Romance Films

Frank Borzage's adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's World War I novel. Gary Cooper plays an American ambulance driver on the Italian front who falls in love with an English nurse, played by Helen Hayes in her screen debut. The romance unfolds against retreats, bombardments, and a hospital in Switzerland. The film's copyright was not renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Drama · Romance · War

Directed by Victor Sjöström and based on Sidney Howard's Pulitzer Prize-winning play *They Knew What They Wanted*, this pre-Code MGM drama stars Vilma Bánky as Lena, a San Francisco waitress who answers a marriage advertisement from a middle-aged Napa Valley grape-grower named Tony. Tony has sent her a photograph of his handsome younger hired man, Buck, instead of himself. When Lena arrives and discovers the deception, she goes through with the marriage anyway, drawn by the promise of a home and her growing attraction to Buck. Edward G. Robinson, still early in his screen career, plays the lonely Italian farmer with a tenderness far removed from the gangster roles that would soon make him famous. Bánky, the silent-era star opposite Valentino, made one of her last screen appearances here before her Hungarian accent ended her career in talkies. The film's copyright was not renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Drama · Romance

A pre-Code drama from First National, directed by Lloyd Bacon and adapted from the London play *Fame* by Audrey and Waverly Carter. Billie Dove plays Lady Patricia Hanley, a wealthy heiress who defies her family to marry Paul Gherardi, a struggling Italian violinist played by Basil Rathbone. As Paul's career falters and his pride festers, he falls into the orbit of Countess Olga Balakireff, a glamorous noblewoman played by Kay Francis, who seduces him as much for sport as for love. The film is a showcase for its three leads: Dove, the former Ziegfeld beauty; Rathbone, borrowed from MGM and years away from his Sherlock Holmes fame; and Francis, who steals the picture as the cool, predatory countess and would become one of the 1930s' biggest stars. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Romance

A 1937 American Technicolor drama film produced by David O. Selznick and directed by William A. Wellman, starring Janet Gaynor as an aspiring Hollywood actress and Fredric March as a fading movie star who helps launch her career. The screenplay was written by Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell. At the 10th Academy Awards, it became the very first color film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it received an honorary award for cinematographer W. Howard Greene. The film was remade in 1954 (with Judy Garland) and 1976 (with Barbra Streisand) and 2018 (with Lady Gaga). The supporting cast features Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Stander, and Owen Moore. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Drama · Romance

Supreme Court Justice John Josephus Grant (Frank Morgan) slips away for a quiet duck-hunting trip and lands in a small town ruled by a corrupt mayor and a bought judge. Incognito, he watches local politicians railroad an innocent young man and decides to put the system on trial himself. A warm, Capra-flavored civics comedy built around the Wizard of Oz himself, with Richard Carlson and Jean Rogers as the young couple caught in the machine. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Drama · Romance

Charlie Chaplin's first serious drama, written and directed by him as a starring vehicle for his longtime leading lady Edna Purviance—Chaplin himself appears only in a brief, uncredited cameo. Marie St. Clair (Purviance) believes she has been abandoned by her lover Jean and moves to Paris, where she becomes the mistress of wealthy playboy Pierre Revel (Adolphe Menjou). Years later, Jean reappears, and Marie must choose between respectability and the glamorous life she has built. Chaplin's sophisticated approach to adult relationships, his satirical eye for high society, and his rejection of melodramatic conventions stunned audiences and critics. The film was a commercial failure but influenced directors from Lubitsch to Renoir, and is now regarded as one of the great silent dramas. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Romance · Silent

A suave jewel thief hides out in the labyrinthine Casbah of Algiers, safe from the French police, until a beautiful French tourist tempts him toward the outside world. Charles Boyer's performance inspired Pepe le Pew, and Hedy Lamarr made her American debut. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A wounded gunfighter is taken in and nursed by a family of Quakers, and their gentle faith slowly wears down his thirst for revenge against the man who killed his foster father. John Wayne produced and starred; it was the first film his own company made. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western · Romance

Greta Garbo's first talking picture, marketed with the slogan "Garbo Talks!" This is the German-language version MGM filmed alongside the English release, directed by Jacques Feyder using the same sets, with Garbo reprising her role opposite a German-speaking cast. Based on Eugene O'Neill's play, it follows a young woman, raised by relatives after her father abandoned her, who comes to live on his coal barge and falls for a sailor she cannot be honest with about her past. Garbo's famous first line, "Gimme a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby," revealed a husky voice that only added to her mystique. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Romance

John Barrymore stars as George Bryan "Beau" Brummel, the impoverished soldier who talks his way into the friendship of the Prince of Wales and the heart of Regency London society, only to fall when the prince withdraws his favor. Directed by Harry Beaumont for Warner Bros. and based on Clyde Fitch's 1890 play, the film is a showcase for Barrymore's stage-trained intensity, from the arrogant dandy at his peak to the broken exile in Calais. Mary Astor plays the woman he cannot have. The film survives in several cuts of differing length and is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

A sequel to Herbert Brenon's 1926 hit Beau Geste, this pre-Code adventure sends an American (Lester Vail) into the French Foreign Legion to rescue his boyhood friend John Geste (Ralph Forbes, reprising his silent role). Filmed on location in the Sonoran Desert and on the RKO lot, the picture adapts P.C. Wren's novel with a Max Steiner score and early all-dialogue location recording. Loretta Young and Irene Rich round out the cast. The film is marked public domain on its Internet Archive item.

Adventure · Romance · War

A capable private secretary holds a struggling executive's business together, only to see him take the credit and the corner office, in a pre-Code workplace drama about the woman behind the man. Mary Astor and Ricardo Cortez star. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

Three lonely millionaire engineers — Harry Carey, C. Aubrey Smith, and Charles Winninger — throw their wallets out the window on Christmas Eve to see who returns them, and end up adopting the two strangers who do: a young singer and a cowboy who fall in love. When the three men die in a plane crash, they return as ghosts to shepherd the couple through the consequences of the money they left behind. Also released as Beyond Christmas, it is a gentle holiday fantasy directed by A. Edward Sutherland for RKO, and its dark second half — one ghost tempted away from the light — surprises anyone expecting pure sentiment. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Drama · Fantasy · Romance

A young American sailor falls for a Polynesian princess on a South Seas island, ignoring warnings that she is destined to be sacrificed to a volcano god. Dolores del Río and Joel McCrea star in King Vidor's pre-Code romance, filmed on location in Hawaii. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance · Drama

Rudolph Valentino stars as Juan Gallardo, a Seville matador who rises from poverty to national fame only to be undone by his infatuation with a wealthy aristocrat, Doña Sol. Fred Niblo directed this Paramount adaptation of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's novel, with June Mathis writing the scenario that helped cement Valentino's screen persona as the brooding, doomed lover. Lila Lee plays the wife he betrays and Nita Naldi, in her breakout role, the temptress. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · 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

Alla Nazimova produces and stars as Marguerite Gautier, the doomed Parisian courtesan, opposite Rudolph Valentino's Armand Duval in this stylized silent adaptation of Alexandre Dumas fils' La Dame aux Camélias. Directed by Ray C. Smallwood from June Mathis's scenario, the film transplants the story to 1920s Paris and surrounds it with lavish Art Deco sets by Natacha Rambova, whom Valentino would marry. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · 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

Alfred Hitchcock's second film for British International Pictures, made during his silent period before he broke through with The Man Who Knew Too Much. A champagne heiress announces her engagement to provoke her father, who fakes bankruptcy to teach her a lesson, and the film follows the complications that spiral from the ruse. Hitchcock later dismissed the film as one of his weakest, saying he took it on without much interest in the material, and the thin story bears that out. What survives is the visual invention: a famous opening shot of a champagne cork popping into the camera, and a number of gags built around bottles and bubbles. It is a minor Hitchcock, but a revealing one for anyone tracing how he learned his craft. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

Audrey Hepburn's husband is murdered and she discovers he was involved in a wartime gold theft. Several men who were his accomplices are after the gold, and they think she knows where it is. Cary Grant keeps turning up and helping her, but his identity keeps shifting. The film is often called the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made. The screenplay by Peter Stone has a good ear for banter. Henry Mancini wrote the score. The film failed to include a copyright notice on its prints, which put it in the public domain immediately upon release.

Thriller · Romance · Comedy

Martha Scott stars as Ella Bishop, a small-town Midwestern schoolteacher looking back over fifty years at Midwestern College — the men she loved and lost, the students whose lives she shaped, and the niece (Marsha Hunt) she raised. William Gargan plays the suitor who never quite catches her. Directed by Tay Garnett and adapted from Bess Streeter Aldrich's novel Miss Bishop, it is a sentimental women's picture in the Goodbye, Mr. Chips mold, carried by Scott's performance, which earned her comparisons to the best character actresses of the day and an Oscar nomination for its score by Edward Ward. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Drama · Romance

Rudolph Valentino plays an Italian count and big-game hunter who moves to New York to work for a friend's antiques firm and is drawn into an affair with his employer's wife, a predatory socialite played by Nita Naldi. The title refers to the cobra that mesmerizes its prey, a metaphor the film lays on heavily. Valentino is in his element as the charming, doomed lover, and Nita Naldi's vamp persona is given full rein. The film was one of Valentino's last releases before his death in 1926, and it is a late showcase for the star persona that made him a phenomenon. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Mary Pickford's first talkie and the film that won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, the second ever awarded. She plays Norma Besant, a Southern coquette whose flirtatious ways mask a genuine love for Michael Jeffery, a man her domineering father forbids her to see. When the father takes matters into his own hands, the consequences spiral toward tragedy. The film was a deliberate departure for Pickford, who shed her curls and childlike image to play a sophisticated young woman, though the transition was not entirely smooth: early sound technology was unforgiving, and her performance has a stiffness that critics noted at the time. Still, the film was a box office success and proved that Pickford could make the leap into talkies. It is also notable as one of the earliest talkies to use the word "damn." Published in 1929, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025.

Drama · Romance

The seventeenth-century swordsman and poet Cyrano, self-conscious about his enormous nose, loves the beautiful Roxane but helps a handsome but inarticulate rival woo her with his words. Jose Ferrer won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance · Adventure

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 1929 pre-Code circus drama starring Clara Bow as a bareback rider caught between two men. Directed by Lothar Mendes, the film follows Patricia, a circus performer in love with tightrope walker Larry Lee, who is already partnered with the older Zara Flynn. When Larry leaves the circus for a society woman, Patricia and Zara are left to pick up the pieces. This was Clara Bow's second talking picture and the first Hollywood film for Kay Francis, who would become one of the biggest stars of the 1930s. The production used 48 aerial ballet artists and 200 clowns for its circus sequences. Published in 1929, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025.

