It can be, since everything is arguable.
I prefer City Lights, but didn’t Mel Brooks almost make a silent film?
I want to see “The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse”
@RUS
Rich, do you really put Sunrise, Potemlin, Intolerance, and the Last Laugh ahead of POJOA?
I appreciate this thread, because it reminds me that I need to seek out some more silent films, as I have heard great things about the Crowd, and I’ve yet to see Seventh Heaven or Pandora’s Box among others.
Personally I found that Sunrise was only great when it was in the village at the beginning and end, while the middle drags a bit.
Also, are you not a fan of Pudovkin? No “End of St. Petersberg”, “Storm over Asia”, or “Mother” in your top 20?
the greatest silent film of all time is probably a Murnau
either The Last Laugh or Sunrise
but let’s see where it falls if i were to come up with a top 10 silents:
1—Sunrise (1927)
2—The Crowd (1928)
3—Seventh Heaven (1927)
4—Battleship Potemkin (1925)
5—Intolerance (1916)
6—The Last Laugh (1924)
7—Pandora’s Box (1929)
8—The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
9—The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (1921)
10—Entr’acte (1924)
of course, there are at least 10 more or so that could equally be called the “greatest” along with those ten, so yeah, i guess it could be argued that it’s the greatest.
for those of you about to ask:
11—Cabiria (1914)
12—Street Angel (1928)
13—Earth (1930)
14—The Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)
15—Un Chien Andalou (1928)
16—The General (1927)
17—The Wedding March (1928)
18—Broken Blossoms (1919)
19—The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
20—Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a great film, Beneezy. Great film.
I still have much to see, but as for my personal ranking, I would put:
Joan of Arc
2. La Roue
3. Napoleon
4. End of St. Petersberg
5. Siegfried
6. Sunrise
7. Caligari
8. Metropolis
9. Greed
10. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
11. Faust
12. Storm over Asia
13. Der Mude Tod
14. Nosferatu
15. The Vampires
16. Mother
17. Potemkin
…still much too see.
Not much a fan of Keaton or Chaplin
Thanks. Oh what about NOSFERATU? i head that one was just ok. I still want to see it though.
Nosferatu feels very antiquated to me. Murnau’s conception of special effects for this film consisted of some negative images and speeding up the film to simulate unholy speed.
The end is good, and there is a great shot at the end, though I don’t think they hold it long enough for maximum effect.
Possibly—although I love “Napoleon”…
>>Nosferatu feels very antiquated to me. Murnau’s conception of special effects for this film consisted of some negative images and speeding up the film to simulate unholy speed.<<
Well, aside from not being able to afford anything more, there wasn’t much more available in 1921…
PArt of what has always made NOSFERATU work for me is its antiquated look. It feels like it’s from another time & place – and I don’t just mean Germany in the early 1920s. It adds a feeling of authenticity that increases its creepiness.
Not while COKE ENNYDAY AND THE MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH (1916) is still out there.
Greatest film ever IMO! No foolin!
not if u count the black swan or dr caligari
“can the “passion of joan of arc” arguably be the greatest silent film ever?"
nope…because there’s just not one greatest silent film, whatever that “genre” means…
I agree with Dimitris’s point. This is a bit like trying to call the ‘Best Western.’
Also, I might take Potemkin over Joan of Arc, for its soundtrack. Just kidding about that the soundtrack, except that to watch Potemkin set to Shostakovich’s score is to experience a very pure expression of 20th century Soviet culture, a culture which has generally landed very appropriately in the ashbin of history (though it did have its redeeming moments—Eisenstein, the Leningrad Symphony, the Great Dissidents).
And it’s worth remembering that the silent films were meant to be watched with musical accompaniment. There is a neat music festival every year in Astoria, Oregon where part of the program is to exhibit a famous silent film (generally off one of the lists posted above), with orchestral accompaniment. I’m going to make a point of attending one of those performances next summer.
Not while COKE ENNYDAY AND THE MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH (1916) is still out there.
Flicker Alley did a bang up job on that Fairbanks box set. Coke Ennyday deserves to achieve cult status.Yet another film that has been on my must-see list for over a year now. Am I the only one who feels like there are 1 million amazing movies to watch and no time to watch them? I only get to watch like, 3 movies a week yet I discover about 20 per week that I want to see.
I still need to see that…
And I agree with you, Ryan.
I can never decide between The General, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Oskar Fischinger’s Radio Dynamics, but how the hell are you suppose to decide between such disparate films?
Alex Krupl
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) is the Mona Lisa of film