Essential Silent Films - Not Seen
Taken from three lists
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- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorErich von StroheimStarsGibson GowlandZasu PittsJean HersholtThe sudden fortune won from a lottery fans such destructive greed that it ruins the lives of the three people involved.
- DirectorMarcel L'HerbierStarsJaque CatelainLéonid Walter de MaltePhilippe HériatClaire Lescot is a famous first lady. All men want to be loved by her and among them is the young scientist Einar Norsen. When she mocks at him, he leaves her house with the declared intention to kill himself.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsTatsuo SaitôTomio AokiMitsuko YoshikawaTwo young brothers throw a tantrum when they discover that their father isn't the most important man in his workplace.
- DirectorMauritz StillerStarsErik StocklassaBror BergerRichard LundIn 16th century Sweden, the lives of three Scottish mercenaries and a vicar's family intersect after a crime forever alters a small coastal town. As the three try to escape, they find themselves trapped when all ships are frozen in ice.
- DirectorLouis FeuilladeStarsMusidoraÉdouard MathéMarcel LévesqueAn intrepid reporter and his loyal friend battle a bizarre secret society of criminals known as The Vampires.
- DirectorJean EpsteinStarsLéon MathotGina ManèsEdmond Van DaëleMarie wants to escape from her job and also from her lover, Paul, an unemployed drunk. She dreams of going off with Jean, a dockworker. The two men quarrel and fight over Marie on two occasions, but Paul retains a hold over her. Marie has a baby who falls ill and as time goes on Jean and a crippled neighbor try to help the child. Paul nearly causes the death of the child whilst in a drunken stupor and in a final struggle that occurs, the crippled woman seizes Paul's gun and shoots him dead.
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsVictor SjöströmAugust FalckEdith ErastoffTerje Vigen, a sailor, suffers the loss of his family through the cruelty of another man. Years later, when his enemy's family finds itself dependent on Terje's beneficence, Terje must decide whether to avenge himself.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsMitsuko YoshikawaAkio IsonoSumiko MizukuboTwo Geisha with a connection to a young man deal with life's hardships.
- DirectorErnst LubitschStarsIrene RichMay McAvoyBert LytellA society woman believes her husband is having an affair, a misconception which may have dire personal consequences for all involved.
- DirectorYevgeny BauerStarsVera KaralliAleksandr KheruvimovVitold PolonskyA grief-stricken ballerina becomes the obsession of an increasingly unhinged artist.
- DirectorGustaf MolanderStarsMärta HalldénIvan HedqvistJohn EkmanThe story of a group of farmers who choose to leave their homes and follow the preacher Helgum to the Holy Land.
- DirectorBenjamin ChristensenStarsBenjamin ChristensenElisabeth ChristensenMaren PedersenFictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in Eastern Europe.
- DirectorMikhail KalatozovStory of distant mountainous region in Georgia that depicts folklore, lifestyle and daily routines of Svani people, focuses on the scarcity of salt in Svaneti region. Rich with documentary value, the movie also served for Soviet propaganda.
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsLon ChaneyNorma ShearerJohn GilbertA bitter clown endeavors to rescue the young woman he loves from the lecherous count who once betrayed him.
- DirectorAbram RoomStarsVladimir FogelNikolay BatalovLyudmila SemyonovaA married couple have a small apartment in Moscow. When an old friend of the husband's arrives in the city, he is unable to find lodgings. Kolia, the husband, invites his friend to move in with them.
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsAlfred AbelFrida RichardAud Egede-NissenA shiftless young man becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman and yearns to find her again.
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsVictor SjöströmEdith ErastoffJohn EkmanA stranger comes to work at widow Halla's farm.
- DirectorGrigoriy KozintsevLeonid TraubergStarsDavid GutmanYelena KuzminaAndrei KostrichkinIn the beginning of the industrial revolution, the Paris Commune was established in 1871 against the rich and the powerful, and violently repressed by the army that remained faithful to a tamer form of Republicanism. How could the love story between a young sales girl and a soldier unable to decide if he was pro or against the radical fashion? Two short months were needed for the answer to be found - in blood and tears, and under rain that washes all past memories. Any day, a New Babylon shop will open with frilly things for the bourgeois girls. The washerwomen will be there to wash them.
- DirectorJean EpsteinStarsJean DebucourtMarguerite GanceCharles LamyAllan visits the sinister Usher family mansion, where his friend Roderick is painting a portrait of his sickly wife Madeline. The portrait seems to be draining the life out of Madeline, slowly leading to her death.