Drama · Romance

Stockholm, 1918: a French spy running a high-fashion dress shop, played by Vivien Leigh, falls for the German counterintelligence chief assigned to catch her, played by Conrad Veidt. Both know what the other is; neither can quite stop. Victor Saville directs the London Films production as an elegant cat-and-mouse romance where every ballroom scene doubles as tradecraft. Leigh, on the verge of Gone with the Wind, and Veidt, the great German exile who had played Cesare in Caligari, make an improbably magnetic pair, and the neutral Swedish setting lets the film keep its sympathies ambiguous. It is in the public domain in the United States.

War · Romance · Thriller

A Pre-Code musical comedy set in a traveling circus in the Old South, directed by Luther Reed for RKO. Bebe Daniels stars as Dixiana, a circus performer caught in a love triangle between a wealthy plantation owner's son and a villainous suitor. The film introduced the comedy team of Wheeler & Woolsey (Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey) to film audiences, and their rapid-fire banter and physical comedy made them instant favorites, launching a decade-long series of RKO comedies. The film was originally released in Technicolor sequences, though most surviving prints are in black and white. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

John Barrymore at the peak of his matinee-idol powers, swashbuckling through Borgia-era Italy as the legendary lover. Directed by Alan Crosland for Warner Bros., it's a lavish silent spectacle — duels, dungeons, and Lucrezia Borgia herself — but its place in history is technical: Don Juan was the first feature released with a synchronized Vitaphone musical score and sound effects, the experiment that led directly to The Jazz Singer a year later. Mary Astor and a young Myrna Loy are among the women pursued through its nearly two hours. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Romance · Silent

A sequel to The Mark of Zorro (1920), with Douglas Fairbanks now playing Don Cesar, the son of the original Zorro, in Spain rather than California. Framed for the murder of a rival archduke, he fakes his death and returns to clear his name and win back the woman he loves. Fairbanks produced and starred, and Donald Crisp directed while also playing Don Cesar's father. The swordplay is elaborate even by Fairbanks's standards, and the film leans into the swashbuckling spectacle that made him the action star of the silent era. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Action · Romance · Silent

Cecil B. DeMille's first all-talking feature, made at MGM after he left Paramount. A pampered society girl will lose her trust fund if she is not married by a certain date, so she marries a condemned coal miner on death row, expecting him to be executed before the deadline. When he is pardoned at the last minute, the rough, honorable man arrives at her penthouse to claim his marital rights, upending her world. The film is packed with the class-conscious, never-quite-consummated scandal that was DeMille's specialty, complete with a polo-playing playboy, a penthouse, and a coal mine. Kay Johnson plays the socialite, Conrad Nagel her polo-playing beau, and Charles Bickford the miner. Mitchell Leisen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction for his work on the film. A silent version was released simultaneously for theatres not yet wired for sound. Published in 1929, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025.

Drama · Romance

Directed by Allan Dwan and based on Felix Riesenberg's 1927 novel, this silent drama was shot extensively on location in New York City, from the Bowery to Fifth Avenue to Harlem. George O'Brien stars as a man who rises from the Lower East Side slums to the world of high society, with Virginia Valli as the woman he loves and June Collyer as the socialite who comes between them. The film culminates in a spectacular maritime disaster sequence loosely inspired by the sinking of the RMS Titanic. O'Brien, fresh from his lead in Murnau's *Sunrise* earlier that same year, anchors the production with his naturalistic presence. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of the Noël Coward play, made during his British silent period. A woman divorces her abusive husband, flees the scandal to the Riviera, and marries a younger man whose aristocratic family does not know her past and turns on her when they learn it. Hitchcock was not fond of the material and the film is largely a commission job, but it shows his early interest in the social trap: a woman judged by a code that does not apply to the men around her. Most of the Coward dialogue is conveyed through intertitles rather than spoken, since this was a silent film of a talkie play. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Colleen Moore stars as a small-town drudge who wins a newspaper beauty contest with a prize trip to Hollywood — only to discover the contest was a fraud. She stays anyway and bluffs her way onto a movie set, where chaos on the soundstage turns her into an accidental star. Directed by Alfred E. Green and based on the popular comic strip by Bill Conselman and Charles Plumb, itself a riff on Cinderella, the film was one of the biggest hits of 1926 and the peak of Moore's run as America's top box-office comedienne. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

A 1929 American sound romantic drama film directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring John Barrymore and Camilla Horn. Set in 1806 in the Swiss Alps village of Pontresina, the film follows Marcus Paltran (Barrymore), a mountain man in love with Ciglia (Horn). But the jealous and vindictive Pia throws herself at Marcus and, when rejected, spreads rumors that force Marcus into a loveless marriage with her. Marcus and Ciglia struggle to find happiness together amid the constraints of their marriages and the rigid village society. Based on the novel Der König der Bernina by Jakob Christoph Heer, this was the last silent film for both Lubitsch and Barrymore. While the film has no audible dialogue, it was released with a synchronized musical score and sound effects.

Drama · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Fred C. Newmeyer, starring Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, and Frank Morgan. The wealthy Lenox family of Long Island is headed by Bronson (Morgan), who respects tradition — but his children are more irreverent. When son Bertie gets involved with chorus girl Alice O'Neil (Lombard) and daughter Marion (Hopkins) falls for auto mechanic Henry Morgan, the family tries to intervene to prevent their children from marrying beneath themselves. The film was written by Preston Sturges, based on the 1924 play The Best People by David Gray and Avery Hopwood. This was Miriam Hopkins' feature film debut.

Comedy · Romance

Two childhood friends, Leo and Ulrich, return from military service and fall for the same alluring woman, Felicitas, with destructive consequences. Greta Garbo and John Gilbert's on-screen chemistry was matched by a real-life romance that began during filming, and the picture made them one of Hollywood's first great celebrity couples. Clarence Brown directs with a fluid, intimate camera that was advanced for its time, and the film's sensual love scenes pushed the boundaries of what censorship would allow. Based on Hermann Sudermann's novel The Undying Past, the film was a sensation at New York's Capitol Theatre, where it ran longer than any picture before it. It was selected for the National Film Registry in 2006. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2022.

Romance · Drama · Silent

A pre-Code crime drama from Paramount, directed by John Cromwell. William Powell plays William Foster, a slick criminal defense lawyer who specializes in getting crooks acquitted. He is in love with Irene Manners, played by Kay Francis, a dancer who is also seeing Jack Defoe on the side. When Irene kills a pedestrian while driving Jack's car, Jack takes the blame, and Foster ends up defending him, only to discover that a ring he gave Irene is at the crime scene. The film is a showcase for Powell's effortless sophistication and Francis's cool glamour, a pairing Paramount would reuse the same year in *Ladies of Leisure*. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A 1927 American silent romantic comedy directed by Dorothy Arzner, starring Clara Bow and Charles "Buddy" Rogers. In Paris, Robert de Belleconte (Rogers), the son of a nobleman, is betrothed in infancy to Simone de Villeneuve. Seventeen years later, he meets American tourist Nancy Worthington (Bow), and they are accidentally locked in a museum overnight. By morning, they are in love — but Robert confesses his arranged engagement, and Nancy leaves in tears. Not one to give up easily, Nancy stages a false automobile wreck to gain entrance to the Belleconte chateau and schemes to break the engagement. Directed by Dorothy Arzner, one of Hollywood's pioneering women directors. The Library of Congress holds an incomplete print, missing two of six reels.

Comedy · Romance

Harold Lloyd's first feature as an independent producer, and one of his best. He plays a stuttering, girl-shy tailor's apprentice who writes a bogus advice book on how to woo women, then has to live up to it when he falls for a wealthy girl visiting from the city. The film builds to a celebrated chase in which Harold races a jalopy, a horse, a trolley, and finally a stolen motorcycle (with no driver) through Los Angeles traffic to stop his beloved's wedding. Lloyd's gift was for ordinary-guy heroism, and here the romantic setup and the stunt climax feed each other perfectly. It was the first release from his own Harold Lloyd Corporation. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

A pre-Code RKO comedy spun from the era's divorce scandals. Lawyer Chester Hamilton (Sidney Blackmer) keeps his practice afloat by hiring a professional "co-respondent" — the glamorous Phyllis Van Kamp (Verree Teasdale) — to pose as the other woman in divorce cases. When Oswald Groggs (Charles Ruggles), a hapless real-estate clerk down to his last dollars, gets tangled in the scheme, mistaken identities and double-crosses pile up fast. Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and built for pure speed, it is a tidy example of the studio's pre-Code programmers — risqué, cynical, and over in an hour. Its copyright was never renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Romance

An early RKO talkie built around a then-modern question: what happens when a society girl secretly marries a man her parents would never approve of and has to keep the marriage hidden while living at home? Olive Borden plays the debutante who weds Morgan Farley's penniless architect and then splits her life between his boarding-house room and her family's mansion, dodging a mother's plan to marry her off to a rich suitor. Directed by William J. Cowen and produced by William LeBaron, it is a time capsule of both the transitional sound era and 1920s anxieties about class and working wives. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Drama · Romance

A late-silent-era romance from Paramount, directed by George Abbott and based on Henry Leyford Gates's novel *Here Comes the Bandwagon*. Charles "Buddy" Rogers stars as Jimmy, a young man caught between two women, with Jean Arthur as Mary and Paul Lukas as the rival Nick. The film was released in both sound and silent versions, as was common during the transition to talkies. Abbott, better known today as a legendary Broadway director, was then a Hollywood contract director at Paramount. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance

John Ford's silent drama set against the Irish War of Independence. Victor McLaglen plays a man who returns to Ireland disguised as a hangman to avenge himself on the brutal commandant who drove his family out, while a young woman is forced into a marriage she does not want. Ford, who was born in Maine to Irish immigrant parents, made several films about Ireland across his career, and this is one of the earliest: the sympathy for the rebel cause and the suspicion of the colonial authorities are already in place here, decades before The Quiet Man. The film was made in the transitional sound period and uses a synchronized score and effects rather than spoken dialogue. A young John Wayne appears briefly as an uncredited spectator at a horse race. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Cary Grant plays a newspaper editor who discovers his ex-wife is leaving journalism to marry a safe, boring insurance salesman. He lures her back with one last story: a convicted murderer is about to be executed, and the governor may be about to pardon him. The dialogue is fast and overlapping, with characters talking over each other in a way that sounds natural and was hard to write. Rosalind Russell matches Grant beat for beat. The film was based on the play "The Front Page" but Hawks changed the Hildy Johnson character from a man to a woman, which gave the story a romantic tension the original lacked.

