1910s Films

The first known film adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, produced by Edison Studios and directed by J. Searle Dawley. In this 12-minute silent short, Frankenstein (Augustus Phillips) creates his monster (Charles Ogle) not through electricity but through chemical means in a boiling cauldron, and the creature manifests as a skeletal apparition born of fire and smoke. Ogle designed his own monster makeup, creating a hunched, wild-haired figure that bears no resemblance to Boris Karloff's later icon but established the first screen image of Shelley's creation. The monster haunts Frankenstein's wedding night, a psychological torment that ends when the creature sees its own reflection and vanishes. Long believed lost, a print was rediscovered in the 1970s. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Short · Silent

Winsor McCay's first animated film, based on his own popular newspaper comic Little Nemo in Slumberland. The short opens with live-action footage of McCay making a bet that he can bring his drawings to life, then cuts to the animation: Nemo and his friends stretch, flip, and grow in surreal ways that were impossible in live action. McCay hand-drew every frame himself, a level of labor that set the standard for character animation. The film is in the public domain in the United States as a pre-1930 work.

Animation · Silent · Short

Helen Gardner's independent production was one of the first feature-length films made in America, a lavish six-reel telling of Cleopatra's seduction of Caesar and Antony that predates both the Theda Bara and Claudette Colbert versions. Gardner starred and produced through her own company, the Helen Gardner Picture Players, staking her own money on a spectacle with real Egyptian-style sets, a barge scene, and hundreds of extras. Directed by Charles L. Gaskill, it was marketed as an event rather than a program filler, helping convince American audiences and exhibitors that features were the future. A 1912 release, it is in the public domain.

Drama · History · Silent

A silent film telling the story of Jesus Christ's life from birth to crucifixion, filmed on location in Jerusalem and Palestine. Directed by Sidney Olcott for the Kalem Company, it was one of the earliest feature-length films and a landmark of biblical cinema. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · History · Religion

A poor tenement woman is robbed by the Snapper Kid's gang, and when a rival mob moves in on Pig Alley the two hoods collide in a shootout that Griffith films with pioneering close, mobile camerawork. Often cited as the first gangster film. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Drama

A 1913 British silent science fiction film directed by J. Wallett Waller, based on the play by Richard Ganthony. According to the British Film Institute, it is the first British science-fiction film. A Martian named Ramiel is sentenced to visit Earth to cure Horace Parker, a wealthy and selfish young man. The Martian shows him poverty and suffering on the streets, and after rescuing a soldier's wife from a fire, Parker reforms and regains the esteem of his community. The play was previously filmed in 1903 and remade again in 1921.

Sci-Fi · Fantasy · Comedy

A silent Keystone comedy starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, directed by George Nichols. After Fatty rescues the police commissioner's daughter from drowning, he is rewarded with a position on the police force. His enthusiasm far exceeds his competence, and his attempts to enforce the law result in chaos. The film showcases Arbuckle's remarkable physical agility—his size belied a cat-like grace that made him one of silent comedy's most gifted performers. Made during Arbuckle's early Keystone period under Mack Sennett, the film features the kind of rough-and-tumble slapstick that defined the studio's output. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

Charlie Chaplin plays a waiter at a cheap cabaret who passes himself off to a society girl as a foreign dignitary, then has to juggle both lives when her wealthy family invites him to a garden party. The imposture collapses in a brawl back at the cabaret, with Mabel Normand's character watching her two worlds collide. Made at Keystone in Chaplin's first year on screen, the film was directed by Normand, his co-star, though Chaplin later claimed he had taken over direction himself. Whoever called the shots, it is an early showcase for the Tramp's gift for turning class resentment into slapstick. A 1914 release, it is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A Mary Pickford vehicle directed by James Kirkwood for Famous Players, and one of the earliest feature-length Cinderella adaptations. Pickford plays the fairy-tale heroine tormented by her stepmother and stepsisters, with her then-husband Owen Moore as Prince Charming. The film features early special effects in the pumpkin-to-coach transformation and was released as a Christmas attraction in December 1914. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Fantasy · Silent

Gertie the Dinosaur is the earliest animated film to feature a character with a distinct personality. Winsor McCay drew thousands of frames by hand, creating a friendly brontosaurus that eats, drinks, dances, and responds to his commands like a trained pet. Originally performed as a live stage act where McCay "interacted" with the projected dinosaur, the surviving print frames the animation with a live-action prologue. Gertie is a foundational work of character animation. The film is in the public domain in the United States as a pre-1930 work.

