Best Films prior to 1930

Here beginneth the voting on the poll for best films made up to and including 1929.

65 Comments »

65 Responses

on December 21, 2009 at 5:26 am | Reply Just Another Film Buff

No one started? Really? OK, Since, I have no plans of going into a “silent movie marathon mode”, let me inaugurate right now.

I can barely say that I’ve seen silent movies. But these are my favorites among the very very few I’ve seen (In order of preference).

1. An Andalusian Dog (Buñuel)
2. Berlin: Symphony Of A Great City (Ruttmann)
3. The Man With A Movie Camera (Vertov)
4. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
5. Metropolis (Lang)
6. Napoléon (Gance)
7. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (Dreyer)
8. Gold Rush (Chaplin)
9. The Cameraman’s Revenge (Starewicz)
10. Nosferatu (Murnau)
11. The General (Keaton)
12. The Kid (Chaplin)
13. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (Murnau)
14. The Vampires (Feuillade)
15. Chess Fever (Pudovkin, Shpikovsky)
16. Fantasmagorie (Cohl)
17. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Weine)
18. Shoulder Arms (Chaplin)
19. A Woman Of Paris (Chaplin)
20. Voyage to the Moon (Méliès)
21. One A.M (Chaplin)
22. Circus (Chaplin)
23. Mother (Pudovkin)
24. The End Of St. Petersburg (Doller, Pudovkin)
25. A Dog’s Life (Chaplin)
- on December 22, 2009 at 9:19 pm | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  JAFB: My, my, my what a humble man. You say you haven’t gone further than the tip of the iceberg, but then you put together this masterful list. So many here either will make my own list, or will be under serious consideration for, as well as Allan’s. Great work!
  - on December 22, 2009 at 10:36 pm wondersinthedark
    
    It is an excellent list, but he’s right, Sam, it is only the tip of the iceberg.
- on April 9, 2010 at 4:36 am | Reply MovieMan0283
  
  Nice on #16! It made my top 40 as well…short & sweet…
on January 7, 2010 at 1:52 pm | Reply Kaleem Hasan

Didn’t realize this poll had already begun. Will get back to this later.
on January 12, 2010 at 12:53 am | Reply Dave

Just as a general reminder to myself… how long does this stay open to voting? I have to cover a lot of ground in order to put together a decent enough Top 25, but I’m just wondering how long I have to go on silent film marathons! 🙂
- on January 12, 2010 at 10:48 pm | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  Dave, you have all the way up until mid-April, so there is plenty of time. Allan’s countdown will run well into April.
on January 19, 2010 at 2:09 am | Reply DeeDee

Hi! Sam Juliano, Allan and WitD readers,
For those of you who are interested…Here goes a link to a silent film festival in Kansas City…I will provide more information…shortly!

Kansas Silent Film Festival
DeeDee 😉 🙂
on February 17, 2010 at 8:10 am | Reply MovieMan0283

I’m trying to keep up with the silents – right now between what I’d already seen & what I caught up with thanks to Allan’s countdown I’m at about 50/50. Since I may be launching my own chronological series within a few months of this one, and I don’t want to give too much away, could I vote by secret ballot? It would only be my version of “favorites” among the best, as I have trouble numbering what I consider the “greatest” but the more the merrier as this poll probably will not attract as many voters as in the past…
on March 1, 2010 at 4:48 pm | Reply Lyrical Nitrate

thank u for this nice blog with a very nice content.
just a personal preference;

1916 – Zhizn za Zhizn [Evgeni Bauer]
1928 – Menschen am Sonntag [Ulmer-Siodmak]
1929 – La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc, fille de Lorraine [Marco de Gastyne]
1927 – München-Berlin Wandering [Oskar Fischinger]
1920 – Hamlet [Sven Gade]
1920 – Erotikon [Mauritz Stiller]
1916 – Cenere [Febo Mari]
1926 – Po zakonu [Lev Kuleshov]
1911 – De Wigwam [Joris Ivens]
1920 – The Last Of The Mohicans [Clarence Brown, Maurice Tourneur]
on March 14, 2010 at 11:18 pm | Reply David H. Schleicher

Just kind of wondering out loud here…

While there have been at least half a dozen previously unknown or not-before-seen films I have “caught up with” thanks to Allan’s essential countdown of the “almost silents” and I hope to catch up with some more before the countdown ends…I’m still not confident that even with these recent viewings coupled along with my limited (though informed) knowledge of other silent greats, I would be able to post a well-rounded Top 25.

If one were to post a top ten or fifteen, say, would those rankings still be tabulated in the final results of the poll?
- on March 15, 2010 at 5:29 pm | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  David, as I stated in the diary, you are welcome and encouraged to submit a shorter list. We will have no problem allocating the points accordingly.
on March 15, 2010 at 5:21 pm | Reply Krauthammer

It seems that like many others here I haven’t seen nearly as many silent classics as I would like, and that’s a shame because the top ten listed here could easily double as my top ten of all time.