Comedy · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Edward H. Griffith, starring Ann Harding, Mary Astor, and Edward Everett Horton. Wealthy Julia Seton (Astor) meets struggling young lawyer Johnny Case at Lake Placid and brings him home to meet her family as her future husband. But Johnny is a free spirit who wants to make enough money to retire early and enjoy life — a plan that horrifies Julia's conservative father. Julia's rebellious sister Linda (Harding) is taken with Johnny's unconventional philosophy and finds herself falling for him. Based on the 1928 play by Philip Barry, this is the first film adaptation of the story later remade in 1938 with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Edward Everett Horton reprises his role as Nick Potter in both versions.

Comedy · Drama · Romance

Cowboy Dan Somers and oilman Jim "Hunk" Gardner square off over drilling rights on Indian land in Oklahoma — and over schoolteacher Catherine Allen — in a feud that escalates from fists to sabotage to a race against a burning oil field. John Wayne stars opposite Martha Scott and Albert Dekker, with Gabby Hayes, Marjorie Rambeau, and Dale Evans. One of Republic's biggest pictures of 1943, later reissued as War of the Wildcats. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western · Romance · Drama

A 1926 American silent romantic comedy directed by Alfred E. Green, starring Colleen Moore. Irene O'Dare (Moore), a feisty Irish girl in Philadelphia, clashes with her family and walks out, heading to New York City to seek fame and fortune. She gets a job as a dressmaker's model and becomes involved with Donald Marshall (Lloyd Hughes), the scion of a wealthy family. Donald's mother doesn't approve of Irene and sets out to discredit her. On the night of a big society fashion show, Irene becomes a sensation — but her mother arrives and takes her home. Based on the 1919 stage musical Irene by James H. Montgomery, with music by Harry Tierney. The film features a Technicolor two-strip color sequence for the fashion show, one of the earliest color fashion sequences on film.

Comedy · Romance

It is the film that coined the phrase "It girl" and made Clara Bow the embodiment of the 1920s flapper. She plays a department store salesgirl with plenty of "It", that magnetic self-confidence author Elinor Glyn defined on screen, who sets her sights on the store's handsome young owner. Bow's charm carries the whole picture, and the film was a sensation when it was released. Long considered lost, a print surfaced in Prague in the 1960s, and the Library of Congress selected It for the National Film Registry. The film's copyright was renewed in 1954 and expired on January 1, 2023, when it entered the public domain.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

A wily Baghdad beggar, through a single day's reversals of fortune, rises to wealth and engineers his daughter's marriage to a prince, only for fate to snatch it all back. Otis Skinner recreates his famed stage role of Hajj in this silent adaptation of Edward Knoblock's play. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance · Adventure

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck. Jerry Strong (Ralph Graves), the artistic son of a wealthy railroad magnate, hires Kay Arnold (Stanwyck), a "party girl" he meets while driving along the waterfront, as his model. As they work together, Kay falls in love with Jerry and begins to reform herself, but faces strong opposition from Jerry's family, who disapprove of her past. The film was based on the 1924 Broadway play Ladies of the Evening by Milton Herbert Gropper. The success of the film made Stanwyck a star and established Capra as a major director at Columbia Pictures.

Drama · Romance

Ernst Lubitsch's silent adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play about a respectable woman who suspects her husband of infidelity, receives a fan as a birthday gift, and finds herself at a party where the fan becomes the center of a misunderstanding that threatens her reputation. Lubitsch, working without dialogue, strips the play to its emotional mechanics and lets gesture, glance, and editing carry the wit. The result is a showcase for the "Lubitsch touch," the blend of sophistication and feeling that defined his career. Ronald Colman plays the husband and May McAvoy the wife. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Herbert Brenon's silent drama about a circus clown who adopts an abandoned girl and raises her, only to fall in love with her as she grows up and to watch her turn toward a wealthy suitor instead. Lon Chaney plays Tito, a role that lets him do what he did best: contort a face into a smile that hides a wound. The film is built around the gap between the painted grin and the man beneath it, and Chaney's performance in the final scenes is the reason the film is still watched. Loretta Young was fourteen when she played Simonetta, an early role in a career that would run for another half century. The title comes from the opera Pagliacci, and the story follows its logic to its end. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · Romance · Silent

A Pre-Code social comedy directed by Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast for Paramount. Peggy (Nancy Carroll) is a cabaret dancer who marries a wealthy industrialist for security, only to find herself trapped in a loveless marriage. When she reconnects with Paul (Fredric March), a carefree old flame, she must choose between respectability and happiness. The film was a deliberate attempt to capture the spirit of Ernst Lubitsch's sophisticated comedies, and d'Arrast—who had worked with Chaplin on A Woman of Paris—brings a similar visual elegance and wry observation of class manners. Though less well-known than the films it emulated, Laughter is a sharp, stylish look at the tension between wealth and freedom in the Jazz Age. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance · Pre-Code

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama directed by Robert Z. Leonard, starring Norma Shearer and Marie Dressler. Dowdy housewife Kitty Brown (Shearer) dotes on her self-centered husband Bob (Rod La Rocque), but divorces him when his mistress shows up at their home. Bob had become bored with her lackluster appearance. Kitty re-invents herself and becomes a Continental favorite, dressing like a fashion model and behaving gaily. Three years later, a wealthy socialite (Dressler) enlists Kitty's help to break up her granddaughter's infatuation with Bob — unaware that Kitty is his ex-wife. Based on the 1929 play by Rachel Crothers, which starred Tallulah Bankhead on Broadway.

Comedy · Drama · Romance

Marion Davies plays twins separated at birth in this Monta Bell directed comedy-drama: one raised in a wealthy Dutch family, the other in the tenements, who grows up to be a musical-comedy star. The film uses the dual role to contrast old-money respectability with the rough energy of the immigrant streets, and the two worlds collide when the twins fall for the same man. Davies, a gifted comedienne whose talents were often overshadowed by her relationship with William Randolph Hearst, gets to show her range. The film includes early Technicolor and Handschiegl color sequences. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Comedy · Silent

The first screen adaptation of Al Capp's wildly popular comic strip brings Dogpatch to life. Brawny, dim-witted Li'l Abner (Jeff York, billed as Granville Owen) spends his days dodging marriage-hungry Daisy Mae Scraggs (Martha O'Driscoll) while his Mammy (Mona Ray) rules the holler with a rolling pin. When a scientist discovers the Yokum family tonic could make millions, city slickers descend on Dogpatch just ahead of Sadie Hawkins Day. Silent comedy legend Buster Keaton steals scenes as the perpetually unlucky Lonesome Polecat. Produced by Vogue Pictures and released by RKO, the film's copyright was never renewed. It is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Romance

Frank Borzage's adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's 1909 play about a carousel barker in Budapest whose doomed romance with a servant girl ends in tragedy and a chance at redemption from beyond the grave. Charles Farrell stars as Liliom, a swaggering but troubled carnival worker, with Rose Hobart as Julie, the woman who loves him despite his flaws. Lee Tracy plays the Sparrow, a heavenly marshal who oversees Liliom's posthumous trial. The film was one of several Borzage-directed romances that blended realism with spiritual fantasy, a hallmark of his career. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Fantasy

Paul Fejos's lyrical tone poem about two lonely strangers in New York City who meet at Coney Island and fall in love over the course of a single day, only to be separated by the crowd and the city's relentless pace. Glenn Tryon and Barbara Kent play the unnamed couple, whose brief connection stands in vivid contrast to the mechanized urban world around them. The film features early Technicolor sequences at Coney Island and brief synchronized sound dialogue scenes, making it a fascinating transitional work between the silent and sound eras. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Maurice Tourneur's atmospheric adaptation of R.D. Blackmore's 1869 novel, set in 17th-century Exmoor, England. Madge Bellamy stars as Lorna Doone, a young woman raised by a clan of outlaw Doones who falls in love with John Ridd (John Bowers), a farmer's son whose father was murdered by the Doones. Tourneur, one of the great visual poets of silent cinema, brought a painterly sensibility to the moors and the romance, creating one of the most admired literary adaptations of the era. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Adventure · Silent

A Monogram aviation melodrama built around the era's fascination with record-breaking balloon ascents. Army pilots Tom "Soapy" Cooper (William Cagney, James's brother) and Richard "Woody" Wood (Edward J. Nugent) are inseparable in the air but rivals on the ground, both courting Evelyn Worthington (June Collyer), daughter of their commanding officer. When a high-altitude balloon mission goes wrong, the feud must give way to survival miles above the earth. Typical of Monogram's brisk B-pictures, it pads its stock footage with pre-Code barracks banter and a genuinely tense stratospheric climax. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Drama · Romance

MGM's second teaming of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, this time in a loose silent adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. The studio changed the title from Heat to Love so the marquee could read "Garbo and Gilbert in Love," one of the great publicity stunts of the silent era. The plot follows a married woman who ruins her social standing for a young officer, and the film leans hard into the erotic chemistry that made the pair famous after Flesh and the Devil. Edmund Goulding directed, and William Daniels photographed Garbo in the soft light that became her signature. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Romance · Drama · Silent

A French playboy and an American singer meet aboard an ocean liner and fall in love, though both are engaged to others. They agree to reunite in six months atop the Empire State Building to test their love. Leo McCarey's original was remade by him as An Affair to Remember and later by Warren Beatty. The 1939 version lapsed into the public domain through non-renewal.