Animation · Silent · Short

A silent Oz fantasy written and produced by L. Frank Baum and directed by J. Farrell MacDonald for Baum's own Oz Film Manufacturing Company. Violet MacMillan plays Dorothy, who wanders into the Land of Oz and joins the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion in a quest to free Princess Gloria from the wicked King Krewl and the witch Mombi. The film draws on incidents from several Baum Oz books and is one of only three surviving features from his short-lived studio. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Fantasy · Adventure · Silent

A D.W. Griffith silent feature built around the life of John Howard Payne, the impoverished songwriter who wrote "Home, Sweet Home," and three episodic stories in which the song redeems its hearers. Henry B. Walthall plays Payne, with Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, and Robert Harron in the surrounding tales. Shot by G.W. Bitzer and advertised at the time as the first "all-star" cast, the film was produced at the Reliance-Majestic studio and distributed by Mutual. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

The first feature-length film with an entirely Indigenous cast, depicting the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples of British Columbia's Central Coast. Written and directed by photographer Edward S. Curtis, the film blends authentic representations of Kwakwaka'wakw culture with a melodramatic narrative of love, war, and sorcery. A landmark of early cinema, restored and re-edited in the 1970s as In the Land of the War Canoes. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Documentary · Adventure

The film that introduced the world to Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character. Chaplin plays a spectator at a children's soapbox derby in Venice, California, who keeps wandering into the frame of a newsreel camera, annoying the filmmaker and the crowd. The Tramp's costume—bowler hat, tight jacket, baggy pants, cane, and mustache—appears here for the first time, though the character's personality was still rough and improvisational. The film was shot in a single day at an actual soapbox derby, with Chaplin improvising his gags amid real crowds who didn't know they were watching cinema history. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

Charlie Chaplin's very first film, directed by Henry Lehrman for Keystone Studios. Chaplin plays a smooth-talking swindler who competes with another man for the affections of a woman, then fakes his own death to get a newspaper story published. The character is not yet the Tramp—Chaplin wears a top hat, frock coat, and monocle, and his performance is broad and stagey, still rooted in the music hall tradition. Chaplin was reportedly unhappy with Lehrman's direction and editing, and the experience motivated him to demand creative control over his subsequent films, leading to the revolution in screen comedy that followed. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A Keystone comedy directed by Mack Sennett, featuring Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle together on screen. Set in a dance hall, the film features Chaplin as a troublemaker who disrupts the dancing, while Arbuckle appears as a large, clumsy tango enthusiast. The film is a rough, raw example of the Keystone style—fast, chaotic, and full of physical mayhem—made before Chaplin developed the Tramp character that would make him world-famous. Seeing Chaplin and Arbuckle together is a rare treat; both would go on to become two of the most important figures in silent comedy. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

Tess of the Storm Country is a 1914 silent drama directed by pioneer filmmaker Edwin S. Porter and starring Mary Pickford as Tessibel Skinner, a spirited young woman from a community of squatters living at the bottom of a hill. When a wealthy man builds a house atop the hill and seeks to evict the squatters, Tess fights to protect her family and neighbors. Based on the 1909 novel by Grace Miller White, the film was a major hit and helped establish Pickford as "America's Sweetheart." She would reprise the role in a 1922 remake. The film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2006. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

A D.W. Griffith silent feature inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, particularly "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "Annabel Lee." A young man (Henry B. Walthall) lives under the tyrannical rule of his uncle, whose murder he plots and commits. But guilt gnaws at him—apparitions of Poe's vision haunt his waking hours, and the beating of a dead heart seems to echo from beneath the floorboards. Griffith blends psychological horror with pastoral romance, intercutting the nephew's torment with scenes of courtship with his sweetheart (Blanche Sweet). Cinematographer G.W. Bitzer's inventive use of tinting and irises gives the film a dreamlike, Expressionist quality that anticipates the German Expressionist movement. Released August 2, 1914, the film is in the public domain.