1. Sunrise (Murnau, 1927)
2. The Crowd (Vidor, 1928)
3. Broken Blossoms (Griffith, 1919)
4. The Man With A Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
5. La Roue (Gance, 1923)
6. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Ingrim, 1921)
7. The Thief of Bagdad (Walsh, 1924)
8. Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922)
9. Sherlock Jr. (Keaton, 1924)
10. Intolerance (Griffith, 1916)
11. Steamboat Bill Jr. (Keaton, 1928)
12. Michael (Dreyer, 1924)
13. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
14. The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925)
15. Le Melomane (Melies, 1903)
16. Emak-Bakia (Ray, 1926)
17. Haxan (Christensen, 1922)
18. The Unknown (Browning, 1927)
19. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
20. Metropolis (Lang, 1927)
21. A Trip to the Moon (Melies, 1902)
22. He Who Gets Slapped (Sjostrom, 1924)
23. Pandora’s Box (Pabst, 1929)
24. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920)
25. The Kid (Chaplin, 1921)
on March 15, 2010 at 5:28 pm | Reply Sam Juliano

Ah Krauthammer my friend, you are SORELY MISSED in these parts, but leave it to you to post a list of this excellence. I think many of the voters are waiting till Allan’s countdown ends before posting their own ballots as this is the trickiest poll we’ve ever conducted here (I have seen 64 of Allan’s Top 100 myself, but wanted also to wait a little longer to post) as well as the one where there will only be a limited number of submissions. This is clear. But thanks again for this superb ballot!!!!
on March 15, 2010 at 7:10 pm | Reply Peter

At long last here’s my silent list:

1 La Roue
2 Potemkin
3 Napoleon
4 The Passion of Joan of Arc
5 Nosferatu
6 The General
7 The Gold Rush
8 Intolerance
9 Sunrise
10 Phantom of the Opera
11 The Crowd
12 Birth of a Nation
13 Big Business
14 Die Niebelungen
15 Shoulder Arms
16 The Wind
17 The Big Parade
18 The Last Laugh
19 Sherlock Jr.
20 Metropolis
21 Pandora’s Box
22 Our Hospitality
23 Faust
24 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
25 The Man With A Movie Camera
- on March 17, 2010 at 2:01 am | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  Peter, kudos to you! Great work!!!!
on March 15, 2010 at 7:15 pm | Reply Kaleem Hasan

Though I always have questions about any given poll and am perhaps a reluctant participant in any one I am particularly wary of this current one. I think that we do not approach silent cinema the way we do any film in the age of ‘sound’ which is to say the spoken word. While there is a certain minimal adjustment always required when one tries to access works from different eras the problem is a singular one in the field of cinema when one watches ‘silent’ films. We can never be in the position of those first or at least early spectators of cinema. Silent cinema comes us to with a ‘lack’. We can never not be aware of this in a psychological sense. A cinema that does not ‘speak’ is both art and artifact at the same time, never one without the other. It is like being treated to those ‘artworks’ from Lascaux where it the question of art is simply undecidable and the potency of the artifact in any case overwhelms any such questioning. Because those paintings some to us from our own human or even ‘pre-human’ pre-history. So it is with silent cinema in a very different sense. Those early audiences never saw cinema as ‘incomplete’ but for us these are charming works just about waiting to ‘speak’! It is far easier to like a mediocre silent work than a mediocre sound film. Because the ‘artifactual’ nature of the former keeps dazzling us. It is like those combs we see in Egyptian sections of museums. Are these really ‘art’? But they exist in an enclosure which otherwise houses great works of art from other eras! Art bleeds into artifact. And so when we ‘poll’ silent films we are commenting on a medium that just cannot be perceived by us the way it once was. We have lost those contexts forever. Of course in all of this lies a wonderful ‘fable’ about art in general. Artworks survive across time, these can be relevant in very different contexts. And yet once the original contexts (or world) are lost the work can never quite be experienced in the sort of ‘plenitude’ that it could in its world. On the other hand we need that distance in time to truly understand the work’s ‘greatness’. Because of the histories it generated, because of the number of ages it was able to speak to. So I am not arguing against a critical estimation of silent cinema but we must be rather vigilant when we do this. Much as we could hardly judge Homer adequately without truly understanding the ‘standards’ of his time. Having offered this massive caveat I present my list but literally setting no store by it. These seem to me significant films. The top choice is relatively random though a very personal favorite which I think needs to top these silent film lists far more than it does as at least one of the choices:

1)J’Accuse (Gance)
2)Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
3)Nosferatu (Murnau)
4)Greed (von Stroheim)
even the reconstructed 4 hr version which supplements the existing 2 hr footage with stills and is just a husk of the original work is nonetheless enough to reveal how great this film would have been if left complete. I believe this would have been the pre-eminent film of all time.

