What Are the Best Silent Films of All Time?

There's something inherently romantic about old silent movies. They're transcendent--made a long time ago, but somehow connected to the world we see every day.

I love trying to be conscious of where Hollywood came from, and how silent films actually built out the visual medium we use today.

Today, we're going to discuss the silent era of films, including its famous actors, directors, and films. I'll also try to compile a list of silent films that you should definitely watch.

So, let's get started.

Mary PickfordWikimedia

What Is a Silent Film?

A silent film is a film with no audible dialogue. They tell stories using only visuals.

At times, dialogue and beats can also be conveyed using title cards to signify important events or pieces of information.

Back in the old days, they would frequently have live orchestras that played music with them.

Buster KeatonCredit: Criterion

When Was the Silent Era?

The "silent era of cinema" was from 1894 to 1929. It occurred simultaneously with German Expressionism, French Impressionism, Soviet Montage, and Classical Hollywood.

So it was a really busy time!

History of Silent Films

The silent era was when the camera angles and camera movements we expect from Hollywood today were invented. There was three-point lighting, close-ups, long shots, and even continuity editing. We saw stars like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Mary Pickford.

ChaplinCredit: Criterion

When Did Silent Movies End?

Of course, as soon as synchronized sound was invented, this all came to an end. Talking pictures, or "talkies," came into the norm with The Jazz Singer in 1928. And the silent film era officially ended in 1929.

A List of Famous Silent Film Actors

• Fatty Arbuckle
• Laurel and Hardy
• Buster Keaton
• Charlie Chaplin
• Wallace Reid
• Douglas Fairbanks
• Mary Pickford
• John Gilbert
• Greta Garbo
• Jackie Coogan
• Clara Bow
• Norma Shearer
• Rudolph Valentino
• Harold Lloyd
• Lillian Gish

A List of Silent Movie Comedians

• Roscoe Arbuckle
• Monty Banks
• Spencer Bell (actor)
• Brooks Benedict
• Henry Bergman
• Billy Bevan
• Charles Bowers
• John Bunny
• Eric Campbell (actor)
• Charlie Chaplin
• Charley Chase
• Chester Conklin
• Lige Conley
• Clyde Cook (actor)
• Claude Cooper (actor)
• Mae Dahlberg
• Max Davidson
• Reginald Denny (actor)
• Fred Evans (comedian)
• Will Evans (comedian)
• W. C. Fields
• James Finlayson (actor)
• Anita Garvin
• Raymond Griffith
• Charlie Hall (actor)
• Lloyd Hamilton
• Oliver Hardy
• Otis Harlan
• Gale Henry
• Alice Howell
• Igor Ilyinsky
• Buster Keaton
• Edgar Kennedy
• Madge Kirby
• Lupino Lane
• Harry Langdon
• Laurel and Hardy
• Stan Laurel
• Max Linder
• Harold Lloyd
• Fred Mace
• Curtis McHenry
• Joe Murphy (actor)
• Mabel Normand
• James Parrott
• Marcel Perez
• Léonce Perret
• Snub Pollard
• Charles Prince (actor)
• Charles Puffy
• Pugo (comedian)
• Pugo and Togo
• Edna Purviance
• Billy Quirk
• George Robey
• Tiny Sandford
• Larry Semon
• Al St. John
• Ford Sterling
• Mack Swain
• Togo (comedian)
• Ben Turpin
• Billy West (silent film actor)

Laurel and Hardy

A List of Famous Silent Film Directors

• Charlie Chaplin
• King Vidor
• Sergei Eisenstein
• D.W. Griffith
• Aleksandr Dovzhenko
• Buster Keaton
• Abel Gance
• Fritz Lang
• Victor Sjöström
• Paul Leni
• Ernst Lubitsch
• Cecil B. Demille

Sergei Eisenstein

The Best Silent Films List

I am not an expert on silent films, I can only make a list of the ones I've seen over the years that I love, and that became big.

Check them out below.

