Twenty-Four Film Masterpieces, 1920s:
1. Greed (1924/ US/ d. Erich von Stroheim) [photo, above] (****)
2. The Gold Rush (1925/ US/ d. Charles Chaplin) (****)
3. Napoleon (1927/ Fr./ d. Abel Gance) (****)
4. The Last Laugh (1924/ Ger. D. F. W. Murnau) (****)
5. Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ (1925/ US/ d. Fred Niblo) (****)
6. Battleship Potemkin (1925/ USSR/ d. Sergei Eisenstein) (****)
7. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926/ Ger./ d. Lotte Reiniger) (****)
8. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927/ US/ d. Ernst Lubitsch) (*** 1/2)
9. The Gaucho (1927/ US/ d. F. Richard Jones) (*** 1/2)
10. The General(1927/ US/ d. Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman) (*** 1/2)
11. Strike (1925/ USSR/ d. Sergei Eisenstein) (*** 1/2)
12. Safety Last (1923/ US/ Fred Newmeyer, Sam Taylor) (*** 1/2)
13. Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge (1924/ Ger./ d. Fritz Lang) (***)
14. The Wind (1928/ US/ d. Victor Sjostrom) (***)
15. Nanook of the North (1922/ US/ d. Robert Flaherty) (***)
16. Blackmail (1929/ UK/ d. Alfred Hitchcock) (***)
17. The Last Command (1928/ US/ d. Josef von Sternberg) (***)
18. Pandora’s Box (1928/ Ger./ d. G. W. Pabst) (***)
19. White Shadows in the South Seas (1929/ US/ d. W. S. Van Dyke, Robert J. Flaherty) (***)
20. Man With A Movie Camera (1929/ USSR/ d. Dziga Vertov) (***)
21. The Love Parade (1929/ US/ d. Ernest Lubitsch) (***)
22. Sunrise (1927/ US/ d. F. W. Murnau) (***)
23. October (1928/ USSR/ d. Sergei Eisenstein) (***)
24. Street Angel (1928/ US/ d. Frank Borzage) (***)
Film Masterpieces Checklist 1927-29:
1929
Alibi (US/ d. Roland West) (***)
Applause (US/ d. Rouben Mamoulian) (***)
* Asphalt (Ger./ d. Joe May)
Blackmail (UK/ d. Alfred Hitchcock) (***)
The Broadway Melody (US/ d. Harry Beaumont)
* Bulldog Drummond (US/ d. F. Richard Jones)
* A Cottage on Dartmoor (UK, Swe./ d. Anthony Asquith)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Ger./ D. G. W. Pabst) (** 1/2)
Disraeli (US/ d. Alfred E. Green) (**)
The Divine Lady (US/ d. Frank Lloyd) (** 1/2)
* Four Feathers (US/ d. Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, Lothar Mendes)
The General Line/ Old and the New (USSR/ d. Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov) (** 1/2)
Hallelujah! (US/ d. King Vidor) (** 1/2)
* The Iron Mask (US/ d. Allan Dwan)
The Love Parade (US/ d. Ernest Lubitsch) (***)
Man With A Movie Camera (USSR/ d. Dziga Vertov) (***)
* The New Babylon (USSR/ d. Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg)
Noah’s Ark (US/ d. Michael Curtiz) (* 1/2)
Pandora’s Box (Ger./ d. G. W. Pabst) (***)
Queen Kelly (US/ d. Erich von Stroheim) (** 1/2)
* Seven Footprints to Satan (US/ d. Benjamin Christensen)
* A Throw of Dice (UK, India, Germany/ d. Frank Osten)
The Virginian (US/ d. Victor Fleming)
The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Ger./ d. G. W. Pabst, Arnold Fanck) (**)
1928
Arsenal (USSR, Ukraine/ d. Aleksandr Dovzhenko) (**)
* Beggars of Life (US/ d. William Wellman)
The Cameraman (US/ Edward Sedgwick) (** 1/2)
The Crowd (US/ d. King Vidor) (**)
The Docks of New York (US/ d. Josef von Sternberg)
The Fall of the House of Usher (Fr./ d. Jean Epstein) (**)
* Hangman’s House (US/ d. John Ford)
The Italian Straw Hat (Fr./ d. Rene Clair) (* 1/2)
The Last Command (US/ d. Josef von Sternberg) (***)
* Lonesome (US/ d. Pal Fejos)
The Man Who Laughs (US/ d. Paul Leni)
October (USSR/ d. Sergei Eisenstein) (***)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Fr./ d. Carl Theodor Dreyer)
* The Patsy (US/ d. King Vidor)
Sadie Thompson (US/ d. Raoul Walsh)
* Scampolo (It./ d. Augusto Genina)
Show People (US/ d. King Vidor) (***)
Spies (Ger./ d. Fritz Lang) (**)
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (US/ d. Charles F. Riesner)
Storm Over Asia (USSR/ d. Vsevolod Pudovkin) (** 1/2)
Street Angel (US/ d. Frank Borzage) (***)
The Wedding March (US/ d. Erich von Stroheim) (***)
White Shadows in the South Seas (US/ d. W. S. Van Dyke, Robert J. Flaherty) (***)
The Wind (US/ d. Victor Sjostrom) (***)
1927
* Bed and Sofa (USSR/ d. Abram Room)
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Ger./ d. Walter Ruttman)
The Cat and the Canary (US/ d. Paul Leni) (**)
* Casanova (Fr./ d. Alexandre Volkoff)
* Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (US/ d. Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack)
* The End of St. Petersburg (USSR/ d. Vsevolod Pudovkin)
Flesh and the Devil (US/ d. Clarence Brown)
* For the Term of His Natural Life (Austral./ d. Norman Dawn)
The Gaucho (US/ d. F. Richard Jones) (*** 1/2)
The General (US/ d. Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman) (*** 1/2)
It (US/ d. Clarence Badger) (***)
The Jazz Singer (US/ d. Alan Crosland) (** 1/2)
The Kid Brother (US/ d. Ted Wilde)
The King of Kings (US/ d. Cecil B. DeMille) (***)
The Lodger (UK/ d. Alfred Hitchcock) (** 1/2)
Love of Jeanne Ney, The (Ger./ G. W. Pabst) (**)
Metropolis (Ger./ d. Fritz Lang) (** 1/2)
Napoleon (Fr./ d. Abel Gance)
7th Heaven (US/ d. Frank Borzage) (***)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (US/ d. Ernst Lubitsch) (*** 1/2)
Sunrise (US/ d. F. W. Murnau) (***)
Underworld (US/ d. Josef von Sternberg) (***)
The Unknown (US/ d. Tod Browning) (**)
Wings (US/ d. William Wellman)
2 comments:
Seeing your list only reminds me how many silent films I've yet to see. I pretty much got all the essential Chaplin and Keaton films cause I love the silent comedians. I haven't seen all of "Greed" that is all of the scenes that are available to us, it is a film I must rewatch again.
Getting into silent films is a strange experience... They're very hard to watch, frequently. I think this is because the melodrama was the genre of choice and it dates badly (only the Douglas Sirk melodramas of the '50s seem to work stylistically in the long run). I think the reason why the comedies last is that there were comedy auteurs like in no other era. Chaplin was a perfectionist, Keaton too. Who is a perfectionist comedy director today? Sometimes silents work because we "can't go back": such as THE LAST LAUGH or SUNRISE or STREET ANGEL: which only seem possible as silents.
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