecessor to the modern documentary, film-maker Robert J. Flaherty spends one year following the lives of Nanook and his family, Inuits living in the Arctic Circle.
Director: Robert J. Flaherty | Stars: Allakariallak, Alice Nevalinga, Cunayou, Allegoo
Votes: 13,458
15. The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
Not Rated | 73 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
In the midst of the French and Indian War, the eldest daughter of a British officer develops an attraction towards an Indian ally who is the last living warrior of his tribe, the Mohicans.
Directors: Clarence Brown, Maurice Tourneur | Stars: Wallace Beery, Barbara Bedford, Alan Roscoe, Lillian Hall
Votes: 1,443
16. Safety Last! (1923)
Not Rated | 74 min | Action, Comedy, Thriller
A boy leaves his small country town and heads to the big city to get a job. As soon as he makes it big his sweetheart will join him and marry him. His enthusiasm to get ahead leads to some interesting adventures.
Directors: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor | Stars: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother, Noah Young
Votes: 22,927 | Gross: $1.36M
17. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (I) (1923)
Passed | 133 min | Drama, Horror, Romance
In 15th-century Paris, the brother of the archdeacon plots with the gypsy king to foment a peasant revolt. Meanwhile, a freakish hunchback falls in love with a gypsy dancer.
Director: Wallace Worsley | Stars: Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry, Kate Lester
Votes: 6,104 | Gross: $2.22M
18. Greed (1924)
Not Rated | 140 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
The sudden fortune won from a lottery fans such destructive greed that it ruins the lives of the three people involved.
Director: Erich von Stroheim | Stars: Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller
Votes: 10,766 | Gross: $0.16M
19. The Covered Wagon (1923)
98 min | Adventure, Romance, Western
Two wagon caravans converge at what is now Kansas City, and combine for the westward push to Oregon. On their quest the pilgrims will experience desert heat, mountain snow, hunger, and ... See full summary »
Director: James Cruze | Stars: J. Warren Kerrigan, Lois Wilson, Alan Hale, Ernest Torrence
Votes: 781 | Gross: $7.63M
20. The Ten Commandments (1923)
Passed | 136 min | Biography, Drama, History
After hearing the story of Moses, the sons of a devout Christian mother go their own ways, and the atheist brother's breaking of the Ten Commandments leads to tragedy.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Theodore Roberts, Charles de Rochefort, Estelle Taylor, Julia Faye
Votes: 2,664 | Gross: $5.36M
21. The Iron Horse (1924)
Passed | 150 min | Drama, History, Romance
After witnessing the murder of his father by a renegade as a boy, the grown-up Brandon helps to realize his father's dream of a transcontinental railway.
Director: John Ford | Stars: George O'Brien, Madge Bellamy, Charles Edward Bull, Cyril Chadwick
Votes: 2,446 | Gross: $2.06M
22. Sherlock Jr. (1924)
Passed | 45 min | Action, Comedy, Romance
A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.
Director: Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Erwin Connelly
Votes: 57,060 | Gross: $0.98M
23. Peter Pan (1924)
105 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy
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.
Director: Herbert Brenon | Stars: Betty Bronson, Ernest Torrence, George Ali, Esther Ralston
Votes: 1,264 | Gross: $0.63M
24. The Big Parade (1925)
Not Rated | 151 min | Drama, Romance, War
A young American soldier witnesses the horrors of the Great War.
Directors: King Vidor, George W. Hill | Stars: John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Hobart Bosworth, Claire McDowell
Votes: 7,284 | Gross: $11.00M
25. The Gold Rush (1925)
Passed | 95 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A prospector goes to the Klondike during the 1890s gold rush in hopes of making his fortune, and is smitten with a girl he sees in a dance hall.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman
Votes: 118,690 | Gross: $5.45M
26. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Passed | 93 min | Horror
A mad, disfigured composer seeks love with a lovely young opera singer.
Directors: Rupert Julian, Lon Chaney, Ernst Laemmle, Edward Sedgwick | Stars: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe
Votes: 20,116 | Gross: $3.75M
27. The Lost World (1925)
Passed | 110 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Horror
The first film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel about a land where prehistoric creatures still roam.
Director: Harry O. Hoyt | Stars: Wallace Beery, Bessie Love, Lloyd Hughes, Lewis Stone
Votes: 5,826 | Gross: $1.19M
28. A Kiss for Cinderella (1925)
105 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
In London during World War One, a simple-minded slavey awaits her Fairy Godmother and her Prince Charming.
Director: Herbert Brenon | Stars: Betty Bronson, Tom Moore, Esther Ralston, Henry Vibart
Votes: 106
29. The Son of the Sheik (1926)
Passed | 68 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
The son of the sheik and a dancing girl fall in love, but when he is made to believe she has betrayed him he seeks revenge.
Director: George Fitzmaurice | Stars: Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Bánky, George Fawcett, Montagu Love
Votes: 2,128 | Gross: $1.56M
30. Sparrows (1926)
Unrated | 109 min | Drama
Molly, the eldest child at a baby farm hidden deep in a swamp, must rescue the others when their cruel master decides that one of them will be disposed of.
Directors: William Beaudine, Tom McNamara | Stars: Mary Pickford, Roy Stewart, Mary Louise Miller, Gustav von Seyffertitz
Votes: 1,517 | Gross: $0.97M
31. The Scarlet Letter (1926)
Passed | 115 min | Drama
After having a child out of wedlock, a young Puritan woman is pressured to reveal the name of her lover.
