Your Top ten favorite silent films

1.Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
2.Metropolis
3.The General
4.Phantom of The Opera
5.Battleship Potemkin
6.Nosferatu
7.City Lights
8.Passion of Joan of Arc
9.Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
10.The Lodger (I am a big Hitchcock fan, and I had to include him).

I realize that I have left out such films as:
-Intolorence
-The Big Parade
-Sunrise
-The Crowd

and many other great films, however the ten i listed are some of my personal favorites.



I realize that this is only supposed to be silent lists but when I start making a list I have to list a few of my fav. films with sound and silent mixed.

a few of my fav. films:
-Citizen Kane - Orson Welles (1941)
-Casablanca - MichaelCurtiz(1943)
-The Third Man - Carol Reed (1949)
-Seven Samurai - Akira Kurosawa(1954)
-Touch of Evil - Orson Welles (1958)
-Rules of The Game - Jean Renoir (1939)
-Singing In The Rain - Stanley Donen (1952)
-Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock (1958)
-Charade - Stanley Donen (1963)
-Double Indemnity - Billy Wilder (1944)
-Gone With The Wind - Victor Flemming/George Cukor (1939)
-The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Robert Wiene (1920)
-Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean (1962)
-The Godfather - Francis Ford Coppola (1972)
-Wizard of Oz - Victor Flemming (1939)
-400 Blows - Francois Truffaut (1959)
-The Grand Illusion - Jean Renoir (1937)
-8 1/2 - Federico Fellini (1963)
-The Seventh Seal - Ingmar Bergman (1957)
-The Magnificent Ambersons - Orson Welles (1942)
-The Red Shoes - Powell & Pressburger (1948)
-Treasure of the Sierra Madre - John Houston (1948)
-Gaslight - George Cukor (1944)
-The Black Narcissus - Powell & Pressburger (1946)
-The Maltese Falcon - John Houston (1941)
-Now Voyager - Irving Rapper (1942)
-Sunset Blvd. - Billy Wilder (1950)
-Frankenstein - James Whale (1931)
-The Big Sleep - Howard Hawks (1946)
-All About Eve - Joe Mankiewicz (1950)
-North By Northwest - Alfred Hitchcock (1959)
-The Trial - Orson Welles (1962)
-Laura - Otto Preminger (1944)
-The Lost Weekend - Billy Wilder (1945)
-The Lady Eve - Preston Sturges (1941)
-Night of The Hunter - Charles Laughton (1955)
-The Searchers - John Ford (1956)
-On The Waterfront - Elia Kazan (1954)
-Battleship Potemkin - Sergei Eisenstein (1925)
-The General - Buster Keaton (1927)
-Breathless - Jean-Luc Godard (1959)
-Sweet Smell Of Success - Alexander Mackendrick (1957)
-L'Atalante - Jean Vigo (1934)
-Metropolis - Fritz Lang (1927)
-Out Of The Past - Jacques Tourneur (1947)
-The Lady Vanishes - Alfred Hitchcock (1938)
-Mr. Arkadin - Orson Welles (1955)
-Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock (1954)
-The Killers - Robert Siodmak (1946)
-The Lady From Shanghai - Orson Welles (1947)
-Ace In The Hole - Billy Wilder (1951)
-The Theif of Bagdad - Michael Powell (1940) and yes the Fairbanks version is great also!

Well that is some of my favorites in my collection... although there are many many more that I have not listed. I know that I have mainly listed classic films, this does not mean that I don't own and appreciate films such as: Pulp Fiction, Fargo, Raging Bull, Amadeus, Platoon, Brazil, etc.. It just means that I prefer older films to newer... and yes film noir and the films that inspired film noir are probably my favorites.