5)Gold Rush (Chaplin)
6)The Lodger(Hitchcock)
7)L’Argent (Herbier)
8)Die Nibelungen (Lang)
9)Mabuse (Lang)
10)La Roue (Gance)
11)Blackmail (Hitchcock)
12)Birth of a Nation (Griffith)
13)Metropolis (Lang)
14)Les Vampires (Feuillade)
15)Nanook of the North (Flaherty)
16)Strike (Eisenstein)
17)October (Einsenstein)
18)I Was Born But.. (Ozu)
19)Story of Floating Weeds (Ozu)
20)Adventures of Prince Achmed (Reininger)
21)Sunrise (Murnau)
22)Spies (Lang)
23)Phantom Carriage (Sjostrom)
24)Un Chien Andalou (Bunuel)
25)Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreiser)

I would have liked to include Page of Madness but this is so extraordinarily poor in the existing transfers that I just find myself unable to judge it adequately. I haven’t made up an alternate 25 as I usually do because I am not very confident about the top 25 to begin with!
- on March 16, 2010 at 2:38 pm | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  Kaleem, you beat me to the punch on GREED, as I was also planning to include a similar provisal. If the entire film had been saved, it surely would have topped any silent list; as it is even in its truncated form it ranks among the five or six greatest silent films still. Your entire discusion here and classy list are deserving of the highest praise!
  - on March 16, 2010 at 9:05 pm wondersinthedark
    
    It’s a well written piece gramatically, but it’s content leaves something to be desired, comparing silent films to the Lascaux cave drawings. Sorry, that’s just utter bollocks.
    
    Then again, Kaleem is a politician, and so how something is said matters more than WHAT is said.
  - on March 16, 2010 at 10:00 pm Jamie
    
    agreed Allan.
    
    All films are modern art, as the form (more or less) came after Picasso’s ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ of 1907. that one painting is a great point of reference for modern art. Before it not, after it yes. Granted film as a medium has its own points of change and modernity, but as a form it is foolish to think cave paintings are comparable to ANY film period.
    
    Even if I was making a painting reference to film the farthest back I’d go is Manet maybe. Maybe Cezanne. I mean something like ‘Un Chien Andalou’ is more modern then some mainstream films today. You can’t say a similar statement that the Lascaux paintings are more modern then any contemporary visual art.
  - on March 17, 2010 at 4:50 am Kaleem Hasan
    
    always too kind Sam..
on March 16, 2010 at 4:29 pm | Reply Sam Juliano

I have decided to take a pass on listing a long and unweildy honorable mentions list, and will instead go with a top 25 with a five-way tie for the final spot. There are so many other great silents, including several recently released in the Warner Archives series that I’ve secured, but Allan’s Top 100 takes care of the exhaustive aspects of compiling a comprehensive treatment. For the sake of tabulation I will make it simple, though there are many more ***** masterpieces that follow.

1 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
2 Sunrise (Murnau)
3 The General (Keaton)
4 La Roue (Gance)
5 Greed (Von Stroheim)
6 Napoleon (Gance)
7 The Wind (Sjostrom)
8 The Last Laugh (Murnau)
9 Sherlock Jr. (Keaton)
10 The Crowd (Vidor)
11 Potemkin (Eisenstein)
12 The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
13 The Wedding March (Von Stroheim)
14 Broken Blossoms (Griffith)
15 I Was Born…..But (Ozu)
16 L’Argent (l’Herbier)
17 Faces of Children (Feyder)
18 Nosferatu (Murnau)
19 J’Accuse (Gance)
20 Mother (Pudovkin)
21 The Man With A Movie Camera (Vertov)
22 The Circus (Chaplin)
23 He Who Gets Slapped (Sjostrom)
24 The Italian Straw Hat (Claire)
25 Faust (Murnau)
The Cheat (de Mille)
The Battle of the Somme (Malins/McDowell)
The Big Parade (Vidor)
The Scarlet Letter (Sjostrom)
-five-way tie-
- on March 16, 2010 at 8:39 pm | Reply Jamie
  
  I was/am hesitant to compile a list as my silent film acumen isn’t where it probably should be. though reading these list’s I realize I’ve seen way more silent films then I admit.
  
  That being said I still don’t think I can make a list of any worth, instead I’ll just keep saving these lists and trying to watch all I can. I still don’t feel I ‘get’ silent films, as many of the classics just don’t really do much for me. Other era’s even when I don’t like a ‘classic’ I can at least see whats great about it. Silents I still cannot.
  
  That being said there are still many I do like a great deal.
  
  Great lists guys keep up the great work.
  - on March 17, 2010 at 2:00 am Sam Juliano
    
    Thanks very much Jamie!
    