- DirectorTeinosuke KinugasaStarsMasuo InoueAyako IijimaYoshie NakagawaA man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsRudolf Klein-RoggeAud Egede-NissenGertrude WelckerArch-criminal Dr. Mabuse sets out to make a fortune and run Berlin. Detective Wenk sets out to stop him.
- DirectorAbel GanceStarsGabriel de GravonePierre MagnierGeorges TérofA railway engineer adopts a young girl orphaned by a train crash. Years later when she starts getting suitors, he grapples with whether or not to tell her the truth about her parentage.
- DirectorMarcel L'HerbierStarsBrigitte HelmMarie GloryPierre AlcoverThe business tycoon Nicolas Saccard is nearly ruined by his rival Gunderman, when he tries to raise capital for his company. To push up the price of his stock, Saccard plans a publicity stunt involving the aviator Jacques Hamelin flying across the Atlantic to Guyana and drilling for oil there, much to the dismay of Hamelin's wife Line. While Hamelin is away, Saccard tries to seduce Line. Line finally realizes that she and her husband were pawns in Saccard's scheme, and she accuses him of stock fraud.
- DirectorLouis FeuilladeStarsRené CrestéMusidoraRené PoyenA twelve-part serial following the adventures of the masked vigilante Judex as he fights against criminals led by the corrupt banker Favrauxom.
- DirectorMarcel L'HerbierStarsIvan MozzhukhinMarcelle PradotLois MoranMathias Pascal, only son of a once rich family, marries beautiful Romilde, who has a terrible mother-in-law. She controls her daughter, and soon his home life becomes a nightmare, as well as his job as assistant librarian in his home town. His only moments of lights are his mother and his baby, but both die on the same day. Shocked he leaves his hometown and gets to Monte Carlo, where he wins a fortune at the Casino. Returning home, he reads his own obituary in a paper. They have found a corpse in a creek and connected it with his disappearance. Mathias, noticing that he now is free from all ties to his old live, decides to start a new one, and goes to Rome, where he rents a room in a pension full of fake spiritualists who are controlling the owner. The chief of the gang, Terence, wants to marry the owner's daughter Adrienne, and has convinced her father to give her to him, with no regards of Adrienne's feelings, who is in love with and loved by Mathias. When Terence steals Mathias 50,000 Lira, and Mathias, being officially dead can neither marry Adrienne nor denounce Terence to the police, he decides to do something about his state and travels home, just to notice that Romalinda has remarried.
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsHermann PichaRosa ValettiAndré MattoniA young man shows his millionaire grandfather a film based on Molière's Tartuffe, in order to expose the old man's hypocritical governess who covets his own inheritance.
- DirectorCarl Theodor DreyerStarsWalter SlezakBenjamin ChristensenNora GregorTriangle story: painter, his young male model, unscrupulous princess.
- DirectorGeorg Wilhelm PabstStarsLouise BrooksJosef RovenskýFritz RaspAfter falling pregnant by a pharmacist and refusing to marry, a young woman is ejected from her home and sent to a strict girls' reform school.
- DirectorKenneth MacPhersonStarsPaul RobesonEslanda RobesonHilda DoolittleA negro woman having an adulterous affair with a white man causes his wife to go mad and re-enforces the towns-folk's prejudice against Negroes.
- DirectorJean EpsteinStarsJeanne HelblingSuzy PiersonOlga DayPsychological narrative avantgarde film about a wealthy young businessman who consecutively falls in love with a classy English woman (Pearl), a Russian sculptress (Athalia), and a naive working-class girl (Lucie). Overpowered by weakness, the coward sidesteps the obligations that love affairs impose: rather than living up to his dates he takes his sports-car from an ultra-modern garage and speeds to the fashionable beaches of Deauville. On his way, he is fatally hit by a descending swallow. The film is divided into three segments each of which consists of events the woman experienced. These sequences are embedded in scenes in which each of the three women is telling and casting her mind back to her own love affair. Thus, present, future and past merge and cannot be distinguished clearly. The intertwinement of several layers of time experience, recollection, telling and showing have been regarded as a source of inspiration of Alain Resnais and this film prefigures his "L'Année dernière à Mariënbad" to a certain extent.
- DirectorVsevolod PudovkinStarsVera BaranovskayaNikolay BatalovAleksandr ChistyakovA story about a family torn apart by a worker's strike. At first, the mother wants to protect her family from the troublemakers, but eventually she realizes that her son is right and the workers should strike.
- DirectorGrigoriy AleksandrovSergei EisensteinStarsMarfa LapkinaM. IvaninKonstantin Vasilyev100.000.000 peasants - illiterate, poor, hungry. There comes a day when one woman decides that she can live old life no longer. Using ways of new Soviet state and industrial progress she changes life and labor of her village.