Romance · Drama

Andy Hardy returns from army service to Carvel and falls for a sophisticated exchange student, chasing her all the way to South America in pursuit of romance. Mickey Rooney stars in the last of the long-running MGM Andy Hardy series. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Romance

A young lawyer and a woman he met on a business trip marry after a whirlwind courtship and struggle through the first year of marriage, money troubles, a difficult mother-in-law, and a medical crisis with their baby. Carole Lombard and James Stewart star in this bittersweet domestic drama. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance · Comedy

A young woman marries a philanderer, divorces him, and raises their daughter alone while navigating the compromises of love and independence through the Jazz Age and the Depression. Helen Twelvetrees stars with Joan Blondell in this pre-Code adaptation of Donald Henderson Clarke's novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

Josef von Sternberg's first Hollywood film with Marlene Dietrich, made immediately after The Blue Angel launched her to stardom. She plays Amy Jolly, a cabaret singer who arrives in Morocco with no money and fewer illusions, and falls for a Legionnaire played by Gary Cooper. Adolphe Menjou is the wealthy man who offers her everything except the one thing she wants. The film is famous for Dietrich's performance in a man's tailcoat, kissing a woman in the audience, a scene considered scandalous in 1930. Lee Garmes's photography wraps the desert and the nightclub in the same haze of smoke and shadow. Dietrich received the only Academy Award nomination of her career for this role. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Romance · Drama · War

An American singer and a European prince fall in love during a brief lakeside idyll, then meet again years later when he is a king in exile and she a Hollywood star. Ezio Pinza and Lana Turner star in this MGM musical romance. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Musical · Romance

Douglas Fairbanks's final starring film sends the great swashbuckler out on a high note. Yachting playboy Steve Drexel accepts a bet that he can't survive alone on a deserted South Seas island with nothing but his dog — then proceeds to build a radio, a waterslide, and an elegant treetop penthouse out of salvaged wreckage and sheer ingenuity. When a fleeing dancer (Maria Alba) washes ashore and is dubbed "Saturday," the wager becomes a romance. Made when Fairbanks was nearing fifty, the film still showcases the effortless athletic charm that defined silent-era adventure, now with sound-era wisecracks. Released through United Artists, the company he co-founded, its copyright was not renewed. It is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Comedy · Romance

A 1927 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Sam Taylor, starring Mary Pickford and Charles "Buddy" Rogers. Maggie Johnson (Pickford) is a stock girl at Merrill's department store, where she falls for Joe Grant (Rogers), a new coworker. What Maggie doesn't know is that Joe is actually the son of the store's wealthy owner, working incognito to prove himself without his father's influence. When Joe is called back to his family, Maggie follows him and discovers the truth about his identity. This was Mary Pickford's last silent film. Rogers and Pickford later married in 1937. The film features an early uncredited appearance by Carole Lombard as a flirty salesgirl. Charles Rosher received an Academy Award nomination for his cinematography.

Comedy · Romance

A bestselling novelist's long-suffering secretary finally quits and writes her own successful book, only for her idle former boss to chase her to the country and try to win her back. Laraine Day and Kirk Douglas star in this romantic comedy. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Romance

Two sisters from a wealthy family are competing in a scavenger hunt and one of the items is a "forgotten man," a homeless person from the Depression. Irene finds Godfrey at a dump by the river and brings him to the party, then hires him as the family butler. Godfrey turns out to be more capable and more decent than anyone in the household, and he quietly puts the family's chaos in order while Irene falls for him. William Powell and Carole Lombard had been married and divorced before the film was made, and their ease with each other shows in the dialogue. The film is one of the defining screwball comedies, with a sharp script that lets the rich look ridiculous without being cruel. It was the first film to be nominated in all four acting categories at the Academy Awards. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Romance

A small-town Vermont woman, Hazel Flagg, is mistakenly told she has fatal radium poisoning. A New York newspaper reporter desperate for a human-interest story brings her to the city and turns her into a celebrity, only to discover she was never sick at all. Carole Lombard and Fredric March spar through one of the great screwball comedies of the 1930s, shot in early three-strip Technicolor. The film fell into the public domain when its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Romance

A sensitive, clubfooted medical student abandons his artistic ambitions in Paris to study in London, where he becomes destructively obsessed with a cold, cruel waitress who has no feeling for him. Leslie Howard and a breakout Bette Davis star in this adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

A Vitaphone-era synchronized-sound historical drama from Warner Bros., directed by Alan Crosland (who would direct *The Jazz Singer* the same year). Dolores Costello stars as Dolores Vasquez, the daughter of an old Spanish California family, and Warner Oland plays Chris Buckwell, a villainous landowner with underworld connections who schemes to steal the Vasquez property. The film climaxes with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. While the film has no audible dialogue, it was released with a synchronized musical score and sound effects via the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · Romance

A newspaper man frames a man's final year in flashback: convicted of a murder he insists was a frame-up, he is paroled into the custody of a crusading reporter who intends to prove his innocence, with the dead man's own wife falling for the prisoner along the way. Russell Hopton and Mary Brian star in this Allied Pictures drama, produced by M.H. Hoffman and directed by silent-era veteran E. Mason Hopper. It is a depression-era crime story in which the real antagonist is the machinery of justice itself. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama directed by Harry Beaumont, starring Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Anita Page, and Dorothy Sebastian. Three small-town girls — Gerry (Crawford), Connie (Page), and Franky (Sebastian) — share an apartment in New York City while working at Jardine's Department Store, each seeking a wealthy husband. While Connie and Franky are reckless with their affections, Gerry is determined to remain practical, resisting the advances of the store owner's son Tony Jardine (Montgomery) even as she falls for him. The film was Crawford's first "shopgirl Cinderella" role, marking a transition from her flapper persona of the silent era to the more sophisticated image MGM would develop for her throughout the 1930s.

Drama · Romance

King Vidor self-financed this Depression-era drama as a spiritual sequel to *The Crowd*, again following an ordinary young couple — John and Mary Sims (Tom Keene and Karen Morley) — crushed by unemployment. Given a failing farm, they gather a community of displaced tradesmen and try to run it as a cooperative, pooling skills to bring in one last crop. The climax, in which the whole settlement digs a miles-long irrigation ditch in a single night to save the fields, is one of the great sequences of early American cinema — pure rhythmic montage. Made outside the studio system and released through United Artists, the film's copyright was never renewed. It is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance

Willie McKay travels south to claim his inheritance, unaware that his family has been locked in a generations-long feud with the Canfields. On the journey he meets and falls for Virginia Canfield, and is invited to the Canfield home, where the men want to kill him but southern hospitality forbids them from shooting a guest under their own roof. Willie stretches his stay as long as he can, then escapes into a chase that moves to a river, where he dangles from a rope over a waterfall and swings to rescue Virginia from the rapids. The falls and cliff stunts were done for real. Keaton's own father, Joe Keaton, plays the train engineer, and his wife Natalie Talmadge plays the lead. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Action · Romance · Silent

A late-silent MGM comedy-drama released with a synchronized musical score but no spoken dialogue, and Joan Crawford's final film without talking. She plays Billie Brown, a flapper who believes herself in love with one man while another pines for her, with Rod La Rocque, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Anita Page rounding out the quartet. Fairbanks and Crawford married during production, and the film's party sequence features his impersonations of contemporary stars. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Drama · Romance

A film version of Thornton Wilder's play about life, love, and loss in the small New Hampshire town of Grover's Corners at the turn of the twentieth century. William Holden and Martha Scott play the young couple whose courtship and marriage anchor the story. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

A newspaperman and a former shop girl meet over a phonograph record in a San Francisco music store, and their marriage plays out through the songs that bookend it. As Julie packs to leave Roger, she plays each record and remembers: the courtship, the move to Japan, the earthquake that costs them everything, the long wait to adopt a child, and the strain of Roger's failing newspaper that pulls them apart. George Stevens directs with a gentle, unhurried hand, letting the music carry the emotion the dialogue will not. Cary Grant, in one of his two Oscar-nominated dramatic performances, is loose and wounded as Roger, and Irene Dunne matches him with a performance built on small, precise gestures. The film is a melodrama in the old sense, earned by patience rather than contrivance. Its copyright was not renewed at the end of its first 28-year term, and it entered the public domain in 1970.

Romance · Drama

A 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy directed by Ludwig Berger, starring Maurice Chevalier and Frances Dee (in her film debut). Albert Loriflan (Chevalier), a waiter in a Paris cafe, unexpectedly inherits a large sum of money from a wealthy relative. His unscrupulous boss, Philibert, refuses to release him from his long-term contract in the hope that Albert will buy him off with a large payment. But Albert refuses, and continues to work at the cafe even though he is now very rich. Before long he falls in love with Philibert's daughter Yvonne (Dee). Based on the 1911 play The Little Cafe by Tristan Bernard. Paramount also produced a separate French-language version, Le Petit Cafe, starring Chevalier, which broke records for opening-day attendance in Paris.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

A young man returns to his uncle's music store business and falls for a singer from a feuding family, getting tangled in a radio giveaway contest and a war between the two clans. James Stewart and Paulette Goddard star in this musical comedy. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

Jungle pulp from Screen Guild Pictures. Jean Preston (Patricia Morison) flies to Africa to find her missing fiancé, last seen hunting ivory on a safari that vanished into forbidden territory. With safari guide Gary Lambert (Robert Lowery) and comic-relief cook Gabby (J. Edward Bromberg), she penetrates the jungle realm of Zita, the Amazon queen — a white goddess ruling a tribe that traffics in enslaved men. Cheap, fast, and unabashedly lurid, it is Poverty Row adventure filmmaking at its most shameless, padded with stock wildlife footage. Its copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code comedy-mystery film produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by George Fitzmaurice. Ronald Colman stars as A.J. Raffles, a distinguished English gentleman who leads a secret life as the notorious jewel thief the press has dubbed "The Amateur Cracksman." When Raffles falls in love with Gwen (Kay Francis), he decides to retire from crime, but an old friend, Bunny (Bramwell Fletcher), comes to him with a predicament that entails committing one last job. The film is based on the 1906 play by E. W. Hornung and Eugene Wiley Presbrey, adapted from Hornung's 1899 short story collection. Oscar Lagerstrom was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Recording. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Comedy · Mystery · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Bebe Daniels. Wall Street wizard Larry Day (Fairbanks), new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet Roger (Edward Everett Horton). He follows Vivian Benton (Daniels), an amateur aviatrix, on an ocean liner, where cocktails laced with a "love potion" work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels he has also lost his girl. The film features songs by Irving Berlin and an early appearance by Bing Crosby. Originally released at 91 minutes; surviving versions are typically cut to about 72 minutes.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

A 1947 American musical race film produced and released by Astor Pictures, starring Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five. Old-time musical star Schyler Jarvis, now wealthy, is dying; his last act is a visionary plan for the future happiness of his son, swing bandleader Louis Jarvis, and Honey Carter, daughter of his long-lost love. But crooked lawyer Henry Talbot has a nefarious scheme to get his hands on the Jarvis money. The film features 14 songs by Louis Jordan with his Tympany Five, June Richmond, and Mable Lee. This was the second of three feature films starring Louis Jordan, following the success of Crouch's Caldonia (1945).

Musical · Romance

A 1929 American pre-Code RKO musical comedy starring Bebe Daniels and John Boles, along with the comedy team of Wheeler & Woolsey. Based on the 1927 stage musical produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, the film follows Capt. Jim Stewart (Boles), who pursues the bandit "The Kinkajou" over the Mexican border and falls in love with Rita (Daniels), though he suspects that her brother is the bandit. The film was the biggest and most expensive RKO production of 1929 and the studio's biggest box office hit until King Kong (1933). Its finale was photographed in two-color Technicolor. Rio Rita was chosen as one of the 10 best films of 1929 by Film Daily. The film united Wheeler and Woolsey as a team and made them famous.

