Best Silent Films

The Wind - 1928 (HD) | by Victor Sjöström | Starring Lillian Gish. The Wind film of 1928. (Silent Movie). "The Wind is a 1928 American synchronized sound romantic drama film directed by Victor Sjöström. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. The movie was adapted by Frances Marion from the 1925 novel of the same name written by Dorothy Scarborough. Featuring Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson and Montagu Love, it is one of the last films released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer without audible dialogue and is considered to be among the greatest "silent" films." Wikipedia. Background Music: Johann Sebastian Bach. "My favorite silent movie with my favorite classical music composer" - Juan C. Rueda

The Musketeers of Pig Alley is a 1912 American short drama and a gangster film, directed by D. W. Griffith and written by Griffith and Anita Loos. It is also credited for its early use of follow focus, a fundamental tool in cinematography. The film was released on October 31, 1912, and re-released on November 5, 1915, in the United States. The film was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey where many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based at the beginning of the 20th century. Location shots in New York City reportedly used actual street gang members as extras during the film. It was also shown in Leeds Film Festival in November 2008, as part of Back to the Electric Palace, with live music by Gabriel Prokofiev, performed in partnership with Opera North. In 2016, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc (HD) est un film de procès français réalisé par Carl Theodor Dreyer en 1927 et projeté pour la première fois à Copenhague le 21 avril 1928. Il s'agit d'un film muet mais qui avait été initialement conçu comme un film parlant, ce à quoi Dreyer dut renoncer pour des raisons liées à l'équipement technique du studio. D'où l'aspect déconcertant de ce film, qui adopte déjà les codes du parlant tout en restant un film muet. La plupart de la musique a été publiée avec des compositeurs français, à quelques exceptions.

Intolerance is a 1916 epic silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Subtitled as Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages and A Sun-Play of the Ages, the three-and-a-half-hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines, each separated by several centuries: first, a contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; second, a Judean story: Christ's mission and death; third, a French story: the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572; and fourth, a Babylonian story: the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia in 539 BC. Each story had its own distinctive color tint in the original print. The scenes are linked by shots of a figure representing Eternal Motherhood, rocking a cradle.

Broken Blossoms - 1919 (HD) | Touching Drama: Starring Lillian Gish & Directed by D.W Griffith. Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl, often referred to simply as Broken Blossoms, is a 1919 American silent drama film directed by D. W. Griffith. It was distributed by United Artists and premiered on May 13, 1919. It stars Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, and Donald Crisp, and tells the story of young girl, Lucy Burrows, who is abused by her alcoholic prizefighting father, Battling Burrows, and meets Cheng Huan, a kind-hearted Chinese man who falls in love with her. It was the first film distributed by United Artists. It is based on Thomas Burke's short story "The Chink and the Child" from the 1916 collection Limehouse Nights. In 1996, Broken Blossoms was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. #classicmovies #silentfilm #lilliangish #blackandwhite

Pandora's Box (German: Die Büchse der Pandora) is a 1929 German silent drama film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, and starring Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer. The film follows Lulu, a seductive young woman whose uninhibited nature brings ruin to herself and those who love her. It is based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist ("Earth Spirit", 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora ("Pandora's Box", 1904). Dismissed by critics on its initial release, Pandora's Box was later rediscovered by film scholars as a classic of Weimar German cinema.

Metropolis - 1927 (HD) | by Fritz Lang. Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name (which was intentionally written as a treatment). It stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studios for Universum Film A.G. (UFA). Metropolis is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction film, being among the first feature-length ones of that genre. "On 1 January 2023, the film's American reserved copyright expired, thereby entering the film into the public domain." Wikiipedia. Remastered and Musically edited by Rueda Books & Arts with some master pieces of the greatest German classical baroque music composers: Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Wagner.

The Great Train Robbery - 1903 (HD): First Western Movie. The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 American silent film made by Edwin S. Porter for the Edison Manufacturing Company. It follows a gang of outlaws who hold up and rob a steam locomotive at a station in the American West, flee across mountainous terrain, and are finally defeated by a posse of locals. The short film draws on many sources, including a robust existing tradition of Western films, recent European innovations in film technique, the play of the same name by Scott Marble, the popularity of train-themed films, and possibly real-life incidents involving outlaws such as Butch Cassidy. Porter supervised and photographed the film in New York and New Jersey in November 1903; the Edison studio began selling it to vaudeville houses and other venues in the following month. The cast included Justus D. Barnes and G. M. Anderson, who may have also helped with planning and staging. Porter's storytelling approach, though not particularly innovative or unusual for 1903, allowed him to include many popular techniques of the time, including scenes staged in wide shots, a matte effect, and an attempt to indicate simultaneous action across multiple scenes. Camera pans, location shooting, and moments of violent action helped give The Great Train Robbery a sense of rough-edged immediacy. A special close-up shot, which was unconnected to the story and could either begin or end the film depending on the projectionist's whim, showed Barnes, as the outlaw leader, emptying his gun directly into the camera. Due in part to its popular and accessible subject matter, as well as to its dynamic action and violence, The Great Train Robbery was an unprecedented commercial success. Though it did not significantly influence or advance the Western film genre, it was widely distributed and copied, including in a parody by Porter himself. During the twentieth century, inaccurate legends about The Great Train Robbery developed, claiming it was the first Western or even the first film to tell a story. Film scholars have repeatedly disproved these claims, demonstrating that The Great Train Robbery was a stylistic dead-end for its maker and genre; its commercial success and mythic place in American film lore nonetheless remain undisputed. The film, especially the close-up of Barnes, has become iconic in American culture, appearing in numerous film and television references and homages. In 1990, The Great Train Robbery was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being " #culturally , #historically , or #aesthetically significant ". Remastered and Musically edited by Rueda Books & Arts. The entire film was edited with Scott Joplin's music, one of the best North American composer of the 19th century. Scott Joplin: The Entertainer 3:20 #western #silentfilm #classicmovies

Wings - 1927 (Gershwin | HD): Starring Clara Bow. Wings is a 1927 American silent and synchronized sound film known for winning the first Academy Award for Best Picture. Due to the general public's apathy towards silent films, the film was quickly re-released in 1928 with synchronized sound. While the sound version of the film has no audible dialogue, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The film stars Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and Richard Arlen. Rogers and Arlen portray World War I combat pilots in a romantic rivalry over a woman. It was produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman, and released by Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation. Gary Cooper appears in a small role, which helped launch his career in Hollywood. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2023. Remastered and musically edited by Rueda Books & Arts.

The General is a American silent comedy-action Western film released by United Artists in 1926. Inspired by “the Great Locomotive Chase”, a true story of an event that occurred during the North American Civil War, extracted and adapted from the memoirs of William Pittenger (1889): The Great Locomotive Chase. The film stars Buster Keaton, who also co-directed it with Clyde Bruckman. The entire film was edited with Scott Joplin's music, one of the best North American composer of the 19th century. In 1954, the film entered the public domain in the United States because its claimant did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.