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsEmil JanningsMaly DelschaftMax HillerAn aging doorman is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbors and society after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel.
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsVictor SjöströmHarriet BosseTore SvennbergLill-Ingmar is having a troublesome love life with his bride to be Brita.
- DirectorMario PeixotoStarsOlga BrenoTatiana ReyRaul SchnoorThree people (Raul Schnoor, Olga Breno and Tatiana Rey) sail aimlessly while remembering their past.
- DirectorRobert SiodmakEdgar G. UlmerRochus GlieseStarsErwin SplettstößerBrigitte BorchertWolfgang von WaltershausenTwo men and two women enjoy a pleasant Sunday at the beach amid the unending toil of the working week.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsSetsuko ShinobuAkio IsonoHikaru YamanouchiStory of a waitress whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a stiflingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman accidentally hits her with his car.
- DirectorAleksandr DovzhenkoStarsStepan ShkuratSemyon SvashenkoYuliya SolntsevaIn the peaceful countryside, Vassily opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.
- DirectorPer LindbergStarsTora TejeInga TidbladRenée BjörlingAbout a group of office girls hardships in the male world set in 1907. A collective fighting for female solidarity, civil rights and the conflict between love and work.
- DirectorAugusto GeninaStarsLouise BrooksGeorges CharliaAugusto BandiniLucienne, typist and gorgeous bathing beauty, decides to enter the 'Miss Europe' pageant sponsored by the French newspaper she works for. She finds her jealous lover Andre violently disapproves of such events and tries to withdraw, but it's too late; she's even then being named Miss France. The night Andre planned to propose to her, she's being whisked off to the Miss Europe finals in Spain, where admirers swarm around her. Win or lose, what will the harvest be?
- DirectorFritz LangStarsWilly FritschGerda MaurusKlaus PohlA tenacious scientist blasts off for the moon in hopes of riches that may be found there.
- DirectorJean EpsteinStarsGiboisJean-Marie LaotMalgornOn an island off the coast of Brittany four isolated men collect seaweed. Two young best friends have a quarrel and when one's thumb becomes infected his friend must risk his life on the ocean to bring him to the doctor.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsTakeshi SakamotoChôko IidaKôji MitsuiA kabuki actor's mistress hatches a jealous plot to bring down her lover's son.
- DirectorEwald André DupontStarsGilda GrayAnna May WongJameson ThomasA young Chinese woman working in the kitchen at a London dance club is given the chance to become the club's main act, which leads to a plot of betrayal, forbidden love, and murder.
- DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsYoshiko OkadaUreo EgawaKinuyo TanakaRyoichi and Chikako are brother and sister. They live together. Chikako works during the day in an office and at night she prostitutes herself to fund her brother's studies at the university. Ryoichi doesn't know about his sister's secret life, but he is dating Harue whose brother is a policeman.
- DirectorAbel GanceStarsAlbert DieudonnéVladimir RoudenkoEdmond Van DaëleA film about the French general's youth and early military career.
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsGösta EkmanEmil JanningsCamilla HornThe demon Mephisto wagers with God that he can corrupt a mortal man's soul.
- DirectorAbel GanceStarsRomuald JoubéMaxime DesjardinsSéverin-MarsThe story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsPaul RichterMargarete SchönTheodor LoosSiegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, sets off on a treacherous journey to the Kingdom of Burgundy to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Princess Kriemhild.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsMargarete SchönGertrud ArnoldTheodor LoosPrincess Kriemhild vows to avenge her husband's murder but must overcome her brothers who swore allegiance to Hagen. She marries Etzel, King of the Huns, and persuades his army to attack Hagen, but she loses more than she bargained for.
- DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsLillian GishRichard BarthelmessDonald CrispA frail waif, abused by her brutal boxer father in London's seedy Limehouse District, is befriended by a sensitive Chinese immigrant with tragic consequences.
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsVictor SjöströmHilda BorgströmTore SvennbergOn New Year's Eve, the driver of a ghostly carriage forces a drunken man to reflect on his selfish, wasted life.
- DirectorEdward SedgwickBuster KeatonStarsBuster KeatonMarceline DayHarold GoodwinHopelessly in love with a woman working at MGM Studios, a clumsy man attempts to become a motion-picture cameraman to be close to the object of his desire.
- DirectorMikio NaruseStarsSumiko KurishimaTeruko KojimaJun AraiA single mother works tirelessly as a Ginza bar hostess to ensure a better life for her young son until--her long-lost husband returns.
- DirectorRené ClairStarsCharles MartinelliLouis Pré FilsAlbert PréjeanA scientist's invisible ray freezes Paris into immobility.