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920): A German Expressionist masterpiece known for its distorted sets, chiaroscuro lighting, and unsettling story.
• Metropolis (1927): Fritz Lang's epic science fiction film, a visually stunning commentary on social inequality and technological advancement.
• The Kid (1921): Charlie Chaplin's heartwarming and humorous tale of a tramp raising an abandoned child.
• The General (1926): Buster Keaton's thrilling Civil War comedy, featuring breathtaking stunts and slapstick brilliance.
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927): F.W. Murnau's visually poetic and emotionally resonant drama about temptation and redemption.
• Nosferatu (1922): F.W. Murnau's unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, a chilling and atmospheric vampire film.
• The Gold Rush (1925): Charlie Chaplin's iconic comedy about a lone prospector's misadventures during the Klondike Gold Rush.
• Battleship Potemkin (1925): Sergei Eisenstein's revolutionary propaganda film, renowned for its powerful montage editing and Odessa Steps sequence.
• Modern Times (1936): Charlie Chaplin's satirical commentary on industrialization and the dehumanizing effects of modern life.
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): Carl Theodor Dreyer's emotionally intense and visually striking portrayal of Joan of Arc's trial and execution.
• City Lights (1931): Charlie Chaplin's heartwarming and bittersweet romantic comedy about a tramp who falls in love with a blind flower girl.
• Sherlock Jr. (1924): Buster Keaton's hilarious and inventive comedy about a movie projectionist who dreams of being a detective.
• Intolerance (1916): D.W. Griffith's ambitious epic interweaving four stories across different historical periods.
• The Last Laugh (1924): F.W. Murnau's innovative drama about a hotel doorman's fall from grace, told almost entirely without intertitles.
• Nanook of the North (1922): Robert J. Flaherty's groundbreaking documentary about the life of an Inuit family in the Canadian Arctic.
• The Man With a Movie Camera (1929): Dziga Vertov's experimental documentary, a celebration of the power of cinema and the art of filmmaking.
• Way Down East (1920): D.W. Griffith's melodrama featuring Lillian Gish's iconic ice floe rescue scene.
• The Navigator (1924): Buster Keaton's hilarious comedy about two spoiled rich people stranded on a deserted ocean liner.
• Wings (1927): William A. Wellman's World War I aviation epic, the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
• The Thief of Bagdad (1924): Raoul Walsh's fantastical adventure film, renowned for its lavish sets and Douglas Fairbanks's athletic performance.
• The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927): Alfred Hitchcock's early thriller about a mysterious lodger suspected of being Jack the Ripper.
• The Mark of Zorro (1920): Douglas Fairbanks's swashbuckling adventure film, a classic of the genre.
• Flesh and the Devil (1926): Clarence Brown's romantic melodrama starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.
• The Freshman (1925): Harold Lloyd's hilarious comedy about a college student's

WingsCredit: RKO

Silent Movies on Netflix

One of my deepest worries about the future of Hollywood is how these streamers have no sense of history. There are no silent movies on Netflix. And it's hard to find a movie on the platform that was made before the 1970s.

Part of this is because major studios have their own platforms and hold the rights to these films, but also part of it is because they assume their audience is not interested. Tell them it's not so!

You can order the DVDs from Netflix, which has a deep library, but I want them to have easier access.

Can you imagine if Netflix just paid to put every Chaplin movie on there and exposed the world to his genius again? Or Keaton? Or Pickford?

Put them on that front page. Give them a category. Celebrate them. Partner with someone to restore some or to have a month showcasing them. Do anything that proves you love the history of movies, and not just new ones.

I hope it happens someday.

What Are the Greatest Silent Films?

What do we think are the greatest silent films ever? I don't want to belabor you with another long list. What I decided to do was pull the ones I thought were incredibly important to film history.

The first is Sergei Eisenstein’s first feature film, Strike. This is a special movie because it has the perfect example of the intellectual method of montage.

That's an editing theory established by Eisenstein. It also is a movie that changed his world. It was a powerful statement regarding relations between the proletariat and the capitalist bourgeoisie.

And he did it all without words.

You can't make this list without Charlie Chaplin, and City Lights is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. It has everything—action, romance, suspense, and Chaplin doing things that made us all hold our breath in awe.

It is a must-watch if you appreciate this era.

One that's special to me is Buster Keaton's The General. I remember my professor Roy Grundmann showing it to my class when I was in grad school.

As soon as Keaton hit the screen everyone was laughing and got incredibly invested in the story. Still one of the best viewing experiences of my life as we all gasped and clapped at Keaton's insane stunts and cinematography.

Another landmark movie that's so important is The Great Train Robbery.

When I talked to No Film School's Charles Haine, he said this about the film, "Combining two of my favorite genres, the Western and the Crime movie, directed by a former DP, with composites, a moving camera, and that amazing shot of Justus D. Barnes shooting straight down the barrel of the lens (foreshadowing the Bond opening by 60 some odd years), and driven by a plot surrounding the importance of the mail, The Great Train Robbery really fires on all cylinders for me."

Summing Up the Best Silent Films of All Time

What are your favorite silent-era films? What are the ones you think everyone should watch? The ones you think are the best ever made? a

We are always looking to add to our lists and to broaden our horizons. There are so many excellent movies out there for us to enjoy.

Let us know in the comments!