Musical · Romance · Western

Rival Romeos is a 1928 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon directed by Walt Disney. Oswald and a rival suitor compete for the affections of a female rabbit, with each attempting to outdo the other in a series of romantic and slapstick gags. The short is a classic example of the competitive courtship formula common in silent animation. As a 1928 work, the film entered the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2024.

Animation · Comedy · Romance

Two vaudevillians on the run from shotgun weddings ship out to the South Seas, where they rescue and then compete for a beautiful island princess. The sixth of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby "Road" pictures and the only one made in Technicolor. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Adventure · Romance

Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckles through twelfth-century England as the Earl of Huntingdon turned outlaw, scaling walls and leaping from battlements to win Maid Marian from the usurping Prince John. Allan Dwan directed this lavish silent epic, built around one of the largest sets ever constructed. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance · Action

Henry King's adaptation of George Eliot's novel was filmed on location in Florence, giving this tale of Renaissance intrigue an authenticity Hollywood couldn't build on a backlot. Lillian Gish plays Romola, the scholar's daughter whose world collapses when she discovers her charming husband Tito (a young William Powell in an early villainous role) has betrayed her father, secretly wed the trusting Tessa (Dorothy Gish), and sold his loyalty to Savonarola's enemies. Ronald Colman co-stars as the principled Carlo Bucellini. The climactic bonfire of the vanities — with the real Piazza della Signoria standing in for itself — makes the film a lavish time capsule of 1920s prestige filmmaking. Published in 1924, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

A brother-and-sister dance act travels to London at the same time as the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten. Tom Bowen, the brother, falls for a dancer in a rival show, while Ellen meets a British lord. The film is a light MGM musical built around Fred Astaire's dancing, and its famous sequence has Astaire dancing on the walls and ceiling of a hotel room, achieved with a rotating set and a nailed-down camera. Astaire also dances with a hat rack he treats as a partner. The story was loosely inspired by the real-life Astaire sibling act. Jane Powell plays his sister, and the score includes "Too Late Now." The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Musical · Comedy · Romance

A 1929 American pre-Code musical film directed by John Francis Dillon, starring Marilyn Miller, Alexander Gray, and Joe E. Brown. Sally Green (Miller) is an orphan who was named by the telephone exchange where she was abandoned as a baby. In the orphanage, she discovered the joy of dancing. Working as a waitress, she goes from job to job until she finds a job that also allows her to dance. At the restaurant, she meets Blair Farquar (Gray) and they fall for each other, but Blair is engaged to Marcia. Sally is hired to impersonate a famous Russian dancer in her Broadway debut. Based on the Broadway stage hit produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, the film retains three of the stage production's Jerome Kern songs, including "Look for the Silver Lining." Miller, who had played the leading part on Broadway, was hired by Warner Bros. for a reported $100,000. The film was shot entirely in Technicolor Process 3 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

Musical · Comedy · Romance

A young lawyer in pre-Revolutionary France vows vengeance on the aristocrat who killed his friend in a duel, becoming a roving commedia player and then a master fencer as the Revolution engulfs them all. Ramon Novarro and Alice Terry star in Rex Ingram's celebrated silent swashbuckler. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance · History

Two rival college trumpet players and bandleaders compete for a job with Artie Shaw's orchestra and for the affections of their manager, who is rising in the music business faster than either of them. Fred Astaire and Paulette Goddard star in this Paramount musical. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Musical · Comedy · Romance

Band singer Bob Jordan (Billy Daniels) is torn between the long-suffering Barbara (Sheila Guyse), who has loved him since his struggling days, and a wealthy society woman who promises to make him a star. Made for the Black theater circuit by producer Jack Goldberg's Herald Pictures, Sepia Cinderella is one of the best surviving examples of the all-Black-cast "race films" of the era, mixing backstage romance with nightclub numbers that showcase Daniels' smooth crooning — including the hit "That Old Black Magic." The film is in the public domain.

Musical · Romance

A young broker learns he will inherit seven million dollars only if he is married by seven o'clock that evening. His proposal to his longtime sweetheart goes badly, so his business partner puts an ad in the paper, and soon hundreds of would-be brides in wedding veils descend on the church. Jimmie spends the second half of the film running for his life through the city, chased by the brides and then by a cascading avalanche of boulders that he dodges down a hillside in one of the great chase sequences in silent comedy. Keaton reportedly disliked the play the film was based on but bought it anyway, then let his gag men rework it. The boulder chase grew organically from a handful of rocks into the famous stampede.

Comedy · Action · Romance · Silent

7th Heaven is the romance that won Frank Borzage the first Academy Award for Best Director and helped win Janet Gaynor the first Best Actress award. She plays Diane, a young woman abused by her sister and rescued from the Paris slums by Chico, a sewer worker who invents a marriage to protect her. Their love grows real, only to be interrupted by the First World War. Borzage directs with a soaring, almost spiritual faith in love that survives distance and death. The film was a huge hit for Fox and was selected for the National Film Registry. It entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

Romance · Drama · Silent

Richard Barthelmess plays "Bilge" Smith, a hard-fisted merchant sailor who puts into a sleepy New England port and falls for Connie Martin (Dorothy Mackaill), the town dressmaker, in this silent adaptation of Hubert Osborne's 1922 Broadway play. Directed by John S. Robertson for Barthelmess's own Inspiration Pictures, it mixes roughhouse comedy — including a memorably chaotic shipboard brawl — with a tender romance about two lonely people from very different worlds. The story proved durable: RKO remade it a decade later as the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical Follow the Fleet (1936). As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

The 1929 Show Boat was the first film adaptation of Edna Ferber's 1926 novel, produced by Carl Laemmle at Universal Pictures and directed by Harry A. Pollard. Laura La Plante stars as Magnolia Hawks, the daughter of a show boat captain, who falls for the gambler Gaylord Ravenal (Joseph Schildkraut). The film incorporates songs from Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's 1927 stage musical, including "Ol' Man River" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man." Made during the transition to sound, the film is a part-talkie with both silent intertitles and sound sequences. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Musical · Romance

King Vidor's affectionate comedy about a small-town girl who comes to Hollywood to become a dramatic star and ends up a hit in slapstick instead. Marion Davies plays Peggy Pepper, and the role is a quiet argument for her real talent: she was a gifted comedienne whose reputation was buried under the myth that William Randolph Hearst's patronage was the only reason she worked. Vidor fills the film with cameos from real stars of the era, including Charlie Chaplin playing himself in a single scene, and stages gags that gently mock the machinery of stardom. The film was made at the very end of the silent era and is one of the best records of how a studio lot actually functioned. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

Constance Bennett plays Sylvia Brenner, a dowdy secretary who agrees to a marriage of convenience with her divorce-lawyer boss Gaylord Stanton (Kenneth MacKenna) so he can fend off a demanding client. She sails to Paris to wait out the arrangement and comes back transformed — which is when the fake marriage starts becoming a problem. An early RKO pre-Code romantic comedy that makes good use of Bennett's knack for playing women smarter than the plot around them. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance · Drama

Smouldering Fires is a silent drama directed by Clarence Brown for Universal Pictures. Pauline Frederick stars as Aurelie Kimball, a successful businesswoman whose much younger secretary (Laura La Plante) catches the eye of her husband, setting in motion a story of jealousy, desire, and self-discovery. The film explores the tensions between age, ambition, and romantic longing with a subtlety characteristic of Brown's direction. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

James Cagney between Warner Bros. contracts, starring for Grand National in a Hollywood satire he clearly relished. Terry Rooney, a New York band leader and hoofer, is shipped to Hollywood to become a movie star, hates everything about the factory system, and walks out on his own hit picture — while studio publicists try to manufacture a romance that has nothing to do with his real life. Evelyn Daw, William Frawley, and Gene Lockhart co-star, with Victor Schertzinger directing his own score. Cagney gets to tap-dance, roughhouse, and mock the industry that made him, and the film is far sharper than its poverty-row distributor suggests. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

A young woman flees her marriage on the train to a small town and ends up in a desert film camp, where she stumbles into the movie business and becomes an extra, then a star. novelist and filmmaker Rupert Hughes wrote, produced, and directed the picture from his own novel, and the result is one of the great inside-Hollywood silents, full of real behind-the-scenes footage of a working studio. The film-within-a-film sequences show cameras cranking, sets being built, and stunts being rigged, and a string of famous directors of the day, including Erich von Stroheim and Fred Niblo, appear as themselves. Eleanor Boardman, in one of her first leads, carries the picture as Remember Steddon, a runaway who learns that fame costs something. Barbara La Marr, the "girl who was too beautiful," plays her rival. The film was a Goldwyn release and is one of the quieter rediscoveries of the 1923 public domain class. It entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2019.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Fei Mu's 1948 masterpiece, regularly named the greatest Chinese film ever made. In a ruined house in a war-scarred provincial town, Zhou Yuwen (Wei Wei) cares for her invalid husband while drifting through a marriage emptied of love — until Zhang Zhichen (Shi Yu), her husband's old friend and her own first love, arrives as a visiting doctor. What follows is almost unbearably restrained: long walks on the ruined city wall, glances held a beat too long, and a narration that confesses what the characters cannot say. Fei Mu films adulterous longing without a single transgressive act, and the result influenced generations of Chinese-language cinema. Made on the eve of revolution and rediscovered decades later, the film is in the public domain.

Drama · Romance

A small-town woman marries a wealthy man, finds herself out of place in his social world, and eventually sacrifices her own happiness for the sake of her daughter's future. Belle Bennett gives the definitive performance of the mother who, recognizing that her daughter will have a better life without her, steps aside and lets the girl's father and his new wife raise her. Ronald Colman plays the husband, and Lois Moran the daughter who grows up ashamed of her mother and then too late realizes what she has lost. Henry King directs with the emotional directness that made the film a major hit. The story was filmed again in 1937 with Barbara Stanwyck. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Frank Borzage's silent romance about a destitute woman in Naples who flees the police and finds love with a struggling painter, only for the past to catch up with her. Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell were paired here for the first time and became one of Fox's most popular screen couples, making a string of films together through the early sound years. The film is one of three for which Gaynor received the first Academy Award for Best Actress, awarded for her body of work that year rather than a single performance. Borzage's direction favors a soft, fatalistic sentimentality that was out of step with the harder realism coming into fashion, but the film's emotional directness is its own thing. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · Romance · Silent

A pre-Code musical film directed by Wesley Ruggles, and the first film produced by RKO Radio Pictures. Betty Compson plays Frederika, a homeless young woman taken in by a four-piece band led by Mike Fall (John Harron). She becomes their manager and guides them to success, but romantic complications ensue when a prince takes an interest in her. Jack Oakie co-stars as band member Joe Spring. The film was a box office hit, accounting for nearly half of RKO's profits for the year. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain.