Horror · Drama · Crime · Silent

A Keystone one-reeler from Charlie Chaplin's first year in pictures, set behind the scenes at a movie studio — a sly bit of self-reference from Mack Sennett's comedy factory. Chaplin plays a film actor who keeps ruining takes until the director fires him; he returns in drag as a strikingly elegant actress and turns the set upside down before being unmasked. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Chester Conklin play fellow actors, and the studio door glimpsed in the film is Keystone's own. Written and directed by Chaplin in 1914, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Silent

L. Frank Baum's own Oz Film Manufacturing Company produced this feature-length adaptation of his 1913 novel, making it the first Oz film shot at real feature length. Ojo and his uncle Unc Nunkie journey to gather the ingredients that will restore the Patchwork Girl's victims to life, joined by Scraps herself — the life-sized doll brought to life by the Powder of Life — along with the Woozy and a young Dorothy. Pierre Couderc, a French acrobat billed as "the Marvelous Couderc," plays Scraps with full-body contortions that remain the film's chief marvel, and Violet MacMillan plays Ojo. A fascinating glimpse of Baum attempting to film his own creation before Hollywood got there. Published in 1914, it is in the public domain.

Fantasy · Adventure · Silent

One of the Keystone one-reelers Charlie Chaplin directed as well as starred in during his astonishing first year in pictures, Those Love Pangs — released in some markets as The Rival Mashers — casts Chaplin and Chester Conklin as competing mashers who chase the same girls through a park and into a movie theater, where the brawl that erupts in front of the screen mirrors the slapstick playing on it. Chaplin was still refining the Tramp here, but the short already shows his gift for building gags on top of gags. Made for Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios in 1914, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Silent

Tillie's Punctured Romance is a 1914 silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett for Keystone Studios, distributed by Mutual Film. The first feature-length comedy ever made, it stars Charlie Chaplin (in his first feature role), Marie Dressler, and Mabel Normand. Chaplin plays a city con man who seduces a farmer's daughter (Dressler) for her money, only to abandon her when he discovers she's been disinherited. The film was based on Dressler's stage success Tillie's Nightmare and was a massive hit, helping establish Chaplin as a major star. As a 1914 work, the film is in the public domain.

Comedy

Chaplin's spoof of Cecil B. DeMille's Carmen, released the same year as the film it mocks. Chaplin plays Darn Hosiery, the Don José figure — a dim Spanish officer seduced and ruined by the gypsy Carmen (Edna Purviance) — with Ben Turpin as the toreador Remendado, mangling his name in the bargain. The parody is affectionate but pointed, and its mock-tragic ending is a real gag rather than a whimper. Essanay later padded the two-reeler out to four reels with discarded footage for a 1918 re-release, prompting Chaplin to sue the studio; most surviving prints derive from that expanded version. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Silent

A Fool There Was is a 1915 silent drama that made Theda Bara a star and coined the word "vamp." Produced and distributed by the Fox Film Corporation and directed by Frank Powell, it is based on the play by Porter Emerson Browne, itself inspired by Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Vampire." Bara plays an unnamed femme fatale who sets her sights on a successful diplomat and husband (Edward Jose) and methodically destroys his career, his family, and his life. The film was a sensational hit, and Bara's image as the exotic, predatory "vampire" woman shaped Hollywood notions of screen sexuality for a decade. As a 1915 release it is securely in the public domain.

