The first great film

The earliest film that can be defined as great, or modern, meaning it grasps cinema. My pick would probally be Battle Ship Potemkin.

Well, i think some earlier great films like Feuillade serials and Nosferatu stand up very well today, though of course there’s the issue of having to make some allowances, and how you define cinema and modern

There are a few candidates.
1920 cabinet of dr. Caligari
1921 Four Horsemen of the Apacolypse
1923 La Roue

Depending on if you think Caligari or the 4 Horsemen are cinematic enough, but La Roue is certainly a cinematic masterpiece.

Cabinet, hands down.

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919) ;)

Intolerance!

Kenji,

Feuillade was my first thought.

If we can count shorts I’d say Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

I haven’t seen Broken Blossoms or Yellow Man; but I have seen Intolerance, and for me, it still represents an artform still in developement, not yet birthed.

I second Broken Blossoms!

Besides the blatantly racist and crude second half, I say The Birth of A Nation.
Or the 1910 Frankenstein.
If this upper choice is too controversial:
La Roue
J’accuse

Metropolis is not the first great film. However, it is practically the first great film of its kind.

Murnau’s Nosferatu was pretty ground breaking also, mainly in style rather than technically.

I forgot Haxan.

For me, Nosferatu just feels too antiquated. Mind you I recognize how much more fluid it is than Intolerance, but I find Lang’s Der Mude Tod from 1921 to be superior visually.

There are several here that I have not seen, so I am very intrigued. I’d also like to add Les Vampires from France, 1915.

I go to youtube to try and find out what this Feuillade is that Kenji mentions, and its the guy that directed the Vampires…

but the Griffith films, I’ve still only seen Intolerance.

…maybe youtube?

Mexican film La banda del automovil gris would be a nice canditate along the ones already mentioned. Also Der Golem.

La voyage dans la lune.

It’s magical. Really.

—PolarisDiB

It would have to be a D.W. Griffith movie – I vote for Intolerance (1916). Griffith revolutionized cinema in his day, establishing many cinematic techniques used repeatedly afterward. With Birth of a Nation (1915), this was his most influential film. There is an amusing film by the Taviani brothers called Good Morning, Babylon that tells the tale of two brothers coming from Italy to work on the Babylon set of this famous movie – a great double bill.

Oh yes, a very warm and likeable film, Good Morning Babylon (as with several others by the Tavianis)

Det Hemmelighedsfulde X (aka Mysterious X) 1914 by Benjamin Christensen. An early masterpiece.

I agree wit POLARISDIB: many say that Melies’ “Le Voyage dans la Lune” is the first masterpiece in the history of cinema.

Fantômas -1913 – Louis Feuillade,

Jason,

You can see A Corner in Wheat on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSF7p_DAAxw

It’s a short but it possesses many of the elements of style that Griffith later elaborated on in his best features.

Thanks Matt for the link.

Also, about a Voyage to the Moon. I don’t find anything poetic or cinematic about the filmmaking, nor is there anything really interesting about the narrative. I take it for what it is, an early movie, but I personally wouldn’t consider it a great film.

I agree with Jason.
Ah, a masterpiece, really absolute, before Broken Blossoms is Straight Shooting (1917), the first Ford we have and rarely seen. They found a surviving copy of it in a Czech cinematheque. Anybody has seen it?

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) dir. Murnau… with Janet Gaynor… Oscar 1929 in unique and artistic production, best actress, best cinematography

The Wind (1928) dir. Victor Sjostrom …. with Lillian Gish, a western and a psychological film

For pioneering efforts, i do like the shorts of Alice Guy-Blaché, who started in 1896 but hasn’t had the attention or credit she deserves

Kenji, I didn’t know of the existence of Alice Guy. Really rare. I found something on the internet, let you know soon!

It was the first and the most greatest experimental film in the history. It must be in The Auteurs.

I’d not heard of Alice Guy-Blaché either, thanks for the recommendation!

First greats… I would agree that The Mysterious X (1914) is remarkable and very ahead of its time. Ditto Louis Feuillade’s film serials Fantômas (1913) and Les Vampires (1915). L’Inferno (1911), an Italian interpretation of Dante’s Inferno, is of note, but I’d recommend finding a copy without the completely incongruous Tangerine Dream score.

Even earlier, I’d recommend a lot of Georges Méliès’ films, particularly The Merry Frolics Of Satan (1906), The Impossible Voyage (1904), A Trip To The Moon (1902) and Bluebeard (1901). He ought to be represented better on this site, he was really ahead of the game and his influence is still palpable.

As for 19th century cinema, I’d like to bring up the name of Émile Reynaud, responsible for the first “proper” animations. As early as 1892, he was producing 15-minute-long hand-painted animations which for some reason were never appreciated at the time. A few years later, and other artists had built on his techniques – to far greater praise. Allegedly, he was so angry and disappointed that he threw his life’s work into the Seine… although a two-minute film is available on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5MXcxaRXNc