    Well, you have a few more weeks if you want to give it a go, but I do understand what you are saying here, and knew from the start that this venture would attract the least participants for all sorts of reasons. I know you have a far more extensive background here than you give yourself credit for.
  - on March 17, 2010 at 5:06 am Kaleem Hasan
    
    Jamie, your reaction to silent films is quite understandable to me and I think gets at the heart of what I was referring to earlier in terms of how we respond to silent films.
  - on March 17, 2010 at 5:06 am Kaleem Hasan
    
    but this is very appropriate.. you choose to remain silent on silent films!
  - on March 18, 2010 at 5:32 pm MovieMan0283
    
    Jamie, it comes down to pesonal preference as well, I think – Allan is way more into melodrama than me, and my own list would probably include more avant-garde films (not a knock, just an observation). Not sure how many of these you’ve seen, but maybe you’d like them more than the narratives and then feel compelled to do a top 25. Check out the avant-garde series from Kino, which is on Netflix. Sorry if I’m pointing you to something you’ve already seen – but I think it’s would be up your alley if not.
- on March 16, 2010 at 9:03 pm | Reply wondersinthedark
  
  Five way tie!!! Old serial cheat strikes againm ironic considering you picked The Cheat as one of the five.
- on March 17, 2010 at 4:51 am | Reply Kaleem Hasan
  
  Battle of the Somme slipped my mind.. of course I didn’t make the alternate 25 anyway..
on March 16, 2010 at 9:36 pm | Reply Bob Clark

My list is very cursory this time. I enjoy a lot of silent films, but my exposure isn’t as exhaustive as I would like– there’s still a lot I have to make time for. At the same time, there’s also a lot of sacred cows everyone else holds up that I’ve never cared for one bit– silent comedy puts me to sleep, as does most of Griffith’s work, controversy not withstanding. So this is not exactly a list I would stand by, but simply a ballot composed for the purposes of this countdown.

1 ) Pandora’s Box (Pabst)
2 ) Haxan (Christensen)
3 ) Metropolis (Lang) * Haven’t yet seen the full cut
4 ) The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
5 ) Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler (Lang)
6 ) Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
7 ) Un Chien Andalou (Bunuel)
8 ) Die Nibelungen (Lang)
9 ) Electrocuting an Elephant (Edison)
10 ) Der Mude Tod (Destiny) (Lang)
11 ) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Weine)
12 ) The Lodger (Hitchcock)
13 ) Nosferatu (Murnau)
14 ) Gertie the Dinosaur (McCay)
15 ) The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
16 ) Man With a Movie Camera (Vertov)
17 ) The Phantom of the Opera (Julian)
18 ) La Reue (Gance)
19 ) Sunrise (Murnau)
20 ) The Golem: How He Came Into the World (Wegener)
21 ) The Sinking of the Lusitania (McCay)
22 ) Woman in the Moon (Lang)
23 ) Voyage Dans La Lune (Mellies)
24 ) Frankenstein (Dawley)
25 ) Spione (Lang)
- on March 17, 2010 at 1:57 am | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  Excellent list Bob!!! What’s great about it especially is the ‘personal touch.’ And that’s a unique #1 choice too! A truly great film.
- on March 17, 2010 at 2:13 am | Reply Bob Clark
  
  You never know, Sam, it might very well change by the time I see the full “Metropolis”. I will admit, though, that Thea von Harbou’s hammy script REALLY gets on my nerves.
  
  While I may watch other Lang classics like “Mabuse” or “Die Nibelungen” more often, at the end of the day the top spot was a competition between the blissful Satanic absurdity of “Haxan” and the romantic cynicism of “Pandora’s Box”. I’m tempted to waffle back and forth between these two and revise my order even now, but for the moment I’m going strictly by which movie I’ve watched more often, and Louise Brooks remains bewitching enough to compete with all the covens in the world.
  
  Then again… Maybe “Electrocuting an Elephant” deserves to be number one. It’s certainly one of a kind…
on March 17, 2010 at 5:01 am | Reply Kaleem Hasan

Jamie, Allan — even if you consider the Lascaux point hyperbolic this is only ONE sentence of my overall comment on silent cinema! I stand by the central point. We cannot access silent films the way people did in the 20s. I meant the silent cinema to Lascaux comparison more in an analogical sense. The Egyptian comb functions in a similar way. Each might or might not be art but each is also an artifact that exerts an enormous power even without the intervention of art.

Jamie, I am not very convinced by the idea of cinema as ‘modern art’. Not sure what you mean. Also the idea that Un Chien Andalou is more ‘modern’ than many contemporary films is perhaps debatable. It is certainly a better example of ‘modernism’ perhaps than most contemporary films. I think you might be using these terms interchangeably. In any case this could be said of any art form. There are novels written earlier in the 20th century that seem more avant-garde than anything written since. Schoenberg perhaps is more ‘modern’ than anyone who’s followed him. So on and so forth.
on March 17, 2010 at 5:04 am | Reply Kaleem Hasan

“Then again, Kaleem is a politician, and so how something is said matters more than WHAT is said.”