Drama · Silent

A Charlie Chaplin Essanay comedy in which the Tramp disrupts a family outing in the park. After charming a young woman and infuriating her father and suitor, Chaplin retreats to a hotel where he encounters the family again. In the film's famous sequence, Chaplin disguises himself as a woman to evade pursuit, leading to a farcical series of mistaken identities and flirtations—including the girl's father making advances toward the cross-dressed Tramp. The film showcases Chaplin's mastery of gender-bending comedy, a device he would refine throughout his career. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

One of the earliest feature-length adaptations of Lewis Carroll's Alice stories, directed by W.W. Young for the Nonpareil Feature Film Corporation. Stage actress Viola Savoy plays Alice, who follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole into Wonderland and encounters the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, and the Queen of Hearts. Shot on a wooded Long Island estate, the film was a $25,000 production and one of only two screen appearances by Savoy. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Fantasy · Silent

Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 adaptation of Prosper Merimee's 1845 novella, the source material for Bizet's famous opera. Metropolitan Opera soprano Geraldine Farrar made her film debut as the gypsy Carmen, a wilful seductress who lures a soldier away from duty and into ruin. DeMille had intended to film the opera itself but its libretto was under copyright, so he had his brother William base the scenario on the public domain novella, whose Carmen is more calculating than the operatic version. Wallace Reid plays Don Jose, the officer destroyed by his obsession. The film was a major hit and established Farrar as a screen star. Existing prints derive from a re-edited 1918 re-release. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

One of the earliest screen adaptations of Henrik Ibsen, this silent film was produced by D.W. Griffith and directed by George Nichols. Henry B. Walthall, fresh from *The Birth of a Nation*, plays a dual role as both Captain Arling, a dissolute father, and Oswald, the grown son who inherits his father's alcoholism and disease. When Oswald falls in love with the family maid, Regina, not knowing she is his half-sister, the family doctor intervenes to stop the marriage, and the sins of the father are visited upon the son. Erich von Stroheim, then a young technical assistant at Griffith's studio, served as wardrobe assistant and appeared in a bit part. The film was rereleased in 1919 under the title *The Curse*. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

Directed by Raoul Walsh, Regeneration is a 1915 American silent crime drama and one of the first full-length gangster films. Based on the 1903 memoir My Mamie Rose by Owen Frawley Kildare, the film stars Rockliffe Fellowes as Owen Conway, a poor orphan who rises to become a gang leader on the Lower East Side before a chance encounter with social worker Marie Deering (Anna Q. Nilsson) inspires him to seek redemption. Long feared lost, the film was rediscovered by preservationist David Shepard and selected for the United States National Film Registry in 2000. It was the first full-length feature directed by Walsh, who would go on to become one of Hollywood's most prolific directors.

Crime · Drama · Silent

D.W. Griffith's Civil War and Reconstruction epic was the first true blockbuster — the film that proved the feature-length movie could be a mass cultural event. Its technical innovations in cross-cutting, night photography, and large-scale battle staging reshaped the language of cinema. It is also infamous propaganda: adapted from Thomas Dixon's novel *The Clansman*, it depicts the Ku Klux Klan as heroic saviors and portrays Black characters — mostly white actors in blackface — through vicious racist caricature. The film sparked protests led by the newly formed NAACP and helped inspire the Klan's real-world revival. It is presented here as a historically significant work that must be understood in that context. Published in 1915, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · War · Silent

A venal socialite embezzles from a charity and turns to a Burmese ivory trader to cover the loss, only to find he expects her body as payment. When she tries to renege, he brands her with a hot iron. Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 melodrama was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry for its significance and for Sessue Hayakawa's landmark performance, which made him one of the first Asian stars of American cinema and a genuine matinee idol. The film's treatment of race and sexuality was controversial even at the time: a Japanese-American newspaper in Los Angeles campaigned against it, and the 1918 re-release changed Hayakawa's character from Japanese to Burmese to avoid offending a wartime ally. Fannie Ward plays the spoiled wife whose recklessness sets the catastrophe in motion. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Crime · Silent

A Venetian gondolier emigrates to America dreaming of fortune and instead finds himself shining shoes in a New York tenement, where a corrupt ward boss and the brutality of poverty grind down his young family. Stage actor George Beban stars opposite Clara Williams in this Thomas H. Ince production directed by Reginald Barker, one of the earliest feature films to center an immigrant experience with sympathy rather than caricature. The Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

Two Knights of Vaudeville is a 1915 American short comedy film with an African American cast, produced by the Historical Feature Film Company and distributed by the Ebony Film Corporation. The film stars Jimmy Marshall, Frank Montgomery, and Florence McClain as vaudeville performers who try their hands at a comedy stage show, only to be heckled by the audience. The film is notable as one of the earliest surviving films with an all-Black cast, preserving aspects of Black vaudeville performance that would otherwise be lost to time. The director is unknown. As a 1915 work, the film is in the public domain.

