Silent Drama
see all genres ›Shorn of the dialogue that drove stage drama, silent movies had to express romance, tension and conflict via nuance and visual invention, achieving such artistic heights that many lamented the comparative crudity of communication the medium was reduced to in the early sound era.
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Genres / Silent / Silent Drama
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Cowards Bend the Knee
"Cowardice!! The New Sexy!!!" squeals Guy Maddin about his shot-on-Super-8, expanded-to-35mm silent "autobiography" involving beauty salons, cowardice, femmes fatale, a father's severed hands (and the daughter who wants them sewn onto her lover's arms), orgies and the Soviet...Watch Movie
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Chang
Before they dreamed up that oversized ape, King Kong's creators filmed this magical story of a Thai family's struggle to survive the forces of nature. Shot entirely in Siam, the film tells the story of a farmer and his family who have settled on a small patch of land on the edge of the jungle....Watch Movie
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Shifting Sands
Marcia Grey is a struggling artist with a sick sister and an unpaid rent bill. The rent collector insults her and, after a struggle, he drops his wallet. Missing it, he calls a policeman and, by way of revenge, he returns to the flat where he accuses Marcia of theft. Unable to defend herself, she...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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Piccadilly
E.A. Dupont's PICCADILLY, the 1929 silent masterpiece brilliantly restored by the British Film Institute, stars the sultry Anna May Wong in her greatest role. After many years of supporting roles in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe in search of better work. And did she find it! Her electric,...Watch Movie
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From Show Girl to Burlesque Queen
A pretty young woman steps behind a dressing screen to prepare for the stage in this teasing short from the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (a competitor of Thomas Edison in the already competitive distribution and exhibition market). - Robert AvilaWatch Movie
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Friends
In the era of the gold rush, Dora (Mary Pickford) likes one fellow but he decides to prospect elsewhere and leaves her behind. Before long, another fellow (Lionel Barrymore) decides to make a play for the lonely young woman, too. A remarkably talented cast distances the relatively simple...Watch Movie
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Behind the Door
Writer Gouverneur Morris's bizarre tale unfolds in a series of disquieting flashbacks that serve to continually ratchet up suspense and foreboding. Producer Thomas H. Ince and director Irvin Willat showed daring and imagination in their adaptation of the sensational material. U-boat captain...Watch Movie
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My Grandmother
Forgotten for a half-century, Kote Mikaberidze's MY GRANDMOTHER is a delightful example of the Soviet Eccentric Cinema movement as well as a scathing satire of Soviet bureaucracy. Noted for its anarchic styles, stop-motion puppetry, exaggerated camera angles, animation and constructivist sets,...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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The Coffin Ship
A love story filmed in Long Island Sound with a stowaway and a shipwreck. Because of 1911 production convention, a sprawling adventure is truncated to one-reel length. Good location work, a strength of Thanhouser pictures, creates a visually strong seagoing story. Long Island Sound locations were...Watch Movie
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The Wandering Shadow
Rich in symbolic imagery and striking location photography, THE WANDERING SHADOW was the first collaboration of Lang and Thea von Harbou. It follows a woman who, in the wake of a scandal, seeks solitude in the Bavarian Alps. There, she is continually haunted by her past, but...Watch Movie
