My top 5 favorite Silent Films

I started watching them as part of my film class, and went out saw more on my own. I have yet to see ones like Sunrise, and Greed, which I hear are really good, but I want to find the extra long version of Greed first, before watching it. But from what I have seen so far, here is my top five:

1. City Lights
2. Metropolis
3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
4. The Thief of Baghdad
5. The Birth of a Nation

What do you think?

The thieve baghdad was not great. was so so

One of my favourites

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Why Birth of a Nation?

Everyone loves The General but for me it was very overhyped perhaps. It's a good movie but I wouldn't rank it as high as other people. Still good and solid though.

As for The Birth of a Nation, I guess it's one of those movies that's so bad, it's good. It's offensive and over the top in it's views, but to the point where it's priceless, and you are entertained by the fact, that you simply cannot believe what you're watching. It's bad, but it hooks me on it's pricelessness, if that makes sense.

If I had to 'narrow it down'...

1. Metropolis
2. The Passion of Joan of Arc
3. Pandora's Box
4. Greed
5. The Artist

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I'm not exactly caught up in my silent films, but here it goes...

1. The General (Because I bloody love trains!)
2. The Passion of Joan of Arc (The close-ups are beautiful)
3. Safety Last! (The climbing scene was pretty neat)
4. Man With A Movie Camera (Many amazing shots)
5. The Gold Rush (Humour is alright in parts. Can get very suspenseful)

Cabinet was good for the first half, then it got pretty uninteresting in the second half. The plot twist was interesting, considering it would have been one of the first films to do it.

I could never get the praise of City Lights. The humour is pretty predictable and only got a few smiles out of me. Also there's pretty much no plot until the last 20 minutes. The first hour is just Chaplin goofing off around a city.

Haven't seen the rest...yet.

If you like silent horrors,
You might want to see
The Man Who Laughs (1928),
And the Hunchback, from 1923.

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It's extremely dated, but it's cinema gold,
For the movie is over a hundred years old.
A newer comparable film might be Braveheart,
Since the history's shaky, but it was still made with heart.
The director was the Spielberg of his day,
And his remaining films are here to stay.

5.) Nosferatu (1922)
4.) Metropolis (1927)
3.) Regeneration (1915)
2.) The Racket (1928)
1.) Underworld (1927)

EDIT: Sadly, I have yet to see Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927)

1.City Lights
2.The Cameraman
3.The General
4.The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
5.The Kid

Only seen about 10-15 silent feature films though.

My absolute TOP 10 (although there are way more silent masterpieces I love):

1. La passion de Jeanne d'Arc [The Passion of Joan of Arc] (1928)
2. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
3. Körkarlen [The Phantom Carriage] (1921)
4. J'accuse! [I Accuse] (1919)
5. Der müde Tod [Destiny] (1921)
6. Обломок империи [Fragments of an Empire] (1929)
7. Броненосец «Потёмкин» [Battleship Potemkin] (1925)
8. Земля [Earth] (1930)
9. Человек с киноаппаратом [Man With a Movie Camera] (1929)
10. Napoléon vu par Abel Gance [Abel Gance's Napoleon] (1927)

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Another top10 because why not.

1. City lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
2. A page of madness - Kurutta ippêji (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926)
3. The passion of Joan of Arc - La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
4. The crowd (King Vidor, 1928)
5. The cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Das kabinett des Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
6. 7th Heaven (Frank Borzage, 1927)
7. The adventures of prince Achmed - Die abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, 1926)
8. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
9. The General (Buster Keaton, 1926)
10. Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927)

Love the first 3 but wasn't too keen on #4. Haven't seen Birth of a Nation yet.

1. The General
2. Metropolis
3. City Lights
4. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
5. The Phantom of the Opera

The greatest silent film, is actually probably the greatest film of all as well.
It's called
Naked Island (1960)

1. Naked Island 1960 Japan
2. Strike 1925 Soviet Union
3. Limite 1931 Brazil
4. Man With a Movie Camera 1929 Soviet Union
5. Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union

6. The Great White Silence (doc) 1924 UK
7. The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany
8. The Lodger 1927 UK
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 France
10. Seven Chances 1925 USA

11. Napoleon (Acts 1 and 4 only) 1927 France
12. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 USA
13. Pandora's Box 1929 Germany
14. The General 1926 USA
15. The Mark of Zorro 1920 USA
16. The Great Train Robbery 1903 USA
17. The Phantom of the Opera 1925 USA
18. Way Down East 1920 USA
19. Dante's Inferno 1911 Italy
20. J'Accuse 1919 France

21. Intolerance 1916 USA
22. The Thief of Bagdad 1924 USA
23. Broken Blossoms 1920 USA
24. Die Nibelungen 1924 Germany
25. The Birth of a Nation 1915 USA
26. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 1916 USA
27. The Blue Bird 1918 France
28. Dr Mabuse the Gambler 1922 Germany
29. Nosferatu 1922 Germany
30. A Page of Madness 1926 Japan
31. Metropolis 1927 Germany
32. Sherlock Jr 1924 USA
33. The Kid 1921 USA
34. The Toll of the Sea 1922 USA

You rate it because today it is laughably racist.
OK!!!! haha.

My top 5
1. The Passion of Joan of Arc
2. Sunrise
3. Mabuse the Gambler
4. Variete
5. Intolerance

5 special mentions

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
The Heart of the World
Meshes of the Afternoon
the opening of 8 and a half
the ending of L'eclisse