Comedy

Universal's ambitious silent adaptation of Jules Verne's novel, directed by Stuart Paton and produced by Carl Laemmle. Allen Holubar plays Captain Nemo, who stalks the seas in his submarine Nautilus seeking revenge against the man who destroyed his family, while a French professor and his companions are taken captive aboard the vessel. The production pioneered genuine underwater photography using the Williamson brothers' submarine tube, shot on location in the Bahamas, and was one of the most expensive films of its era at roughly half a million dollars. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Science Fiction · Silent

American Aristocracy is a 1916 silent comedy-adventure directed by Lloyd Ingraham for the Fine Arts Film Company, with a story by Anita Loos and Douglas Fairbanks in the lead. Fairbanks plays Cassius Lee, a young entomologist and all-round egalitarian who tangles with a piratical arms smuggler while trying to win the heart of a rich man's daughter. The film gently satirizes American social climbing and the cult of European-style aristocracy, with Fairbanks doing his own stunts and radiating the athletic good humor that defined his early features. Produced under the Triangle banner, it is preserved at George Eastman House and is in the public domain.

Adventure · Comedy · Silent

An orphan abandoned on a Friday the thirteenth grows up believing she is cursed, and a string of mishaps seems to prove it, until she rescues a fellow orphan from a fire and is adopted by a grieving couple. Mae Marsh plays the superstitious heroine with the naturalness Griffith prized, opposite Robert Harron as the boy next door. Written and supervised by D.W. Griffith and directed by Lloyd Ingraham for the Fine Arts Film Company, the comedy-drama was released through Triangle. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Drama · Silent

D.W. Griffith's mammoth reply to the criticism of The Birth of a Nation, intercutting four stories of intolerance across the ages: the fall of Babylon, the crucifixion of Christ, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, and a modern labor conflict. The Babylonian sets, with their towering walls and armies of extras, remain among the largest ever built, and the cross-cutting between the strands influenced nearly every epic that followed. Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, and Constance Talmadge lead the enormous cast. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · Silent

Cecil B. DeMille's first historical epic, with Metropolitan Opera soprano Geraldine Farrar as Joan of Arc, framed by a modern story in which a British officer on the eve of a dangerous mission is inspired by her vision. Wallace Reid, Theodore Roberts, and Hobart Bosworth support, and DeMille's early experiments with color effects light the burning-at-the-stake scenes. Produced through the Cardinal Film Corporation for Paramount, the film was among the first screen spectacles devoted to Joan of Arc. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · Silent

Chaplin's last film for Essanay before he jumped to Mutual for ten times the salary. Released from prison, Chaplin's ex-convict is determined to go straight, but the world won't let him: a bogus parson swindles him out of what little money he has, and an old cellmate ropes him into a bungled burglary. Inside the house, the family's daughter (Edna Purviance) takes pity on the would-be thief, giving the short a surprising streak of sympathy for its outcast hero. Less frenetic than the earlier Essanays, Police points toward the blend of slapstick and sentiment Chaplin would perfect at Mutual. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Silent

A 1916 American silent film and the only surviving filmed record of William Gillette's legendary stage performance as Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Arthur Berthelet for Essanay Studios, the film adapts Gillette's 1899 play, which drew on Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Final Problem," and A Study in Scarlet. Gillette had played Holmes over 1,300 times on stage and shaped many of the character's iconic elements, including the deerstalker hat and calabash pipe. Long believed lost, a nitrate print was discovered in the Cinémathèque Française archive in 2014 and restored by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Silent

