This might be the earliest movie we ever discuss on this site. Should you watch it? Spoilers: probably.
Tag Archives: Silent Movies
MODERN TIMES (1936)
The final appearance of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp character somehow remains both funny and relevant.
INTOLERANCE (1916)
Maybe the first big blockbuster, somehow still leaving viewers flabbergasted a century later. Also one long missive about “cancel culture,,” basically.
LA PASSION DE JEANNE D’ARC (1928)
Renée Jeanne Falconetti gives perhaps the greatest of all movie performances in this legendary silent film that feels like “an historical document from an era where cinema did not exist.”
SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (1927)
Perhaps the artistic apotheosis of silent movies, just before sound came in and swept them away.
SHERLOCK JR. (1924)
Buster Keaton climbs into a movie screen inside of the movie he’s already in. He gets the girl in both movies.
THE GOLD RUSH (1925)
Charlie Chaplin’s biggest hit is also probably my favorite of his movies that I’ve yet seen.
THE GENERAL (1926)
In which Buster Keaton almost dies over and over in the name of comedy, and also drops an actual train off an actual bridge.
WITHIN OUR GATES (1920)
The earliest extant movie from a Black director, I found myself getting into it as more than homework.
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925)
A Soviet propaganda film that basically invented the modern action sequence.
Movie Valhalla 