Alas I lack the skills to be a politician. But I console myself with the idea that some of my interlocutors lack far finer sensibilities..
on March 17, 2010 at 4:58 pm | Reply Frederick

1 Sherlock Junior
2 Napoleon
3 The Passion of Joan of Arc
4 Metropolis
5 The General
6 The Gold Rush
7 Potemkin
8 La Roue
9 Greed
10 The Wind
11 Nosferatu
12 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
13 Die Niebelungen
14 Man With A Movie Camera
15 The Great Train Robbery
16 Big Business
17 The Kind
18 Safety Last
19 Our Hospitality
20 Pandora’s Box
21 Strike
22 Mother
23 Birth of a Nation
24 He Who Gets Slapped
25 Intolerance
on March 17, 2010 at 7:04 pm | Reply Kaleem Hasan

A discussion that I’ve had ongoing for some years now on silent cinema and which also takes up the Lascaux analogy:

http://satyamshot.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/an-evolving-discussion-on-silent-cinema/

Qalandar (who has occasionally commented here) is part of the discussion as well.

This entire discussion perhaps clarifies where I am coming from on this entire matter.
on March 17, 2010 at 7:56 pm | Reply David Noack

This was the most difficult polling you’ve conducted, but maybe the highest in terms of quality.

1 Nosferatu
2 Greed
3 The Man with a Movie Camera
4 Birth of a Nation
5 Metropolis
6 Shoulder Arms
7 A Dog’s Life
8 Passion of Joan of Arc
9 Napoleon
10 Phantom of the Opera
11 The Freshman
12 He Who Gets Slapped
13 Intolerance
14 Big Business
15 Potemkin
16 The General
17 Last of the Mohicans
18 Wings
19 The Gold Rush
20 Sherlock Jr.
21 Sunrise
22 Diary of a Lost Girl
23 Way Down East
24 The Last Laugh
25 Spione
- on March 18, 2010 at 6:46 pm | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  Thanks David, for coming through with a solid list, which ranks with the best of em!
on March 18, 2010 at 5:43 pm | Reply MovieMan0283

What date are we looking at for the final polling? I am going to have a viewing marathon from about mid-next week to early April when I hope to knock off a whole slew of silents – and watch a bunch I haven’t seen for a while.

And would it be possible to do a “secret ballot” – for Allan’s, Sam’s, and Angelo’s eyes only? I ask because I am hoping to work on own favorites/best series over the summer and unveil the first part – which would cover the silent era – in the fall. Don’t want to tip my hand too much! (Though I probably have already, in my comments…)
- on March 18, 2010 at 6:44 pm | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  Joel, we generally allow the voting to go ten (10) days from the date of Allan’s #1 posting, which means the final day for voting will probably be April 6th. We can definitely keep your ballot a secret of course.
on March 21, 2010 at 2:11 am | Reply Just Another Film Buff

Wow. forgot to follow up the comments… Here it goes…
on March 22, 2010 at 1:18 am | Reply dennis

OK-Here goes… Remember, I’m doing this off my BlackBerry: 15. Birth Of A Nation (Griffith) 14. The General (Keaton) 13. Thief Of Baghdad (Von Stroheim) 12. Steamboat Willy (Iwerks, Disney) 11. Pandora’s Box (Gance) 10. Intolerance (Griffith) 9. The Wind (Sjorstrom) 8. Metropolis (Lang) 7. Battleship Potempkin (Eisenstein) 6. Nosferatu (Murnau) 5. The Gold Rush (Chaplin) 4. Greed (Von Stroheim) 3. Napoleon (Gance) 2. Passion of Joan Of Arc (Dreyer) 1. Sunrise (Murnau). THANKS ALLAN-THIS COUNT WAS GREAT-LOTSA FUN/EDUCATION!!!!!
- on March 22, 2010 at 2:29 am | Reply Bob Clark
  
  No selections for 16-25, Dennis?
on March 22, 2010 at 1:23 am | Reply dennis

ALSO… In my opinion and humble estimation the top 5 directors of this period were: Von Stroheim, Gance, Dreyer, Chaplin and they all KNEEL to the master of the period, FREIDRICH WILHELM MURNAU!!!!!!!
on March 22, 2010 at 1:28 am | Reply dennis

Whoops, I made a BOO-BOO… I accidentally cited Gance as the director of PANDORA’s BOX, I meant to write PABST….. SORRY, ANGELO!!!!!!
- on March 22, 2010 at 2:32 am | Reply Bob Clark
  
  Also, you listed “Thief of Bagdad” as a film by Von Stroheim (it was directed by Raoul Walsh).
on March 24, 2010 at 5:47 pm | Reply John R.