Shoes is a social-problem drama directed by Lois Weber, one of the most important women directors of the silent era. Mary MacLaren stars as Eva Meyer, a young shopgirl who works in a five-and-dime store to support her destitute family. When her worn-out shoes finally fall apart and she cannot afford new ones, she faces an agonizing moral dilemma. Weber's film is a powerful indictment of poverty and the exploitation of working women, made with a realism and sensitivity that was unusual for its time. The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2014. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

A silent fairy-tale feature directed by J. Searle Dawley for Famous Players, starring Marguerite Clark, who reprises her Broadway stage role as Snow White. The film follows the Brothers Grimm tale of a princess menaced by her jealous stepmother, sheltered by dwarfs in the forest, and restored to her prince. Long believed lost in a vault fire, a substantially complete print with Dutch intertitles was rediscovered in Amsterdam in 1992 and restored by the George Eastman Museum. Walt Disney reportedly cited this film as the inspiration for his 1937 animated feature. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Fantasy · Silent

The first great war documentary, assembled from footage shot by official cameramen Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell during the opening of the Somme offensive in July 1916. Released in British cinemas while the battle still raged, it was seen by an estimated 20 million people in its first six weeks — audiences at home had never before watched soldiers go over the top on screen. Much of the most harrowing "combat" footage was staged behind the lines, a fact that sparked one of the earliest debates about documentary truth. As a British government film from 1916, it is in the public domain.

War · Documentary · Silent

A Mutual two-reeler and one of the best of Chaplin's 1916 run. Charlie is a tailor's apprentice who burns a count's trousers with a hot iron and gets fired; the tailor then sneaks off to impersonate the count at a society party, and Charlie turns up in the same borrowed identity. Eric Campbell, Chaplin's towering half-courted villain of the Mutual years, plays the rival suitor, and Edna Purviance is the object of everyone's attention. The party sequence — Charlie dancing, wolfing food off other people's plates, and dodging Campbell — is some of the purest slapstick he ever filmed. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Silent

A short Chaplin two-reeler. The Tramp works as a waiter, makes a mess of things, then goes to a roller skating rink where he causes more chaos. The skating scenes are genuinely impressive; Chaplin was a skilled skater and does his own stunts. The film was based on a sketch called "Skating Rinks" that Chaplin had performed on stage before he went into films. At 24 minutes it is a quick watch and a good introduction to Chaplin's silent short work for anyone who has only seen his features.

Comedy · Silent

Allan Dwan's A Modern Musketeer is a brisk Douglas Fairbanks comedy from the peak of his silent years, built on the short story "D'Artagnan of Kansas" by Eugene P. Lyle Jr. Fairbanks plays Ned Thacker, a Kansas boy raised on The Three Musketeers who dreams of chivalric adventure and gets more than he bargained for on a trip out west, where he single-handedly tangles with a bandit, rescues a damsel, and leapt from moving cars with the boundless energy that made Fairbanks a star. Produced by Fairbanks's own company and distributed by Artcraft, the film features an early appearance by ZaSu Pitts and cinematography by Victor Fleming, who would later direct The Wizard of Oz. As a 1917 release the film is securely in the United States public domain.

Adventure · Comedy · Silent

An anti-Mormon silent drama directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Jesse L. Lasky's Feature Play Company. Mae Murray stars as Dora Hogue, a young woman traveling west with her family when their cabin is overtaken by a Mormon caravan. An elder demands Dora as his plural wife, setting in motion a melodramatic conflict that capitalizes on the anti-Mormon sentiment prevalent at the time. Frank Borzage — better known today as one of Hollywood's great directors — appears as an actor in the role of Tom Rigdon. The film was originally eight reels but cut to five before release. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

A Cecil B. DeMille western starring Mary Pickford. Jenny Lawrence travels to a California logging camp to find her uncle, unaware he has been killed and his identity assumed by a stagecoach robber (Elliott Dexter) hiding from the law; recognizing the truth, she accepts his protection rather than face the camp alone. Shot on location in the redwoods and at the Lasky studio, the film was one of Pickford's early features under her own production company. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Western · Drama · Silent

