Best of Silent Cinema

Oh man, how did I forget about Un Chien Andalou?

I’m really behind the times, I didn’t even realize Ozu had done silent films.

And how, pray tell,does one compile endless, repetitive lists of silent films without the best, Birth of a Nation?

Might have something to do with it.

It’s an impressive achievement in a lot of ways but hardly the best. Hell, it’s not even D.W. Griffith’s best.

My favorite silents, in no order:

Metropolis and Die Nibelungen (Lang)
Leaves From Satan’s Book, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Michael and The Parson’s Widow (Dreyer)
Erotikon (Machaty)
Ritual in Transfigured Time and Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren)
The Last Laugh (Murnau)
Sherlock Jr. and The Cameraman (Keaton)
The Lady and the Beard, A Story of Floating Weeds, Days of Youth and A Straightforward Boy (Ozu)
A Day in the Country (Renoir)
The Water Magician (Mizoguchi)
A Page of Madness (Kinugasa)
Diary of a Lost Girl and Pandora’s Box (Pabst)
Apart From You, No Blood Relation, Every-Night Dreams and Flunky, Work Hard! (Naruse)
Liebelei (Ophuls)

Some great films there Charles, but Liebelei and A Day in the Country aren’t silent.

I often find it really difficult to watch silent films, except for silent comedies, but some of my favourites:

The Passion of Joan of Arc
Underworld
Siegfried
Man With a Movie Camera
Un Chien Andalou
All of Chaplin’s

And I need to watch Greed and Gance’s Napoleon

@ DAVID SEMBLANCE

Ah, that’s right…I must be really losing track of all that I’ve seen.

Scratch the one for Ophuls and I replace Renoir’s A Day in the Country with The Little Match Girl.

A Page of Madness is probably my favorite silent film of all time.

Haxan is pretty good too, Der Golem is on my list to watch next.

@Rock

You should check out some early Ozu. You’ll be amazed at how different the tone is those films. Light, almost cheer in some, with a great deal of moving camera. But there’s a definite sense of loss in there as well.

Sunrise is the greatest silent ever, maybe the best film period. It defines what the image can do.

The Unknown starring Lon Chaney <3

The Man Who Laughs and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are great favorites. Also, Pandora’s Box and Threepenny Opera — any Pabst, actually.

I also watch Vampyr on those occasionally restless nights. Vampyr will have you hallucinating wide-awake. One of the greats.

I’ll also watch anything made by Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and almost anything by Chaplin.

The Wind (Sjöström)