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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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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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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Battleship Potemkin
For eight decades, Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 masterpiece has remained one of the most influential silent films of all time. Yet each successive generation has seen BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN subjected to censorship and recutting, its unforgettable power diluted in unauthorized public...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 Life of an American Fireman
The fire rescue was a popular subject across many forms of popular culture (songs, painting, journalistic essays, photography), but particularly in the early cinema. As early as 1896, traveling showman Lyman H. Howe had assembled five short films to tell the story of a fire...Watch Movie
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Spies
Rudolf Kleine-Rogge stars as Haghi, the head of an elaborate criminal empire, and Willy Fritsch is the undercover agent assigned to topple the diabolical king from his throne. Filled with the intrigue and high-tech gadgetry that continue to define the genre, SPIES remains remarkably contemporary,...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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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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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 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The most brilliant example of that dark and twisted film movement known as German expressionism, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI is a plunge into the mind of insanity that severs all ties with the rational world. Director Robert Wiene and a team of designers crafted a nightmare...Watch Movie
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Terror Island
Petrie's Island is a remote island off the Irish coast which has no phones, one police officer, a boat that only delivers supplies once a week and a wonky generator supplying all the electricity. When farmer Ian Bellows turns up missing after disappearing into a cave to investigate a strange,...Watch Movie
