MovieChat Forums > Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925) Discussion > Your Top ten favorite silent films

Your Top ten favorite silent films

posted 16 years ago by SakowskyBrothers
41 replies | jump to latest

Starting this post to see what other kind of silent film favorites people have.

Here are mine.
(revised)

1.Citylights (1931)
2.Battleship potemkin (1925)
3.The Passion of Joan of Arc (/w Voices of light st)(1928)
4.The General (1927)
5.Metropolis (1927)
6.Sunrise (1927)
7.Goldrush (1925)
8.Nosferatu (1922)
9.Sherlock Jr.(1924)
10.Greed (1924)

As you can see I mostly like the short but sweet silent films hence I follow the code.

"A film should only be as long as you can hold your bladder"- Alfred Hitchcock
___
An old Hollywood saying goes...
"If it's not on the page, it's not on the stage."

[–] starwarsdude 16 years ago

Here are mine.

1. Nosferatu
2. Nosferatu
3. Nosferatu
....
9. Nosferatu
10. Man with a Movie Camera

"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." - Fight Club

[–] johnlsullivan 16 years ago

I know "City Lights" has no dialogue, but it has recorded sound effects and music, and it was made after the end of the silent era, so I don't think it really counts.

My top ten:

1) The Crowd (1927) Vidor
2) Sunrise (1928) Murnau
3) The Gold Rush (1925) Chaplin
4) The Wind (1928) Seastrom
5) The General (1927) Keaton
6) Metropolis (1927) Lang
7) Intolerance (1918) Griffith
8) Battleship Potemkin (1925) Eisenstein
9) Greed (1924) Von Stroheim
10) The Passion of Joan of Arc (1929) Dreyer

[–] Balthazar-5 9 years ago

Of course City Lights is a silent film. It is made with silent film aesthetics and has NOT, in it's original version, sound effects. In fact its most celebrated scene would not be celebrated if it had sound effects. That is the scene in which the blind girl mistakes the tramp for a rich man on the basis of the sound of the 'luxury car door' she hears before she meets him. The expression of this completely silently is one of the most magnificent pieces of visual expression in the cinema.

Keep watching the masterpieces....

[–] dglink 16 years ago

In no particular order:

1. The Big Parade
2. Wings
3. The General
4. Napoleon
5. Battleship Potemkin
6. City Lights
7. The Wind
8. Broken Blossoms
9. The Crowd
10. Sunrise

Honorable mentions to the Chaplin Mutuals, any number of Harold Lloyd films, parts of Birth of a Nation, It, The Thief of Baghdad, Flesh and the Devil, and probably dozens more that don't come to mind at the moment. And of course, Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ for the chariot race and Ramon Navarro.

[–] SakowskyBrothers 16 years ago

Awesome lists guys! top notch! But come on C-Hashagen City Lights is as close a silent film as anything. Hell even Modern Times is considered a silent film since it was one of the last films to use the dialogue box table, but I can see that slip. City Lights however is my silent film baby all the way!

___
An old Hollywood saying goes...
"If it's not on the page, it's not on the stage."

[–] happiness_is_easy 16 years ago

I would add to the list "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" (1919)

[–] jack_skellington_ 16 years ago

I think we've covered some great films. Here are some that haven't been mentioned:

The Last Laugh (1924)
Nanook of the North (1922)
Un Chien Andalou (1928)

My personal favourites of all the ones listed so far are Battleship Potemkin and Metropolis, because I tend to enjoy more flamboyantly stylized films.

this isn't me, i'm not mechanical

[–] jrjohnson 16 years ago

1. Metropolis
2. Sunrise
3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
4. Intolerance
5. Battleship Potemkin
6. October
7. Broken Blossoms
8. Way Down East
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc
10. Nosferatu

jrjohnson

[–] VanRippestein 16 years ago

01. Sunrise
02. Potemnkin
03. Metropolis
04. Caligari
05. Häxan
06. Nosferatu
07. Strike
08. Man with the movie camera
09. Körkarlen
10. Intolerance

Ash: [for no apparent reason] ... Groovy.

[–] pablo_toro 16 years ago

good lists... good films...

pablo

[–] johnson1740 16 years ago

I love The Wind, The Crowd, Caligari, Sunrise, Potemkin, Korkalen, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Sherlock, Jr. etc.

Here are some other really outstanding silent films:

The Golem (Wegener, 1920)
Seven Years Bad Luck (Linder, 1921)
He Who Gets Slapped (Sjostrom,1924)
Die Nibelungen (Lang, 1924)
The Man Who Laughs (Leni, 1924)
Greed (Von Stroheim, 1924)
Variete (Dupont, 1925)
Mother (Pudovkin, 1926)
The Kid Brother (Wilde, 1927)
Sparrows (Beaudine, 1926)
Napoleon (Gance,1927)
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Ruttmann, 1927)
Faust (Murnau, 1926)
Laugh, Clown Laugh (Brenon, 1928)
The Docks of New York (Von Sternberg, 1928)
The Cameraman (Sedgewick, 1928)
The Circus (Chaplin, 1928)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Pabst, 1929)
Earth (Dovzhenko, 1930)
Prix de beaute (Clair, silent version 1930)

-johnson1740

[–] J-man 15 years ago

I agree with all the above but I don't see The Man Who Laughs (1928) or Cat and the Canary (1927) mentioned. Both were directed by Leni.

IMHO they are both very good movies.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] naillon-2 15 years ago

Having seen your list, tosser3, I feel we must swear eternal friendship.

:)

[–] sanjuniban 15 years ago

My humble list:

1. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
2 Sunrise (1927)
3. Greed (1924)
4. Intolerance (1916)
5. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
6. Battleship Potemkin (1925)
7. Modern Times (1936)
8. City Lights (1931)
9. Metropolis (1927)
10A. Nosferatu (1922)
10B. The Man with a Movie Camera (1929)