Musical · Drama · Romance

Anna Neagle stars as Sunny O'Sullivan, the equestrian star of a small circus, in this RKO adaptation of the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II stage musical. During Mardi Gras in New Orleans she falls for Larry Warren, heir to the wealthy and snobbish Warren family, and must choose between love and her life under the big top. Ray Bolger, two years past The Wizard of Oz, leads the circus troupe and dances a memorable number. British producer-director Herbert Wilcox brought his wife Neagle to Hollywood for this and a handful of other RKO vehicles. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

F.W. Murnau's first American film and one of the high points of silent cinema. A farmer is lured by a woman from the city into a plan to drown his wife and run away with her; the wife escapes, the husband is consumed by guilt, and the two travel by tram to the city, where their marriage is slowly, tenderly rebuilt. The story is simple, almost a fable, but Murnau tells it with layered dissolves, forced perspective, and tracking shots that move through spaces as if the camera were breathing. Charles Rosher and Karl Struss shared the first ever Academy Award for cinematography, and the film won the only Oscar ever given for "Unique and Artistic Picture." Janet Gaynor's performance is the quiet center of the film. Its copyright was renewed in 1954, and it entered the public domain on January 1, 2023.

Romance · Drama · Silent

A 1927 American silent romantic drama directed by Edward Sloman, based on the 1915 play Lea Lyon by Alexander Brody. The film stars Mary Philbin as Lea Lyon, daughter of a rabbi in a Galician town near the Russian border, and Ivan Mosjukine as Constantine, a Russian prince. When war is declared and the Russians occupy the town, Constantine demands Lea surrender to him, threatening to burn the village and its inhabitants. Impressed by her character, the prince discovers he loves her and spares both the town and the girl. This was Mosjukine's only American film — a major star of Russian and French silent cinema, he never made another Hollywood picture.

Drama · Romance · War

John Barrymore gives one of his great performances as Svengali, the grotesque, mesmeric music teacher who hypnotizes the artists' model Trilby (Marian Marsh) into becoming a famous singer — and destroys himself loving what he created. Adapted from George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby, the novel that gave English the word "svengali" for a manipulative mentor. Directed by Archie Mayo for Warner Bros., with expressionist sets that turn the hypnosis sequences into genuine nightmare imagery. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Romance · Horror

A pre-Code musical comedy directed by Frank Tuttle for Paramount. Nancy Carroll plays Barbara Pell, a chorus girl who inherits a school for boys and uses her position to sabotage the football career of the man who jilted her. Helen Kane, the "Boop-Oop-a-Doop Girl" whose vocal style inspired Betty Boop, co-stars as Helen Fry. Jack Oakie appears as Tap-Tap Thompson. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain.

Musical · Comedy · Romance

A trumpet player and a singer meet on a ship and fall in love, but his drinking and her rising career pull them apart and back together across the nightclub circuit of Panama and New York. Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray star in Mitchell Leisen's musical remake of The Dance of Life. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Musical · Romance

A bored wife of an insurance salesman seeks psychoanalysis for her mysterious neuroses, only to find herself entangled with an eccentric pianist and demanding a divorce. Ernst Lubitsch's remake of his own silent film Kiss Me Again, starring Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas, and Burgess Meredith. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Romance

The Affairs of Anatol is a 1921 silent comedy-drama directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Wallace Reid as Anatol, a wealthy man who repeatedly tries to "save" women from moral peril, often to the distress of his wife Vivian (Gloria Swanson). Based on the 1893 play by Arthur Schnitzler, the film features a lavish production design by Paul Iribe and showcases DeMille's growing taste for opulent sets and decadent subject matter. The all-star cast includes Bebe Daniels as the mysterious Satan Synne, Elliott Dexter, Wanda Hawley, and Monte Blue. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Drama · Romance · Silent

A 1936 British romantic comedy directed by Alfred Zeisler and starring Cary Grant, originally titled The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss and released in the U.S. as The Amazing Adventure. Based on the 1919 novel The Curious Quest by E. Phillips Oppenheim, the film follows a bored, idle millionaire (Grant) who bets his doctor 50,000 pounds that he can survive for a year supporting himself solely on what he earns, without touching his inherited fortune. The film was edited down from 80 minutes (UK) to 62 minutes (US) for its American release. As a non-U.S. film that was not under copyright in its country of origin on January 1, 1996, it was not eligible for GATT restoration and is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance

A publisher torn between a free-spirited artist and a manipulative socialite must choose which woman truly understands him. Leslie Howard, Ann Harding, and Myrna Loy star in this pre-Code adaptation of Philip Barry's play, produced by David O. Selznick. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance · Comedy

The Bashful Bachelor is a 1942 American comedy film directed by Malcolm St. Clair, produced by Jack Wm. Votion Productions and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The second film in the "Lum and Abner" series adapted from the hit radio program, it stars Chester Lauck and Norris Goff as Pine Ridge storekeepers Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody. Lum is finally set to marry his patient sweetheart Geraldine (ZaSu Pitts), but a staged rescue that makes him a reluctant hero — and the attentions of a grateful society girl — drives Geraldine into the arms of rival Cedric Weehunt, forcing Lum and Abner to win her back at the county horse race. The film is in the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Romance

A carnival boxer (John Darrow) falls for a nightclub girl (Merna Kennedy) who is mixed up with a gangster, and tries to fight his way out — literally, in a fixed fight he is paid to throw. Mickey Rooney, thirteen and billed as Mickey McGuire, turns up in a supporting role on the way to stardom, and J. Carrol Naish plays the heavy. A typical poverty-row crime melodrama of 1933, it is worth watching mainly for Rooney and for the seedy carnival atmosphere Albert Herman shoots on real midway locations. Released the same year as King Kong and Forty-Second Street, this is what the other half of Hollywood was making. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Romance

King Vidor's World War I epic follows a wealthy young idler who enlists on a whim, ships out to France, falls for a French farm girl, and is marched into the meat grinder of the Western Front. The film was a sensation: it became the highest-grossing silent film of the 1920s and turned John Gilbert into a major star. Vidor stages the battle sequences with a grim, ground-level realism rare for the period, and the famous march through a forest under shellfire is still studied. Beneath the spectacle is an antiwar streak that distinguishes it from the gung-ho pictures that came after. MGM made it on a large budget and a long schedule, and it paid for itself many times over. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

War · Drama · Romance · Silent

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Hobart Henley, starring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert. Based on the 1928 play of the same name by George Middleton and A.E. Thomas, the film features dialogue by Preston Sturges in his first Hollywood assignment. Chevalier plays Pierre Mirande, a French tour guide in Venice who romances Barbara Billings (Colbert), a visiting American tourist whose father owns a chewing-gum factory. Her skeptical father brings Pierre to America and gives him a job in the plant to test his character. Chevalier sings "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" and "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" — songs that became signature numbers. He received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his collective work on this film and The Love Parade. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Romance

The first sound film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and MGM's first all-talking musical. Two sisters from the vaudeville act the Mahoney Sisters, Hank and Queenie, arrive in New York chasing a spot in a Broadway revue. Hank's sweetheart, the songwriter Eddie Kearns, promises them a break, but the plot turns on the oldest showbiz story there is: the man falls for the wrong sister. Bessie Love's performance as the self-sacrificing Hank earned an Oscar nomination. The film is creaky by modern standards, but its success proved that audiences would sit through a feature of synchronized song and dialogue, and it set off the Hollywood musical gold rush that defined the early sound era. Published in 1929, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025.

Musical · Romance · Drama

Buster Keaton's last true silent feature, made after his move to MGM and the last film over which he retained real creative control. He plays a tintype photographer who falls for a studio secretary and decides the way to win her is to become a newsreel cameraman. The gags are built around the camera and the newsreel business: a botched assignment at a Chinese tong war, a famous single-take baseball sequence filmed at Yankee Stadium, and a runaway bedroom that rolls down a hill with Keaton trapped inside. The chemistry with Marceline Day is easy and unforced. MGM would soon team Keaton with sound pictures and a production process that ground him down, which is why The Cameraman is often called the end of his golden period. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

A pre-Code musical film directed by John Cromwell and A. Edward Sutherland, the first of three film adaptations of the popular 1927 Broadway play Burlesque. Hal Skelly reprises his Broadway role as Skid Johnson, a vaudeville comic who teams up with dancer Bonny King (Nancy Carroll) to form a comedy- dance act. Their marriage and career flourish until Skid's Broadway success leads him astray. The film was originally made with Technicolor sequences, now lost; only black-and-white prints survive. It entered the public domain in 1957 when its copyright was not renewed.

Drama · Musical · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, Myrna Loy, and Frederick Kerr. Written by Frederick Lonsdale and Benjamin Glazer, the film follows spendthrift Willie Hale (Colman), who returns penniless to his family home in London and smooth-talks his father into letting him stay. At the same time, he turns the charm on Dorothy Hope (Young), whose father is big in linoleum and who was about to become engaged to a Russian aristocrat. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn, the film features cinematography by George Barnes and Gregg Toland. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Romance

A landmark pre-Code drama about marriage and infidelity, based on Ursula Parrott's 1929 novel Ex-Wife. Norma Shearer plays Jerry, a Manhattan advertising writer who, after learning of her husband Ted's (Chester Morris) affair, decides to even the score with a one-night stand of her own. When Ted cannot forgive her for what he himself committed, the marriage breaks apart and Jerry embarks on a series of affairs, taking what the film calls "a man's point of view." The film's frank treatment of the sexual double standard was controversial at the time, and Shearer won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Drama · Romance

A roughneck stoker on a coal-fired ship comes ashore for a single night in New York and falls for a dance-hall girl who is trying to kill herself. Josef von Sternberg's fog-shrouded portrait of the waterfront is one of the most exquisitely photographed films of the silent era, with Harold Rosson's cinematography and Hans Dreier's expressionist sets creating a world of smoke, steam, and shadow. George Bancroft is the brawling stoker and Betty Compson the weary dance-hall girl, and the film follows their brief, doomed romance through a single shore leave. The Docks of New York was selected for the National Film Registry in 1999. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2024.