The last of Charlie Chaplin's twelve Mutual comedies, directed by and starring Chaplin. He plays an escaped convict who rescues a wealthy family from a cave-in and is taken in as their butler. His new respectability is threatened when a detective recognizes him, leading to a spectacular chase through the city and down to the docks. The film features some of Chaplin's most celebrated physical sequences, including the famous opening escape along a cliffside and the dockside finale where he balances on a rolling barrel. The Mutual shorts are widely considered the finest work of Chaplin's early career, and The Adventurer is a fitting capstone. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A Charlie Chaplin short from his Mutual period, directed by and starring Chaplin. He plays a wealthy alcoholic who arrives at a spa to dry out, bringing a trunk full of liquor instead of luggage. His attempts to "cure" himself are undermined by his own ingenuity, as he shares his stash with the other patients and undermines the spa's strict regimen. The film features one of Chaplin's most celebrated comic devices—the revolving door—and a famous sequence where he accidentally gets everyone drunk at the health spa. The film's gentle satire of wellness culture and its inventive physical comedy make it one of the highlights of the Mutual series. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

Mary Pickford plays an American girl whose ship is torpedoed by a German U-boat on the way to France — a sequence Cecil B. DeMille staged as open propaganda while the United States was still deciding whether to join the war. Rescued and sheltered in a French chateau near the front, she is caught between a French officer and a German officer who both love her, and the film builds to the occupation of the chateau and an attempted assault that American audiences in 1917 read as Germany's crimes in miniature. Released months after the US entered the war, it was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. A 1917 release, it is in the public domain.

Drama · War · Silent

Mary Pickford, then twenty-five, plays eleven-year-old Gwendolyn, a wealthy girl whose parents are too busy with money and society to notice her. Raised by servants and kept at a distance from other children, Gwendolyn finally gets sent to school, where a lonely life collides with playground cruelty. A near-fatal dose of sleeping medicine tips the film into a celebrated dream sequence in which director Maurice Tourneur lets his visual imagination run loose. It was one of Pickford's biggest hits and the film that proved audiences would accept her as a child well into adulthood, paving the way for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Pollyanna. Made in 1917, it is in the public domain.

Drama · Silent

A 1917 American silent drama film directed by Maurice Tourneur, starring Mary Pickford. Among the simple fisher-folk of a little island off the west coast of Scotland, Donald MacTavish rules as chieftain of his clan. When he dies at sea during a storm, his daughter Marget (Pickford) assumes the responsibilities of leadership at just 18 years old. Her sweet nature wins the affection of the clan, especially young fisherman Jamie Campbell (Matt Moore), who becomes engaged to her in a traditional ceremony. But a secret from Jamie's past threatens their happiness when the Countess of Dunstable arrives claiming Jamie as her long-lost son. Filmed on location in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with assistant direction by a young Clarence Brown. Based on the play by Eleanor Gates.

Drama · Romance

Mabel Normand's only feature-length production, made under the banner of the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company, a short-lived division of Mack Sennett's Keystone studio. Normand plays Mickey, a tomboyish orphan raised in a western mining camp who is sent to live with her aunt in New York society. The film's production was troubled — it was begun in 1916, halted by Normand's illness, and then shelved for nearly two years because distributors thought it was a flop. When it finally screened at a small theater in Bayside, Long Island, it became a surprise smash, eventually grossing millions and proving that Normand could carry a feature as easily as a two-reel comedy. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Drama · Silent

A silent Western comedy directed by and starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, with Buster Keaton and Al St. John in supporting roles. The film is a parody of Western movie conventions, with Arbuckle as a drifter who arrives in a lawless frontier town, tangles with a saloon owner, and rescues a damsel in distress. Keaton, still in his early years as a supporting player in Arbuckle's Comique films, has a smaller role but already displays the comic precision that would make him a star. The film features the kind of rough-and-tumble slapstick that defined Arbuckle's Comique comedies, with plenty of barroom brawls, pratfalls, and visual gags. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Western · Silent