- DirectorBoris BarnetStarsAnna StenVladimir MikhaylovVladimir FogelNatasha and her grandfather live in a cottage near Moscow, making hats for Madame Irène. Madame and her husband have told the housing committee that Natasha rents a room from them; this fiddle gives Madame's lazy husband a room for lounging. The local railroad clerk, Fogelev, loves Natasha but she takes a shine to Ilya, a clumsy student who sleeps in the train station. To help Ilya, Natasha marries him and takes him to Madame's to live in the room the house committee thinks is hers. Meanwhile, Madame's husband pays Natasha with a lottery ticket he thinks is a loser, and when it comes up big, just as Ilya and Natasha are falling in love, everything gets complicated
- DirectorTeinosuke KinugasaStarsAkiko ChihayaJunosuke BandôYukiko OgawaAfter falling in love with a courtesan, Rikiya is blinded by ash during a fight in a brothel. Believing the blindness permanent and his opponent dead, Rikiya goes back home to his sister. Okiku, desperate to protect her brother who thinks himself a murderer, wants to sacrifice herself for him and become a prostitute to pay for Rikiya's treatment.
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsJenny HasselqvistIvan HedqvistTore SvennbergThe young girl Ursula is forced to marry an older man that she hates.
- DirectorHiroshi ShimizuStarsMichiko OikawaYukiko InoueUreo EgawaTwo schoolgirl friends drift apart when one of them falls for a handsome boy.
- DirectorCharles SwickardWilliam S. HartClifford SmithStarsWilliam S. HartClara WilliamsJack StandingIn the wayward western town known as Hell's Hinges, a local tough guy is reformed by the faith of a good woman.
- DirectorCharles DekeukeleireStarsYvonne Selma
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsLillian GishLars HansonMontagu LoveA frail young woman from the East moves in with her cousin in the West, where she causes tension within the family and is slowly driven mad.
- DirectorHenri d' UrselStarsGeorges HugnetKissa KouprineRenee SavoyeA young man buys a pearl for his fiancée. He walks out of the jewelry store that opens onto...a forest. He counts the pearls and realizes one is missing so he gets back to the store. On entering he catches sight of an alluring saleslady sitting on...a showcase with her skirt lifted. On one of her stockings, close to the garter, another pearl necklace is tied. The young man takes it away from her. Outraged, the jeweler fires the assistant, who goes away with the man sitting on the handlebar of his bike. After this, the pearl is lost, found, lost again.
- DirectorHenri StorckBelgian director Henri Storck presents a tribute to one of the most well-known spots in Belgium: the Ostende beach. Filming from everyone and everything, gathering a small collection of eight short films made in the 1920's, Storck invites the audience to feel the beach, the port, the surf, the wind and the dunes, giving us more than what the real images can really evoke, reaching a surreal level.
- DirectorRalph SteinerA study on water, the reflections and motions of the liquid that accentuates its ethereality and metallic beauty.
- DirectorFernand LégerDudley MurphyStarsKiki of MontparnasseFernand LégerDudley MurphyA pulsing, kaleidoscope of images set to an energetic soundtrack. A young women swings in a garden; a woman's face smiles. The rest is spinning cylinders, pistons, gears and turbines, kitchen objects in concentric circles or rows - pots, pan lids, and funnels, cars passing overhead, a spinning carnival ride. Over and over, a heavy-set woman climbs stairs carrying a large bag on her shoulder. An Art Deco cartoon figure appears, dancing. This is a world in motion, dominated by mechanical and repetitive images, with a few moments of solitude in a garden.
- DirectorCharles DekeukeleireStarsPierre BourgeoisJean DemeyHenri DupontTwo boxers face off in a surreal boxing match.
- DirectorEdward F. ClineBuster KeatonStarsBuster KeatonSybil SeelyJoe RobertsA newly wedded couple attempts to build a house with a prefabricated kit, unaware that a rival sabotaged the kit's component numbering.
- DirectorRalph SteinerClose up we see pistons move up and down or side to side. Pendulums sway, the small parts of machinery move. Gears drive larger wheels. Gears within gears spin. Shafts turn some mechanism that is out of sight. Screws revolve and move other gears; a bit rotates. More subtle mechanisms move other mechanical parts for unknown purposes. Weights rise and fall. The movements, underscored by sound, are rhythmic. Circles, squares, rods, and teeth are in constant and sometimes asymmetrical motion. These human-made mechanical bits seem benign and reassuring.
- DirectorJoris IvensClose shots of a railway train underway: track racing underneath, steam escaping, cars coupling, gears ratcheting, signals changing.