Drama · Romance · Silent

A loose adaptation of Pushkin's novel Dubrovsky, with Valentino as a Cossack lieutenant who catches the eye of Catherine the Great, rejects her, and goes on the run. When a corrupt nobleman seizes his father's lands and kills the old man, Vladimir dons a black mask and becomes the Black Eagle, a Robin Hood figure, then infiltrates the nobleman's household as a French tutor and falls for his daughter. Clarence Brown directs with a light, fleet touch, and George Barnes's cinematography includes a celebrated extended tracking shot across a banquet table. Vilma Banky is the love interest and Louise Dresser a memorably imperious Czarina. Valentino, in his first United Artists picture, gets to swashbuckle in the Fairbanks mode and romance in his own, and the balance suits him. Published in 1925, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Romance · Adventure · Silent

A 1921 American silent epic war film directed by Rex Ingram, based on the 1916 Spanish novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, adapted by June Mathis. The film follows the Desnoyers family: wealthy Argentine landowner Madariaga has a German son-in-law and a French one, and when he dies, the family splits — the French branch settling in Paris, the German in Berlin. Julio Desnoyers (Rudolph Valentino), Madariaga's favorite grandson, becomes a playboy in Paris, famous for his tango, and takes up with the married Marguerite Laurier (Alice Terry). When World War I erupts, the family finds itself on opposing sides, and Julio must choose between his hedonistic lifestyle and his duty. The film made Valentino an overnight superstar and was one of the highest-grossing silent films of all time, earning over $4 million worldwide. Its famous tango scene became iconic.

Drama · War · Romance

The most ambitious American silent production to that point, and the film that proved Universal could mount a spectacle. Lon Chaney plays Quasimodo, the deaf, deformed bell-ringer of Notre Dame, who falls in love with the kind gypsy dancer Esmeralda and tries to protect her from the forces closing in around her: a lecherous archdeacon, a treacherous captain, and the beggar king Clopin. Chaney designed his own horrific makeup, contorted his body under a 72-pound hump, and hung by a rope from the cathedral's towers for real. The Paris sets were built full-scale on the Universal lot and helped define the look of the studio for decades. The film was a huge hit and saved Universal from financial trouble. Its copyright was not renewed at the end of its first term, and it entered the public domain in the United States in 1951.

Romance · Drama · Silent

A destitute young woman on the verge of prostitution is hired by a wealthy man to lure his wayward son away from a gold-digger, only for the scheme to entangle all of them. Betty Compson stars in this pre-Code melodrama. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

A young American journalist stays in Paris after the liberation and marries into a charming, troubled family, as the optimism of victory gives way to postwar disappointment and a failing marriage. Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson star in this loose adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's story "Babylon Revisited." The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

A 1920 American silent adventure romance film directed by Wesley Ruggles, starring Louise Glaum and House Peters. British secret agent John Culbertson (Peters) leads a safari from Bajuma to the kingdom of M'tela in Africa. Bound by oath to prevent him from reaching it is Madame (Glaum), a secret agent of a rival government known as "the Leopard Woman." When their safaris meet in the desert, Madame is forced to accept Culbertson's aid and unwittingly falls in love with him. After he scorns her, she orders her servant Chaké (Noble Johnson) to kill him — but when the attempt fails, she is secretly relieved. Based on the 1916 novel by Stewart Edward White, with location shooting in Palm Springs, California.

Adventure · Romance

Mary Pickford stars as Angela Carlotti, an Italian lighthouse keeper's sister whose life is upended when a wounded Austrian spy (Fred Thomson) washes ashore during World War I. Believing him to be a deserter seeking refuge, Angela shelters and falls in love with him, unaware of his true mission. Directed by Frances Marion, one of the most celebrated screenwriters and one of the few female directors of the silent era, the film showcases Pickford in a more dramatic, less childlike role than her usual fare. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Ernst Lubitsch's first sound film and the first Hollywood musical to weave songs into the narrative rather than stopping the story for a number. Maurice Chevalier plays a womanizing military attaché recalled to the kingdom of Sylvania, where the young queen (Jeanette MacDonald, in her film debut) decides to marry him. The comedy turns on the marriage of state: the consort chafes at being a decorative husband, and the queen cannot run a kingdom and a romance at the same time. Lubitsch's touch, the innuendo delivered with a wink, is already fully formed. The film earned six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Musical · Comedy · Romance

The Man on the Box is a 1925 silent comedy film directed by Charles Reisner for Warner Bros., starring Syd Chaplin (Buster Keaton's half-brother). Based on the 1904 novel by Harold MacGrath, the film follows a wealthy young man who disguises himself as a gardener to be near the woman he loves, only to discover that the butler is an enemy spy planning to steal military secrets. As a 1925 work, the film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance

Paul Leni's adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel, made at Universal during the silent horror boom that followed The Phantom of the Opera. Conrad Veidt plays Gwynplaine, a nobleman disfigured as a child with a permanent carved grin, who becomes a fairground attraction and falls for the blind girl Dea. Veidt's fixed, grotesque smile is the image the film is remembered for, and it is widely cited as a visual reference for the Joker in Batman. Leni, a German Expressionist who came to Hollywood to design for the screen, fills the frame with baroque shadows and carnival imagery. He died of sepsis the year the film was released, making this one of his last works. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · Horror · Romance · Silent

The first screen appearance of Zorro, and the film that turned Douglas Fairbanks from a modern comedian into the swashbuckler who defined an era. Based on Johnston McCulley's 1919 story "The Curse of Capistrano," it follows Don Diego Vega, a foppish aristocrat newly returned to old California, who dons a mask and cape at night to fight the corrupt oppressors of the common people and court the lovely Lolita Pulido. Fairbanks's athleticism is the engine of the picture: he leaps over rooftops, fences with whip-crack speed, and carves his signature "Z" into the scenery. The masked-avenger template it set would echo through every costumed hero to follow. Produced by Fairbanks's own company, it was the first picture released through United Artists. Published in 1920, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Romance · Adventure · Silent

Ernst Lubitsch's first American film for Warner Bros. is the crystalline comedy of manners that critics would later call the "Lubitsch Touch" in its purest early form. Around a circle of suspected and real infidelities in Vienna, Lubitsch suggests everything and states nothing, letting a glance, a closed door, or a misplaced glove carry the joke. Florence Vidor plays a wife whose faith in her husband is tested by the scheming of her unhappily married friend, and Adolphe Menjou is the physician at the center of the misunderstandings. The film was a hit and established Lubitsch as a Hollywood director of sophisticated comedy. He remade it as the musical One Hour with You (1932). The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Comedy · Romance · Silent

Erich von Stroheim's lavish adaptation of the operetta follows a American showgirl who marries a European prince, is banished by his royal family, and returns years later as the wealthy widow the whole kingdom is courting. Stroheim, never one for restraint, packed the film with decadent set design, a famous masked-ball sequence, and the kind of obsessive detail that made his productions famously expensive. Mae Murray's ballet training is put to use in extended dance numbers, and John Gilbert plays the prince with the smooth melancholy that made him a silent-era matinee idol. The film was a hit despite the studio's cuts to Stroheim's preferred cut. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Romance · Drama · Silent

A 1925 American silent romantic comedy directed by Wesley Ruggles, starring Clara Bow, Donald Keith, and Gilbert Roland. Based on Percy Marks's best-selling 1924 novel about college life at a fictional "Sanford College," the film follows Hugh Carver, a freshman and championship runner who falls for Cynthia Day (Bow), a popular party girl, and finds it impossible to please her while keeping up with his studies and athletic training. The Plastic Age was Clara Bow's first major hit and helped jumpstart her meteoric rise to stardom. The film features early uncredited appearances by Clark Gable, Janet Gaynor, and Carole Lombard.

Comedy · Romance

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

An English traveler who happens to resemble the king of Ruritania is pressed into impersonating the monarch when the real ruler is kidnapped by his treacherous half-brother, and falls in love with the queen-to-be. Lewis Stone and Alice Terry star in Rex Ingram's lavish silent adaptation of Anthony Hope's novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance

Fred Niblo directed Ramon Novarro the year before they made Ben-Hur together, and this smaller, darker film shows what both could do without a chariot race. A young couple in Brittany are separated on the night they flee to Paris together; the boy is wrongly jailed and sinks into the city's underworld, while the girl becomes a cabaret dancer. The film follows them through the Paris slums, where Wallace Beery's pickpocket pulls Jean into crime, until fate and a recognizable scar reunite them. Victor Milner's cinematography moves from the misty Brittany coast to the nocturnal streets of Paris, and the film's mood of romantic despair was a contrast to Novarro's usual swashbuckling roles. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Drama · Romance · Silent

The Ring is the only film Alfred Hitchcock wrote from an original screenplay, and he called it his second true picture after The Lodger. A love triangle set in the world of boxing, it follows a fairground fighter called One Round Jack who is beaten by a mysterious challenger, an Australian heavyweight champion who then becomes his rival for the girl he loves. The title refers to the boxing ring, the wedding ring, and the bracelet the rival gives the girl. Hitchcock was a regular at London fights and filled the film with the details he observed, the champagne sprinkled on fighters, the well-dressed crowds. The Ring was his first film for British International Pictures. It entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

Drama · Romance · Sport · Silent

An early sound Paramount comedy-adventure based on Booth Tarkington's play Magnolia. Raised by Northern Quakers, a young Mississippi gentleman (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) refuses a duel and is disgraced, then returns years later disguised as a notorious riverboat rogue to win back his honor and his sweetheart (Mary Brian). Richard Wallace directed a cast that also includes Henry B. Walthall and Wallace Beery. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Romance · Drama

Frank Lloyd's lavish silent adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's pirate novel, one of the most expensive films of its day. Four full-scale sixteenth-century ships were built for the production, and the action ranges from Cornish manors to slave galleys to the deck of a Moorish pirate fleet. Milton Sills plays an English nobleman betrayed by his half-brother, sold into slavery, and reborn as the pirate captain known as the Sea Hawk, who returns to harry the Spanish and avenge himself. The film was a huge hit and set the visual template for Hollywood swashbucklers that the later Errol Flynn version would build on. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Adventure · Romance · Silent

Based on E.M. Hull's bestselling 1919 novel, The Sheik made Rudolph Valentino a star almost overnight. Agnes Ayres plays Lady Diana Mayo, a headstrong Englishwoman who insists on traveling alone into the Algerian desert, only to be abducted by Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan, a desert chief who falls in love with his captive. The film is a silent romantic adventure of the desert-romance school, all tents and horses and yearning close-ups, and it struck a nerve with 1921 audiences that few films before or since have matched. Valentino's dark, smoldering presence became a cultural phenomenon. The portrayal has not aged well in every respect, but the film's place in cinema history is secure as the picture that defined a new kind of leading man. It was published in 1921 and is in the public domain in the United States.