A Charlie Chaplin comedy set during World War I, released just weeks before the Armistice. Chaplin's Little Fellow enlists in the army, endures the absurdities of military training, and is sent to the trenches of France, where his bumbling courage leads him to capture a group of German soldiers and infiltrate enemy lines. The film was a risky proposition—making comedy out of an ongoing war—but it was a enormous hit with both audiences and soldiers, who appreciated its humane, anti-authoritarian spirit. Chaplin's genius for finding comedy in adversity is on full display, particularly in the famous sequence where he sleeps in a flooded trench while standing upright. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · War · Silent

Mary Pickford plays a celebrated dual role in this Marshall Neilan drama adapted from William J. Locke's novel by Frances Marion. Stella Maris is a rich, sheltered invalid who has never been allowed to see the world's ugliness; Unity Blake is a beaten-down orphan from the workhouse who knows nothing else. When Unity is taken into the household of Stella's cousin (Conway Tearle), the two women's lives cross in ways neither understands, and Pickford's transformation into the plain, hunched Unity remains startling — she asked to be made as unbeautiful as possible. One of the best showcases of what silent-era star vehicles could do when their stars wanted to act rather than pose. Published in 1918, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

The orphaned son of marooned English aristocrats is raised by apes in the African jungle and grows into the powerful Tarzan, who discovers his human heritage when a party of explorers arrives. Elmo Lincoln stars in the first screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Action

Winsor McCay's animated depiction of the 1915 torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat, an event that helped pull the United States into the First World War. McCay made the film as a piece of wartime propaganda, animating the liner, the attack, and the drowning of passengers in a somber, documentary-like tone unlike his comic Gertie work. It is one of the earliest serious animated films and a rare example of animation used for journalism. The film is in the public domain in the United States as a pre-1930 work.

Animation · Silent · Short · War

A silent drama directed by D.W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish and Robert Harron. John Logan Jr. leaves his parents and sweetheart, Jennie Timberlake, in the rural Kentucky of Happy Valley to seek his fortune in New York City. Those he left behind fall into hardship in his absence, while John is seduced by the wealth and cynicism of the city. The film was believed lost for nearly fifty years until a print was discovered in the State Film Archives of the Soviet Union in 1965 and donated to the Museum of Modern Art. Carol Dempster, who would become Griffith's leading lady of the 1920s, made her film debut in a small role as a girl John meets in New York. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

Erich von Stroheim's directorial debut, in which he also stars as a predatory Austrian lieutenant who sets his sights on an American doctor's wife during a holiday in the Alps. Made for Carl Laemmle's Universal on a small budget, the film already bears von Stroheim's signatures: the meticulous detail, the moral rot beneath polite society, the contempt for men too absorbed in their work to notice their wives. Sam De Grasse and Francelia Billington play the couple, with Gibson Gowland as the mountain guide. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

D.W. Griffith's tragic melodrama, subtitled *The Yellow Man and the Girl*, was his deliberate turn away from spectacle toward intimacy after the scale of *Intolerance*. Lillian Gish gives one of the great performances of the silent era as Lucy, the abused daughter of a brutal London prize-fighter (Donald Crisp), who finds fleeting tenderness with Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess), a Chinese shopkeeper whose dreams of peace have curdled in the Limehouse fog. The interracial romance at its center was daring for 1919, though the casting and caricature reflect the era's prejudices. Shot in hazy, oppressive studio interiors, it is among Griffith's most visually beautiful films. Published in 1919, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Mary Pickford stars in this 1919 silent comedy-drama based on Jean Webster's 1912 novel. An orphan named Judy Abbott is sent to college by a mysterious benefactor she knows only as "Daddy-Long-Legs," on the condition that she never try to meet him. She writes him letters chronicling her new life, falls into a romantic triangle, and eventually discovers that her benefactor is the man she has come to love. Directed by Marshall Neilan, the film was the first under Pickford's new production deal that gave her approval over the final edit, a hard-won concession that paid off: it was one of her biggest hits. The film's blend of comedy, sentiment, and Pickford's irrepressible screen presence made it a favorite with audiences. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Drama · Romance · Silent

A black cat named Master Tom ventures out for a night of music and romance, in the very first appearance of the character soon to be renamed Felix the Cat. Animated by Otto Messmer at Pat Sullivan's studio. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy