Gaumont

Made by Émile Cohl at Gaumont in Paris, Fantasmagorie is generally considered the first fully hand-drawn animated film. Cohl drew roughly 700 frames on paper, then photographed them onto negative film to create a glowing white-on-black line that constantly morphs: a figure becomes an elephant, a bottle, a clown, a woman's hat, dissolving and reforming in a stream-of-consciousness flow. The title nods to the magic-lantern phantasmagoria shows of the era. The film is in the public domain as a pre-1930 work.

Animation · Silent · Short

Alfred Hitchcock's loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. Sylvia Sidney plays Winnie Verloc, wife of a London cinema owner (Oskar Homolka) who is secretly part of a gang of saboteurs, while Scotland Yard detective Ted Spencer (John Loder) watches the family from the shop next door. The film is infamous for its bus sequence, in which a bomb is carried through London by someone who doesn't know what they're carrying — a set piece Hitchcock later said he regretted for violating his own rule of suspense over shock. Released in the US in 1937 as The Woman Alone. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Thriller · Drama

Alfred Hitchcock's wronged-man thriller about Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney), a young writer who finds a strangled body on the beach and is promptly accused of the murder. On the run, he picks up an unwilling — then increasingly willing — accomplice in Erica (Nova Pilbeam), the police chief's daughter, and the two hunt for the one man who can prove his innocence. Made at Gaumont-British between The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, it features one of Hitchcock's most celebrated shots: a slow crane across a hotel ballroom that ends on the twitching eyes of the real killer. Released in the US as The Girl Was Young. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Thriller · Mystery · Romance

Alfred Hitchcock's loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. Sylvia Sidney plays Winnie Verloc, wife of a London cinema owner (Oskar Homolka) who is secretly part of a gang of saboteurs, while Scotland Yard detective Ted Spencer (John Loder) watches the family from the shop next door. The film is infamous for its bus sequence, in which a bomb is carried through London by someone who doesn't know what they're carrying — a set piece Hitchcock later said he regretted for violating his own rule of suspense over shock. Released in the US in 1937 as The Woman Alone. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Thriller · Drama

Herbert Ponting was the official photographer on Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition, and this film — assembled from footage he shot between 1910 and 1912 — is the most complete motion picture record of early Antarctic exploration. Ponting filmed the voyage south, life at the Cape Evans hut, and Scott's team preparing for the pole, and he lectures his own footage like a showman. The film ends before the expedition's tragic end: Scott and four companions died on the return from the pole in 1912. Made for a British expedition and released in 1924, the film is in the public domain.

Documentary · Silent

Alfred Hitchcock's wronged-man thriller about Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney), a young writer who finds a strangled body on the beach and is promptly accused of the murder. On the run, he picks up an unwilling — then increasingly willing — accomplice in Erica (Nova Pilbeam), the police chief's daughter, and the two hunt for the one man who can prove his innocence. Made at Gaumont-British between The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, it features one of Hitchcock's most celebrated shots: a slow crane across a hotel ballroom that ends on the twitching eyes of the real killer. Released in the US as The Girl Was Young. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Thriller · Mystery · Romance