The Passion of Joan of Arc

Carl Theodor Dreyer's account of Joan of Arc's trial and execution is built almost entirely from close-ups. Renée Falconetti, in her only major film role, gives one of the most studied performances in cinema history using little more than her face. Dreyer shot the film on a specially constructed set and rewrote the dialogue from the actual trial transcripts, then cut the film against the wishes of the producers, who had their own version assembled. The original negative was lost in a fire, and the cut most people know today was reconstructed decades later from a print found in a Norwegian mental institution. It is a silent film that feels nothing like other silent films: austere, relentless, and almost unbearably intimate. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.