1 – Napoleon
2 – The Wedding March
3 – Sherlock Jr.
4 – Sunrise
5 – Passion of Joan of Arc
6 – He Who Gets Slapped
7 – Greed
8 – Man with A Movie Camera
9 – Potemkin
10 – The Wind
11 – La Roue
12 – The General
13 – Metropolis
14 – Intolerance
15 – A Dog’s Life
16 – The Crowd
17 – Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
18 – Big Business
19 – Birth of a Nation
20 – Strike
21 – Wings
22 – The Pilgrim
23 – Foolish Wives
24 – The Last Laugh
25 – Haxan
on March 27, 2010 at 12:33 am | Reply dennis

Yeah, I know BOB. I made a mistake. I was tapping away so carefully on this fuckin Blackberry I didn’t even realize I made an error. Too busy worrying about hittin the right keys I named the wrong director. I love that you sit around all day waiting for one of us to fuck up. I should try it some afternoon. You’ll be the only person I’ll be watching. HA!
on March 28, 2010 at 5:38 pm | Reply Shubhajit Lahiri

Sam & Allan, I don’t know if you’d consider this for your poll, because I’ve decided to list down my 5 favourite films of Chaplin, arguably the greatest silent artist there ever was. So this is how it goes:

1. Gold Rush
2. Modern Times
3. City Lights
4. The Kid
5. The Great Dictator
- on March 28, 2010 at 8:56 pm | Reply wondersinthedark
  
  Yes, but Shuba no 5 certainly wouldn’t count. we can’t really consider it for the pool, but you’re more than welcome to list whatever you like.
on March 30, 2010 at 11:55 pm | Reply David H. Schleicher

Okay, I am just doing a Top Ten here. I feel it would be unfair to expand (even though I could) as there are many films that I know would make a full Top 25 list had they not been so scarce to find (I speak of GREED, NAPOLEAN and THE WIND). There are also other films from this era I need to re-watch or watch in full to be able to give them their due (most of D.W. Griffith’s work as well as the works of Chaplin and Keaton, and BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN). All of these films I am familiar with from study and watching clips over the years…and I consider time my greatest enemy here. Clearly many of these would make a true top 25 list.

But at any rate…I did want to honor those films from the silent era I love and have been able to give their proper time to evaluate, especially since I feel my number one pick is among the greatest films of all time from any period (and there is no way any other film from this period could top it for me — I am that stubborn about my love for it).

1. The Passion of Joan Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
2. Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922)
2. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Weine, 1919)
4. Metropolis (Lang, 1927)
5. Faces of Children (Feyder, 1925)
6. The Lodger (Hitchcock, 1927)
7. Sunrise (Murnau, 1927)
8. The Last of the Mohicans (Brown & Torneur, 1920)
9. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Reiniger, 1926)
10. Un Chien Andalou (Bunel, 1929)

Thanks again to Allan (and everyone at WitD) for shining the light on this era and helping me find some “new” films to love (i.e. my numbers 5 and 9) that I would not have otherwise discovered. It also reminded me how deficient I am in this area of film history, which blurs by me like a music-video montage. Silent films have so permeated our pop-culture, most don’t even realize it (I mean who in the Western world would not recognize the silhouette of Chaplin …or does not know the “carriage down the steps” scene from BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN…or the “Ride of the Valkyries” scored horse chase from BIRTH OF A NATION?) — yet so few of us know these films in their entirety or even from where these iconic images come from. I need to stop and savor images and art from this period far more often. So thanks again!
- on March 31, 2010 at 6:20 am | Reply wondersinthedark
  
  Thanks, David. Email me at rollo.tomassi@btinternet.com we’ll see what we can do about those IMPOSSIBLE FINDS.
- on April 2, 2010 at 12:27 am | Reply David H. Schleicher
  
  Oh, man, how could I forget THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with Lon Chaney!? AH! One of my faves as a kid.
on April 2, 2010 at 5:09 am | Reply DeeDee

Hi! Sam Juliano,
I forget 😕 if the 25 films are suppose to be viewed only from the Movie Timeline…because I watched two silent films today that aren’t on the Timeline list…Therefore, I would like to know if it will be alright to include films on my top25 list…that aren’t listed on the 1920-1929 Timeline?

DeeDee 😉 🙂
on April 2, 2010 at 5:16 am | Reply wondersinthedark

No, that’s just a guide, DeeDee, include anything you like, especially if you’re struggling to make up 25.
on April 5, 2010 at 4:08 am | Reply Samuel Wilson