Director: Victor Sjöström | Stars: Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Henry B. Walthall, Karl Dane
Votes: 1,941 | Gross: $0.67M
32. Stella Dallas (1925)
Passed | 110 min | Drama
Small-town girl Stella marries socialite Stephen Dallas, a man with whom she has nothing in common. The whole thing is a failure; after the birth of their daughter Laurel, the Dallases ... See full summary »
Director: Henry King | Stars: Ronald Colman, Belle Bennett, Alice Joyce, Jean Hersholt
Votes: 425 | Gross: $0.76M
33. The Black Pirate (1926)
Not Rated | 88 min | Adventure, Action
Seeking revenge, an athletic young man joins the pirate band responsible for his father's death.
Director: Albert Parker | Stars: Douglas Fairbanks, Billie Dove, Tempe Pigott, Donald Crisp
Votes: 2,141 | Gross: $0.68M
34. Don Juan (1926)
Passed | 110 min | Adventure, Romance
In 16th-century Italy, devil-may-care playboy Don Juan runs afoul of the despotic Borgias.
Director: Alan Crosland | Stars: Jane Winton, John Roche, Warner Oland, Estelle Taylor
Votes: 963 | Gross: $1.92M
35. 7th Heaven (1927)
110 min | Drama, Romance
A street cleaner saves a young woman's life, and the pair slowly fall in love until war intervenes.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Ben Bard, Albert Gran
Votes: 4,166 | Gross: $3.92M
36. Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Passed | 112 min | Drama
Childhood friends are torn apart when one of them marries the woman the other fiercely loves.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson, Barbara Kent
Votes: 4,633 | Gross: $1.61M
37. What Price Glory (1926)
116 min | Comedy, Drama, War
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... See full summary »
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe, Dolores Del Río, William V. Mong
Votes: 480 | Gross: $0.70M
38. The General (1926)
Passed | 78 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
After being rejected by the Confederate military, not realizing it was due to his crucial civilian role, an engineer must single-handedly recapture his beloved locomotive after it is seized by Union spies and return it through enemy lines.
Directors: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley
Votes: 98,188 | Gross: $1.03M
39. Wings (1927)
PG-13 | 144 min | Drama, Romance, War
Two young men, one rich, one middle class, who are in love with the same woman, become fighter pilots in World War I.
Directors: William A. Wellman, Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast | Stars: Clara Bow, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Richard Arlen, Jobyna Ralston
Votes: 14,547 | Gross: $6.59M
40. The Strong Man (1926)
Passed | 75 min | Adventure, Comedy, Romance
A meek Belgian soldier, fighting in World War I, receives a letter and a photo from "Mary Brown", an American girl he has never met. After the war, he travels to America searching for her.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Harry Langdon, Priscilla Bonner, Gertrude Astor, William V. Mong
Votes: 963
41. White Gold (1927)
73 min | Western
A beautiful young Mexican girl marries an Arizona sheep rancher and returns with him to his ranch, where he lives with his elderly father. The father, not used to sharing his son's ... See full summary »
Director: William K. Howard | Stars: Jetta Goudal, Kenneth Thomson, George Bancroft, George Nichols
Votes: 102
42. Sunrise (1927)
Passed | 94 min | Drama, Romance
A sophisticated city woman seduces a farmer and convinces him to murder his wife and join her in the city, but he ends up rekindling his romance with his wife when he changes his mind at the last moment.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston, Bodil Rosing
Votes: 53,860 | Gross: $0.54M
43. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Not Rated | 143 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A Jewish prince seeks to find his family and revenge himself upon his childhood friend who had him wrongly imprisoned.
Directors: Fred Niblo, Charles Brabin, Christy Cabanne, J.J. Cohn, Rex Ingram | Stars: Ramon Novarro, Francis X. Bushman, May McAvoy, Betty Bronson
Votes: 7,978 | Gross: $12.45M
44. Beau Geste (1926)
101 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Michael "Beau" Geste leaves England in disgrace and joins the infamous French Foreign Legion. He is reunited with his two brothers in North Africa, where they face greater danger from their... See full summary »
Director: Herbert Brenon | Stars: Ronald Colman, Neil Hamilton, Ralph Forbes, Alice Joyce
Votes: 470 | Gross: $1.71M
45. The Cat and the Canary (1927)
Passed | 108 min | Comedy, Horror, Mystery
Relatives of an eccentric millionaire gather in his spooky mansion on the 20th anniversary of his death for the reading of his will.
Director: Paul Leni | Stars: Laura La Plante, Creighton Hale, Forrest Stanley, Tully Marshall
Votes: 3,372 | Gross: $0.33M
46. White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Romance
An alcoholic doctor on a Polynesian island, disgusted by white exploitation of the natives, finds himself marooned on a pristinely beautiful island.
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Robert J. Flaherty | Stars: Monte Blue, Raquel Torres, Robert Anderson, Renee Bush
Votes: 964
47. Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
Not Rated | 85 min | Drama
A flapper who's secretly a good girl and a gold digging floozy masquerading as an ingénue both vie for the hand of a millionaire.
Director: Harry Beaumont | Stars: Joan Crawford, Johnny Mack Brown, Nils Asther, Dorothy Sebastian
Votes: 1,969 | Gross: $0.76M
48. The Crowd (1928)
Not Rated | 98 min | Drama, Romance
The life of a man and woman together in a large, impersonal metropolis through their hopes, struggles, and downfalls.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Eleanor Boardman, James Murray, Bert Roach, Estelle Clark
Votes: 9,175
49. City Lights (1931)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers
Votes: 196,125 | Gross: $0.02M
50. Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)
TV-PG | 86 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
On the South Pacific island of Bora Bora, a young couple's love is threatened when the tribal chief declares the girl a sacred virgin.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Anne Chevalier, Matahi, Hitu, Bill Bambridge
Votes: 6,388
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