Ask HN: Recommend me some silent movies

I'm not a big silent movie guy, but I'll add to the chorus of people recommending Metropolis. It's pretty interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)

To watch silent film in a live setting with a live audience in the SF Bay Area you can go to Niles Canyon Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, CA. They apparently still have live film screenings on the weekends. I used to go once in a while when I lived in the area.

The Niles Canyon section of Fremont was an early nucleus of the film industry in the USA, before Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin's "The Tramp" was filmed there. During WW1 the film industry shifted to Hollywood.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niles_Essanay_Silent_Film_Muse...

Recommend Buster Keaton's "The General"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_(1926_film)

I really like Safety Last! - many people here recommended Buster Keaton and I’m here to say “don’t overlook Harold Lloyd!”.

I also enjoyed People On Sunday, if only to see what Berlin was like in the 20s. It was Billy Wilder’s early works, before he made some waves in Hollywood.

There are already mentions of all the greats in other comments: Keaton, Lloyd, Chaplin, as well as Lang, Murnau, Griffith and others.

I wanted to mention a silent film I watched recently, Lonesome (1928) https://letterboxd.com/film/lonesome/ Although it includes added dialogue (and color!) for a few scenes, it is still considered a silent black-and-white movie. You get a wonderful view of life in a big American city almost a century ago. It is amazing what still remains the same...

D.W. Griffith - The Birth of a Nation (1915) The film led to the revival of the KKK

Abel Gance - Napoleon (1927) 562 Minute epos

Buster Keaton - The General (1926) as many have already pointed out

Robert Siodmak - People on Sunday (1930) Captivating images of Berlin pre war

The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe (1897-1902) - Collection of Mutograph (68mm non perforated) films https://player.eyefilm.nl/nl/films/the-brilliant-biograph

If you get the chance, it can be quite the experience to watch a screening of a silent movie where the music is played live, like they did back in the day. Sometimes they are played with newly-composed scores.

Some directors/movies that can be worth checking out are:

Victor Sjöström – The Phantom Carriage

Mauritz Stiller – The Saga of Gösta Berling

Charlie Chaplin – The Kid

Fritz Lang – The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Pushpak (also named as Pushpaka Vimana) is a silent Indian film. Have watched it multiple times.

You should check out Silent Sunday Nights on TCM, hosted by Jacqueline Stewart.

https://www.tcm.com/articles/Programming%20Article/020683/si...

Here are the featured films for November and December: 11/3 - The Prisoner of Zenda (1922) 11/10 - The Dragon Painter (1919) 11/10 - The Tong Man (1919) 11/17 - Three Women (1924) 11/17 - The Doll (1919) 11/24 - The Scarlet Letter (1927) 12/1 - Scar of Shame (1927) 12/8 - The Life of the Party (1920) 12/8 - Fatty's Tintype Tangle (1915) 12/15 - Little Old New York (1923) 12/29 - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)

The Snowman (1982), a short Christmas animated film. I'm not sure it counts as silent, but it's a great piece of art nevertheless.

M by Fritz Lang, 1931. It does have a soundtrack but very minimal. Music is an essential part of this movie. Metropolis.

1 o’clock in the morning with Charlie Chaplin. Also his: the Gold Rush, the Kid, the Great Dictator.

There is a 2024 restoration of Napoléon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napol%C3%A9on_(1927_film) ).

It's quite long (I think 7h in it's restored version) but it's a masterpiece with many innovative techniques and huge budget for the time.

I don't know how you can watch it legally unfortunately but it was aired in France on TV at the end of summer early september iirc and released in some theather (in 2 parts) this summer.

Shaun the sheep

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2872750/

Inside No. 9 S01E02 A Quiet Night In (February 2014, 30 minutes runtime)

is a brilliantly crafted stand alone episode from a British anthology series.

    Written by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, it stars the writers as a pair of hapless burglars attempting to break into the large, modernist house of a couple—played by Denis Lawson and Oona Chaplin—to steal a painting. Once the burglars make it into the house, they encounter obstacle after obstacle, while the lovers, unaware of the burglars' presence, argue. The episode progresses almost entirely without dialogue, relying instead on physical comedy and slapstick, though more sinister elements are present in the plot.

    Both journalists and those involved with the episode's production commented on the casting of Chaplin, a grandchild of the silent film star Charlie Chaplin, ... though her casting was not a deliberate homage.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Quiet_Night_In

I can recommend Samsara [1] by Ron Fricke which is a collaboration of Barakat [2]

[1] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0770802/ [2] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11564468/

Must watch “The General” (1926) by Buster Keaton. Silent acting class act and fun, I find myself rewatching it over the years.

Metropolis (1927). It was pretty ground breaking for the time.

The Passion of Joan of Arc [1] is one of the greatest films of all time. It also inspired a remarkable synthesis of music and film, Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light [2], that is well worth experiencing live if it is ever performed near you.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_Joan_of_Arc

[2] https://www.richardeinhorn.com/voices-of-light-1

Hundreds of Beavers (2024)

They're not silent films in the classic cinematic history sense, but they're completely free of dialogue and fascinating to watch as dives into the richness of our human world: "Baraka" and The Qatsi Trilogy of three films (with superb music by Philip Glass to boot.

For Baraka at least, Roger Ebert summed it up nicely: "If man sends another Voyager to the distant stars and it can carry only one film on board, that film might be Baraka."

“Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, also known simply as Chang (from Thai ช้าง, "elephant") is a 1927 American silent documentary film about a poor farmer in northern Nan Province (northern Thailand) and his daily struggle for survival in the jungle.“

Can be watched on Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang:_A_Drama_of_the_Wilder...

Yesterday my parents were visiting and while we were discussing after dinner, the TV was on though muted. It showed a movie (Max Manus) and we happened to see all of it but with sound off. Discussing what happened on screen, commenting and so on. Sometimes discussing other things, then turning back attention to the movie. It was actually quite nice. It worked because it was subtitled.

I recommend The Crowd (1928) [1] by King Vidor. Incredible cinematography and an emotional story about regular people that was unusual for the time. Absolutely blew me away.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crowd_(1928_film)

Silent Movie (1976). https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0075222/

Very much a comedy of the 70s rather than an earnest silent film from the 20s/30s. It's a silent movie about making a silent movie -- in my opinion, peak Mel Brooks.

The 1927 film L'Aurore / Sunrise by FW Murnau with the 2004 soundtrack by Lambchop is wonderful.

Nosferatu

The Artist

Berlin - Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin - Symphony of Metropolis) is by far my favourite.

Wings (1927)

The Passion of St Joan of Arc (1928)

Baraka movie is a colorful vivid beautiful impactful movie without any narrative.

Babies movie (1 hour documentary) is about 4 newborns in different locations of the world, again colored, beautiful shots and without any narrative.

Dawson City frozen time is profound:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_City:_Frozen_Time

I watched Murnau's Faust movie some years ago, accompanied by a live music performance, which was great. I liked the staging and the set design. It's available on YouTube with subtitles.

Nobody's mentioned Lon Chaney yet! Of his movies, definitely watch "The Unknown" (1927), "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925), and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1923). I recommend watching in that order, for reasons that are my own. :) I also remember "West of Zanzibar" (1928) as being good: Wikipedia tells me it's not strictly a "silent" film because it has a synchronized sound track... but if we're counting "Shaun the Sheep", then we can count "West of Zanzibar" too. Finally, "He Who Gets Slapped" (1924) is a real trip.

I'll also recommend "Nosferatu" (1922). And "Metropolis" (1927) — but note that "Metropolis" is, or has been, kind of a "semi-lost" film: they're still turning up bits and pieces of it from time to time. I saw what-was-then-called "Metropolis" in the 2000s, and then again in 2024, and I felt that it had radically changed for the better and more-comprehensible. After checking Wikipedia: presumably the first version I saw was the 2001 release (124 minutes) and the second was the 2010 release (148 minutes). But also note that I was 15 or 20 years older, which might have helped.

If (and, presumably, only if) you have read Dante's Inferno, then you might enjoy the film adaptation "L'Inferno" (1911). Wikipedia calls it "the first full-length Italian feature film." The full 62-minute film is available on Wikipedia [1]. Unlike all of the above films, I do not recommend "L'Inferno" as a popcorn movie, but I found it really impressive as a sort of "living tableau" shot-for-shot reenactment of Gustave Doré's famous illustrations.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dante%27s_Inferno_(1911)....

Highly recommend a short movie “Meshes of the Afternoon” (1943). Watched it in a local cinema right after Mulholland Drive, that was quite an experience :)

Modern times with chaplin, go west with buster keaton.

The Tribe (Plemya), 2014. Though I can't remember if it is 100% a silent movie as I watched long time ago.

Koyaanisqatsi

Engelein (1914) with Asta Nielsen , Joyless Street (1925) , The Illusionist (2010) some music

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

The Man Who Laughs

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

The Lodger

I enjoyed Eraserhead (1977), Playtime (1967), The General (1926)

Robot Dreams! It’s new, but it’s technically a silent movie.

Sherlock Jr. (1924) by Buster Keaton!

Yasujiro Ozu, "I was born, but...".

Dueling Cavelier

Shootin’ For Love

Little Neddy Grab Your Gun

Those Darn Amigos!

Little Neddy Goes to War

Amigos! Amigos! Amigos!

Buster Keaton

I like Battleship Potemkin (1925)

The Cthulhu ones are pretty good.

L'Argent by Marcel L'Herbier is rather splendid

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019646/

Films by Jean Epstein. Experimental use of close-ups, slow-motion (as a way to better explore "present time"). Must watch films:

- Faithful Heart / Cœur fidèle

- The Fall of the House of Usher / La chute de la maison Usher

Early dramas by Ernst Lubitsch. Very distinct and sophisticated style, ahead of its time. You may start with any film starring proto-femme-fatale actress Pola Negri:

- Madame DuBarry / Passion

- Carmen / Gipsy Blood

- Die Flamme / The Flame

Napoléon is a must

The Artist (2011)

Perfect Days (2023)

every movie is a silent movie if you turn the sound off

All Quiet on the Western Front (1933) has a silent version. It was shot differently.

More - https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?num_votes=10000,&sound_mi...

Also I quite liked "All Is Lost" (2013) and of course "Hundreds of Beavers" (2022) for contemporary films

I’ve enjoyed the big classics and many of the ones noted in other comments, but personally I tend toward silent comedies

You’ll be well served by anything by Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton

Andrey Tarkovsky - Stalker (1979) - one of the best films ever. Aleksey German - Hard to Be a God (2013) - definitely silent but not exactly well detailed.

Both films were made according to brothers Strugatskys' novels.