Silent
see all genres ›The silent era stretches from cinema's beginnings in the late 1800s through the late-1920s in the U.S. (and into the mid-1930s in Japan) when sound became the industry standard. Silent films are often distinguished for their visual sophistication. Really, a silent film can be made in any era: a silent film is merely one made without synchronized dialogue. Several filmmakers continue to produce silent films to better focus attention on the visual components of cinema.
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Genres / Silent
SUB-GENRES · Silent Action/Adventure · Silent Comedy · Silent Drama · Silent Horror · Silent Western · Silent Crime · Silent Science Fiction · Silent Fantasy · Silent War · Silent Documentary
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Cops
One of Buster Keaton's greatest and most famous comedies, COPS is universally enjoyed for the inventive comedy and amazing chase sequences. However, its darker aspects (Keaton's use of an anarchists bomb risked painful reminders of the horse and wagon, similar to the one Buster drives, that...Watch Movie
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An Eastern Westerner
Rural comedy abounds in this romp as young upstart Harold (Harold Lloyd) is shipped to his uncle’s ranch out west. There, he meets Mildred (Mildred Davis), assists her in staving off the unwanted affections of rogue Young (Noah Young) and, after a wild altercation with a gang...Watch Movie
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Love Moods
Reclining on her chaise lounge in a see-through robe, Lili St. Cyr decides she needs a wash. In a gilded tub fit for Marie Antoinette, she bares all that the law will allow. Then she squeezes into an evening gown and mink coat to paint the town red with you, dear viewer! Well, a guy can dream....Watch Movie
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Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary
After garnering widespread acclaim with his mini-masterpiece THE HEART OF THE WORLD, Canadian cult auteur Guy Maddin concocted his most ravishingly stylized cinematic creation to date. Beautifully transposing the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's interpretation of Bram Stoker's classic...Watch Movie
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The Great Train Robbery
More than a crucial historical artifact, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY reveals the foundation from which the styles and stories of the contemporary cinema would later arise. Known for using such innovative filming techniques such as double exposure, cross-cutting and camera...Watch Movie
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Nosferatu
Before the assorted treatments of the Dracula tale starring either Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman or Klaus Kinski there was F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU, one of the first and still most haunting of all vampire tales. With his shaven, bulbuous skull, elongated fingers that seem like raven's...Watch Movie
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From Hand to Mouth
With its large ensemble cast and elaborate location shooting, FROM HAND TO MOUTH signals Harold Lloyd’s mature phase following innumerable one-reelers. He begins the film on the skids, salting a chicken bone as he eyes a lunch counter. Lured into a kidnapping scheme, Lloyd’s...Watch Movie
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How a Mosquito Operates
The first example of "personality" animation, in which an animated character appears to think and exhibits individualism through his actions. The beginnings of a type of animation that reached its apex in Walt Disney's SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS twenty five years later.Watch Movie
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Ghosts Before Breakfast
The Dadaists were closely attuned to cinema's native surrealism. And so it is fitting that Hans Richter's GHOSTS BEFORE BREAKFAST should return to so many of the medium's first loves: trick shots, fisticuffs and slapstick are all thrown in the dada blender, unfettered from the...Watch Movie
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What's the World Coming To?
This zany Hal Roach production of WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO? takes place in a future "one hundred years from now, when men have become more like women and women more like men." The film opens with the "blushing groom" approaching the altar where his tuxedoed bride awaits to...Watch Movie
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The Adventures of Prince Achmed
When THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED premiered in Germany on September 23, 1926 it was hailed as the first full-length animated film. More than seventy-five years later, Lotte Reiniger's enchanting film (made in collaboration with Carl Koch, Reiniger's husband) still stands as...Watch Movie
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The Fugitive
Five years before his controversial epic THE BIRTH OF A NATION, D.W. Griffith directed this relatively muted melodrama of two Johns fighting in the Civil War (one for the Union and the other for the Confederacy). Both men say goodbye to mothers and sweethearts and make haste for overgrown...Watch Movie
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Same Stream Twice
My daughter's name is Maya. I've been told that the word maya means illusion in Hindu philosophy. As I watch her growing up, spinning like a top around me, I realize that her childhood is not something I can grasp but rather (like the wind) something I feel tenderly brushing...Watch Movie