Romance · Adventure · Silent

The Show is a Tod Browning film set in a Hungarian carnival, among the performers of a sideshow called the Palace of Illusions. John Gilbert plays Cock Robin, the ballyhoo man who stars in a reenactment of Salome's dance that ends with a staged beheading. Lionel Barrymore is the Greek, a jealous villain who conspires to make the beheading real. Renée Adorée plays Salome, the woman both men want. Browning, who would go on to make Freaks, was drawn to the strange world of carnival performers, and The Show is thick with that atmosphere. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

Drama · Romance · Silent

An RKO pre-Code adventure drama adapted from Rex Beach's 1909 novel, directed by George Archainbaud. Joel McCrea plays Boyd Emerson, a young man who heads to Alaska to make his fortune in the salmon fisheries and finds himself squeezed between ruthless cannery interests and two very different women — society girl Mildred Wayland (Jean Arthur) and Cherry Malotte (Evelyn Brent), the worldly saloon keeper who truly loves him. Louis Wolheim is memorable as George Balt, the rough-edged fisherman who becomes Boyd's loyal ally. Shot partly on location in Alaska, it was an early talkie showcase for McCrea on his way to stardom. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 1958 after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama · Adventure · Romance

A 1929 American synchronized sound romantic drama from MGM directed by John S. Robertson, starring Greta Garbo, Nils Asther, and Johnny Mack Brown. Based on the 1928 novel by Adela Rogers St. Johns, the film follows Arden Stuart (Garbo), a socialite who believes in a "single standard" of conduct applying equally to men and women. She rejects a marriage proposal from Tommy Hewlett and embarks on a romance with Packy Cannon, an ex-prizefighter turned artist, sailing with him to the South Seas. When Packy leaves her, she returns to marry Tommy — but Packy's return tests her resolve. The film features a synchronized musical score with sound effects but no audible dialogue. Early uncredited appearances include Robert Montgomery and Joel McCrea.

Drama · Romance

A writer, injured on an African safari and waiting to find out if his leg will be amputated, drifts in and out of fevered memories of the women and adventures he let slip away. Gregory Peck stars in this loose adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short story. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Adventure · Romance

Valentino's final film, released two weeks after his death from peritonitis at thirty-one. He plays a double role: the aging Sheik Ahmed and his hot-blooded son, who falls for Yasmin, a dancing girl, and is tricked by a band of outlaws into believing she betrayed him. The younger Ahmed abducts her in revenge, and the story plays out as a compressed echo of the first film, sharper and a little harder. Vilma Banky is a strong match for Valentino, and the desert photography has a clean, harsh beauty. The film was selected for the National Film Registry in 2003. Long held under copyright by the Copyright Term Extension Act, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2022, and is now freely watchable.

Romance · Adventure · Silent

A cloistered young prince is sent to the university town of Heidelberg for his education, where he falls in love with a warm, down-to-earth barmaid named Kathi. When duty calls him back to the throne, he must leave her behind. Ernst Lubitsch directed this MGM silent for an enormous budget, and the film is an early showcase of what critics would later call "the Lubitsch Touch": the love story is built from small, specific gestures rather than grand declarations. Ramon Novarro plays the prince and Norma Shearer the barmaid, with Jean Hersholt as the tutor whose own attachment to Heidelberg is the film's quietest heartbreak. The film's copyright was renewed but it fell into the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

Romance · Drama · Silent

A silent romantic fantasy-adventure on a scale that still startles. Douglas Fairbanks plays a thief of Bagdad who, on a whim, sneaks into the Caliph's palace, steals an apple, and falls in love with the Princess. To win her he must best rival princes in a quest across a world of magic: a flying horse, a six-armed statue, an underwater kingdom, a monstrous spider, an invisibility powder. Raoul Walsh directs from a scenario Fairbanks co-wrote under a pseudonym, and the production design draws on the illustrations of Edmund Dulac to build an Arabian Nights dreamscape out of lumber, paint, and ingenuity. Anna May Wong is a standout as the treacherous Mongol slave. The film's influence on the fantasy genre is hard to overstate. Published in 1924, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Romance · Fantasy · Adventure · Silent

The young swordsman d'Artagnan arrives in Paris and joins the King's Musketeers, pledging all for one against the scheming Cardinal Richelieu and the treacherous Milady. Douglas Fairbanks stars in this lavish silent swashbuckler. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance · Action

Erich von Stroheim's lavish romance set in Vienna on the eve of the First World War, in which a penniless aristocrat falls for a brewer's daughter but is pushed into an arranged marriage for money. Stroheim directed and starred, and the production was as extravagant as everything he touched: real period uniforms, a full-scale carnival sequence, and a budget that ran far over what Paramount had agreed to. The studio cut the film down sharply, and the version that survives is only the first half of Stroheim's intended two-part story; the second half, The Honeymoon, is largely lost. Fay Wray, a year before King Kong, plays the girl he cannot marry. What remains is a film of extraordinary visual density and a director's refusal to compromise. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · Romance · Silent

A 1929 American pre-Code romantic drama directed by E. Mason Hopper, starring Norma Shearer, Belle Bennett, Lewis Stone, and Robert Montgomery. Lally Marlett (Shearer) is devastated when her father divorces her mother to marry another woman. While on vacation, she falls in love with Jack Cheever (Montgomery) — only to discover he is the son of her father's new wife. The film was adapted by Frances Marion from the novel by Sarita Fuller. Norma Shearer was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for this performance, but lost to herself for The Divorcee. It was the last MGM film released in the 1920s.

Drama · Romance

John Garfield plays Johnny Bradfield, a champion boxer who flees after a night of partying ends with a dead reporter and his face in the papers. He ends up hiding out on an Arizona date farm run by a schoolteacher (Claude Rains is the detective on his trail) and mentoring the Dead End Kids in the boxing ring. Busby Berkeley — better known for his kaleidoscopic musical numbers — directs this remake of The Life of Jimmy Dolan with surprising grit. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Romance

Three Ages is a 1923 silent comedy feature co-directed by and starring Buster Keaton, with Edward F. Cline. Keaton's first feature film, it parodies D.W. Griffith's Intolerance by telling three parallel love stories set in the Stone Age, the Roman era, and the modern age. In each segment, Keaton competes with a larger, more formidable rival for the affections of a woman. The film was designed so that the three segments could be released separately as two-reelers if the feature format proved unsuccessful. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Romance

A small-town girl becomes an airline stewardess and finds herself courted by three different men, all named Mike: a pilot, a cop, and a businessman. Jane Wyman stars with Van Johnson and Howard Keel in this MGM romantic comedy. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Romance

A 1923 American silent romantic adventure film produced and distributed by Warner Bros., directed by Sidney Franklin. Based on Willard Mack's 1917 Broadway play, Lenore Ulric reprises her stage role as Rose Bocion, known as "Tiger Rose," an orphan raised at a Canadian Northwest trading post. The story follows a love triangle involving a Mountie (Forrest Stanley), a surveyor (Theodore von Eltz), and Rose, set against the rugged wilderness. The film was one of Warner Bros.' early collaborations with Broadway producer David Belasco. The story was later remade in 1929 by George Fitzmaurice.

Drama · Adventure · Romance

A 1926 American silent romantic drama directed by Monta Bell, and the first American film starring Swedish actress Greta Garbo. Based on the novel Entre Naranjos by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the film follows Leonora (Garbo), a peasant girl who falls in love with Don Rafael Brull (Ricardo Cortez), the son of landed Spanish aristocrats. His mother disapproves and dispossesses Leonora's family. Leonora goes to Paris and becomes a famous opera singer, while Rafael stays home and becomes engaged to another woman. When Leonora returns, Rafael saves her life during a flash flood and their passion reawakens — but duty and family intervene. Produced by Irving Thalberg for Cosmopolitan Pictures, the film launched Garbo's legendary Hollywood career.

Drama · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Frank Tuttle for Paramount, starring Clara Bow and Fredric March. Ruby Nolan (Bow) is a counter girl at a San Diego drugstore with a sailor boyfriend on every ship. When the competing sailors try to set her up with ace gunner "Bull's-Eye" McCoy (March), the inevitable happens — but misunderstandings and pride threaten their romance. The screenplay was written by Herman J. Mankiewicz, who later co-wrote Citizen Kane (1941). The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Romance

A 1929 American pre-Code romantic drama directed by Jack Conway, starring Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, and Ernest Torrence. Joan Crawford's first "talkie" follows Bingo Dowling (Crawford), a wild girl raised in the jungle tropics by her father. Upon his death, she inherits his oil fortune and is taken to New York by his friend Ben Murchison. En route, she falls for Andy McAllister (Montgomery), but Andy refuses to live on her fortune. Bingo schemes to ensure their future together. The film was released in both silent and sound versions during the transition to talkies.

Drama · Romance

The young Chevalier Fabien des Grieux sacrifices wealth, family, and vocation for the bewitching Manon Lescaut, who cannot abandon her taste for luxury even as it destroys them both. John Barrymore and Dolores Costello star in this Vitaphone-scored adaptation of Abbé Prévost's novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Romance · Drama · History

The headstrong Princess Mary Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII, is betrothed to the aged King of France but falls for the dashing Captain Charles Brandon, and risks throne and life to follow her heart. Marion Davies stars in this lavish Hearst-produced silent costume romance. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Romance · History · Adventure

A flapper from the wrong side of the tracks falls for the son of her department store's owner, but must prove she's more than just a good time girl. A Vitaphone-synchronized silent comedy starring Colleen Moore, directed by William A. Seiter. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Romance

A respectable but dull husband divorces his prudish wife and marries a vivacious younger woman, only for his ex-wife to transform herself into a glamorous flapper to win him back. Cecil B. DeMille's social comedy starring Gloria Swanson. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Drama · Romance

Wings is the film that won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture, and it remains the only fully silent film to take the top prize. Directed by William A. Wellman, a former World War I fighter pilot, it follows two young American aviators who enlist in the Army Air Corps and become combat pilots in France, bound by friendship and divided by their love for the same woman. Clara Bow plays the hometown girl waiting back home. The aerial dogfight sequences were shot with real planes and real pilots, hundreds of them, and they still rank among the most thrilling ever filmed. Gary Cooper appears briefly in an early role that helped launch his career. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

War · Drama · Romance · 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