I like to order all the newest classic films to be released even if its something I already own, like recently I purchased the MGM Hitchcock Premiere Collection and I already owned ALL of his films that are own dvd including the Criterion set "Wrong Men and Notorious Women" that I bought a few years back and the WHV Signature Box and The Universal Masterpiece Box and well I also bought the recent releases of Vertigo, Psycho and Rear WIndow in that new Legacy edition.. So anyway I purchase all new stuff that comes out and not just Hitch, I also got that new 50th anniv. 2-disc Touch Of Evil and the new Paramount two-disc releases of Sunset Blvd., Sabrina, Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Funny Face etc.. and the cool new Casablanca Blu ray Ultimate Collector's edition. I also order all the new Criterions that are released and am glad to be getting Magnificent Obsession.. Anyway If anyone has any good websites that list announcements on upcoming classic films to be released PLEASE let me know the web addresses. I usually use:
-classicflix.com
-dvdbeaver.com
-criterioncollection.com
-kino.com (great silent dvds!)
-amazon.com
-dvdempire.com
-hometheaterforum
and one or two others but I would like to have some better sites if anyone knows of any that post news/announcements on classic releases etc. I read a few places that we may be getting a region1 release from WHV of Magnificent AMbersons.. Now I am not sure how reliable the source was but I would like to hear more about Ambersons being released in 09.

reply if you know of any good classic dvd resource type websites.

1. The Love of Zero (1927) Directed by Robert Florey

2. Fievre (1921) Directed by Louis Delluc

3. L'Argent (1928) Directed by Marcel L'Herbier

4. Ménilmontant (1926) Directed by Dimitri Kirsanoff

5. La Roue (1923) Directed by Abel Gance

6. Varieté (1925) Directed by Ewald André Dupont

7. Zemlya (1930) Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko

8. Coeur fidele (1923) Directed by Jean Epstein

9. Kristine Valdresdatter (1930) Directed by Rasmus Breistein

10. The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge (1925) Directed by Rene Clair

I hesitate to show my ignorance of many of the films others have listed, but I can list the ones I have enjoyed so far! These are my favorites in no particular order:

The Freshman - I actually laughed out loud at this one and the ending is wonderful.

The Kid - I am amazed at the abject poverty displayed against the wealth and yet Chaplin and the Kid seem to have more than the wealthy do.

City Lights - Just the greatest love story ever.

The Wind - An odd, odd film that stays with you after you have seen it.

The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse - The excellent depiction of the Great War, the eerie special effects, the overwhelming mounds of graves at the end, the fact that Alan Hale looks like Teddy Roosevelt, all good.

Flesh and the Devil - John Gilbert's face at his last duel shows exactly why he was a huge star in silents. He definitely had an amazingly expressive face.

Greed - Another odd, sinister film that stays with you, it reminds us that people in those times often lived in grinding poverty and fear. Too bad there is not more of it to replace the stills used.

The Big Parade - another wrenching movie about the horrors of war, particularly World War I and its futility.

Camille - Sheerly for its Art Deco look and Rudolph Valentino's beauty.

The It Girl - Demonstrates the charisma that made Clara Bow a superstar. Plus I love the vintage amusement park rides and the effete appearance of the male leads that is frightening against Clara's more natural look.

Body and Soul - Paul Robeson demonstrates a screen presence that would shame modern performers. He clearly would have been a superstar in this day and time.

Any of Buster Keaton's films would fill my top ten.

Please nest your IMDB page, so you respond to the correct person.

1 Man with a Movie Camera (1929): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019760/
2 La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019254/
3 The Kid (1921): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012349/
4 Metropolis (1927): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/
5 The General (1926): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017925/
6 A Trip to the Moon (1902): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000417/
7 Un chien andalou (1929): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020530/
8 Entr'acte (1924): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014872/
9 Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. (1920): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0010323/
10 Sherlock Jr. (1924): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015324/

I can only do a top 1 at the moment. Sorry.

1. Sunrise


The rest of my favorite silents are in no particular order: The Artist, The Crowd, Fig Leaves (George O'Brien was such a cutie in that one!), Beyond The Rocks, The Circus, City Lights, Our Hospitality, Cops, The Wind

..............


That's all for now.