1. Die Niebelungen — following Alan I treat the two films as one unit, but for the record I prefer Kreimhild’s Revenge.

2. The General
3. Nosferatu
4. Pandora’s Box
5. Our Hospitality
6. Passion of Joan of Arc
7. Sunrise
8. Metropolis
9. The Gold Rush
10. Intolerance
11. Why Worry?
12. The Thief of Baghdad
13. October (my favorite Eisenstein silent in part because it was one of the first silents I ever saw and some of the imagery is indelible)
14. Sherlock Jr.
15. Napoleon
16. Wings
17. Foolish Wives
18. The Last Laugh
19. The Circus
20. Warning Shadows
21. Safety Last
22. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
23. Dr. Mabuse the Gambler
24. The Beloved Rogue (Alan Crossland)
25. Battleship Potemkin
26. The Crowd
27. Greed (general release version)
28. Spies
29. The Phantom of the Opera
30. The Kid Brother
31. Tol’able David
32. The Kid
33. The End of St. Petersburg
34. Steamboat Bill Jr.
35. Regeneration (Raoul Walsh)
36. Faust
37. The Last of the Mohicans
38. The Iron Mask (though I know it only via the rerelease with narration by Fairbanks Jr.)
39. For Heaven’s Sake
40. The Man Who Laughs
41. The Golem
42. Broken Blossoms
43. The Cameraman
44. Ben-Hur
45. Three Bad Men (John Ford)
46. The Black Pirate
47. The Freshman
48. The Wedding March
49. The Big Parade
50. Cabiria

I think I’ll stop here. I might be able to reach 100 if I threw shorts in, but I have a hard enough time ranking films without weighing shorts against features. The above is the order that occurs to me tonight and reflects some viewing I’ve done since Alan began his survey. If you miss some familiar titles, I can explain The Wind and The Lodger, to name two cases, by admitting that I haven’t seen them. There should be more Russian films on the list but it’s been so long since I saw many of the canonical films on PBS that I can’t make a fair appraisal of them now. This whole project reminds me that I need to see more silent films, but then again I need to see more films of nearly every kind.
on April 6, 2010 at 1:28 am | Reply DeeDee

Hi! Sam Juliano, Allan (an according to Sam Juliano, that Tabulator Extraordinaire Angelo D. Arminio Jr.) and Witd readers,
Here goes my top 25 almost silent films list…
1. Hitchcock’s The Lodger (The Story of a London Fog)
2. Lang’s Metropolis (Thanks, to Gilchrist Anderson, who restoration pushed me over the edge to actually watch this film.)
3.Hitchcock’s Blackmail
4. Rupert Julian, Edward Sedgwick, Lon Chaney’s
The Phantom of the Opera…
5. Von Stroheim’s The Wedding March

6. L’Argent
7.Pabst’s Pandora Box (Thanks to R.L.Bourges, for introducing me to this film.)
8.Robert Weine’s Cabinet of Dr. Caligari…Chaplin’s Gold Rush
Lang’s “M”
9.Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune (Thanks, to my writer Andrew Katsis, that 7th wonder from downunder…)
10.The Sheik

11.The Mark of Zorro…
12.Blood and Sand…
13.The Wind (Thanks, to the Googler)
14.Hitchcock’s The Manxman
15 The Last Laugh

16. SinBad…
17. Gold Rush
18. The Cheat…
19.The Vanishing American…
20.The Last of the Mohicans…

21.Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie
22. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
23. The Mysterious Lady
24.Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Heidelberg
25.The Hunchback of Notre Dame,

Three Films…That I didn’t watch yet, (with yet being the “operative” word.)
L’Inhumaine (France 1924…Marcel l’Herbier)
The Late Mathias Pascal (France 1926…Marcel l’Herbier)
La Femme et le Pantin (France 1928…Jacques de Baroncelli)

Thanks,to youtube, Google, Classicflix, and Amazon on Demand I was able to watch the following film with a couple of them making onto Allan’s countdown.

DeeDee 😉 🙂
on April 6, 2010 at 1:55 am | Reply DeeDee

Hi! Sam, Allan and WitD readers,
Check out this site if you want to watch some additional silent films
before the almost silent poll ends…I have to second Dennis, notion Allan, what a very educational journey…indeed!
Thanks,
Marcel I’Herbier’s Eldorado

DeeDee 😉
on April 9, 2010 at 2:10 am | Reply Allan Fish

1 Sunrise
2 The Wedding March
3 Greed
4 Napoleon
5 The Passion of Joan of Arc
6 The Thief of Bagdad
7 Nosferatu
8 Metropolis
9 The General
10 Potemkin
11 Pandora’s Box
12 The Last Command
13 Intolerance
14 La Roue
15 The Crowd
16 The Wind
17 L’Argent
18 Big Business
19 A Page of Madness
20 Spione
21 Haxan
22 The Gold Rush
23 The Kid Brother
24 Diary of a Lost Girl
25 The Docks of New York
on April 9, 2010 at 2:21 am | Reply Dennis Polifroni

1 Sunrise
2 The Passion of Joan of Arc
3 Napoleon
4 Greed
5 The Gold Rush
6 Nosferatu
7 Battleship Potemkin
8 Metropolis
9 The Wind
10 Intolerance
11 Pandora’s Box
12 Steamboat Willie
13 Thief of Bagdad
14 The General
15 Birth of a Nation

This is what Angelo requested, a verticle re=post of Dennis’s list from below.

OK-Here goes… Remember, I’m doing this off my BlackBerry: 15. Birth Of A Nation (Griffith) 14. The General (Keaton) 13. Thief Of Baghdad (Von Stroheim) 12. Steamboat Willy (Iwerks, Disney) 11. Pandora’s Box (Gance) 10. Intolerance (Griffith) 9. The Wind (Sjorstrom) 8. Metropolis (Lang) 7. Battleship Potempkin (Eisenstein) 6. Nosferatu (Murnau) 5. The Gold Rush (Chaplin) 4. Greed (Von Stroheim) 3. Napoleon (Gance) 2. Passion of Joan Of Arc (Dreyer) 1. Sunrise (Murnau). THANKS ALLAN-THIS COUNT WAS GREAT-LOTSA FUN/EDUCATION!!!!!
on April 9, 2010 at 2:55 am | Reply DeeDee

Hi! Sam Juliano, Allan, and WitD readers,
I may have to “revise” my list in a few minute (or before the actual polling end)…because Sam Juliano, send me a silent film and I watched today and a couple of cinemagician Georges Méliès, short films from my own collection too.
DeeDee 😉 🙂
- on April 9, 2010 at 3:00 am | Reply Sam Juliano
  
  Dee Dee, go right ahead and revise. Anyway, any film made after 1929 won’t be accepted by Angelo, so I know you have one or two in there by Chaplin that aren’t technically eligible. Angelo won’t be looking at this until tomorrow morning, so change anything you want. I can’t wait to see what you have new up there!!!
on April 9, 2010 at 4:13 am | Reply DeeDee

Hi! Sam Juliano,
Thanks, for the heads-up!
Let me get started on the revision…immediately!
DeeDee 😉
on April 9, 2010 at 4:27 am | Reply MovieMan0283

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT MY OFFICIAL BALLOT!!!

My choices have been submitted already, via e-mail. I did this privately because I didn’t want to tip my hand too much – I’ll be doing my own canonical exercise sometime in the near-future and wanted to maintain some suspense. Nonetheless, I’d like to provide a top 40, alphabetized, for the public record. Needless to say, 15 of these did not make the cut-off for my official top 25 (which was ranked to boot). Which ones? I ain’t tellin’…

The Adventures of Prince Achmed
Anemic Cinema
The Battleship Potemkin
The Big Parade
The Birth of a Nation
The Cameraman’s Revenge
Un Chien Andalou
The Crowd
Diary of a Lost Girl
The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Fantasmagorie
Faust
Foolish Wives
The General
Gertie the Dinosaur
The Gold Rush
The Gosta Berlings Saga
Haxan
He Who Gets Slapped
Intolerance
J’Accuse
The Last Command
The Last Laugh
The Man with the Movie Camera
Metropolis
Die Nibelungen
Nosferatu
Our Hospitality
Pandora’s Box
The Passion of Joan of Arc
The Phantom Carriage
Le Retour a la Raison
Rhythmus 21
La Roue
The Scarlet Letter
Sunrise
The Thief of Bagdad
The Unknown
The Wedding March
The Wind.

I haven’t watched the Brownlow version of Napoleon yet and am not a huge fan of the 4-hour Coppola-presented edition (as you can see, I like the other two early Gances better) – though the Revolutionary sequences, with Gance as Sant-Just, are a real treat. Perhaps the Brownlow restoration (and new score, F.F.’s dad’s being tiresome to my ears) will change my opinion. Perhaps Battle of the Somme, which I was going to squeeze in tonight but just didn’t get to (instead I had last-minute screenings of shorts: re-views of Chien Andalou and several avant-garde films, plus first-times for Gertie, Cameraman’s Revenge, Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, and the delightful 1-minute Fantasmagorie, which all made the top 40). Perhaps any of the around 100 silent films I’ve reserved to watch, between Netflix and other means, might have jumped into this elite squad. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

As it stands, the list is a snapshot of a work in progress. Hopefully it makes an interesting addition to the eventual totality of the poll.
- on April 9, 2010 at 5:00 am | Reply MovieMan0283
  
  And yeah, no Greed, though I probably should have found a place for it in the 40 as it’s an impressive achievement overall (the Death Valley scenes are outstanding). That said, most of the Stroheim films I’ve seen mix opulence with squalor, a mixture I find fascinating. Greed pretty much solely focuses on the latter, which is the point, but one I find less appealing than his other work. I also miss Stroheim himself, he’s one of my all-time favorite actors and his presence in his own work is one of its highlights for me. These are personal reasons for exclusion, I suppose, but (like Allan) I feel that when ranking the best of the best one falls back on favorites amongst the Olympian lot because ones generally comparing apples to oranges. So there it is.
  
  Also, truth be told, though I included it I have not yet seen the second half of Die Nibelungen yet – and the first was seen in an irritatingly stretched-out aspect ratio on You Tube (though the picture quality was exceptionally sharp for a viral video). Nonetheless, I liked what I saw enough to find it a place in the 40. That dragon-slaying scene was fantastic, though you gotta feel kind of sorry for the beast. All he wanted was a drink of water and for his troubles he gets slayed by an arrogant Aryan twit.