Lewis Stone

A Canadian wilderness drama based on James Oliver Curwood's own 1919 novel, co-directed by David Hartford and Curwood himself. Lon Chaney plays Buck McDougall, a man who fabricates evidence that Nanette Roland's (Betty Blythe) long-absent fiancé Raoul Challoner (Lewis Stone) is dead so he can marry her. When Raoul returns alive, a fight erupts, a man is killed, and Raoul and Nanette flee into the northern wilderness with the North West Mounted Police in pursuit. The film features extensive location photography of the Canadian wilderness and a dramatic bear fight sequence. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

One of the first and most influential prison films. Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery), a young man convicted of manslaughter after a drunk-driving accident, is sent to an overcrowded prison and shares a cell with two hardened men: the violent career criminal Butch (Wallace Beery) and the more measured Morgan (Chester Morris), who tries to show the new man how to survive. George Hill directed from Frances Marion's screenplay, which was inspired by a spate of 1929 prison riots. The film's attention to the routines and terrors of prison life set the template for the genre, and its mess-hall riot sequence was widely imitated. Marion won the Academy Award for her screenplay and Douglas Shearer won the first Oscar for Sound. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Drama

An expedition led by the bombastic Professor Challenger ventures to a remote South American plateau where dinosaurs still roam. The film adapts Arthur Conan Doyle's novel and is most remembered today for Willis O'Brien's stop-motion animation, a direct ancestor of his work on King Kong (1933). The brontosaurus rampaging through London at the climax is the sequence everyone cites. Wallace Beery glowers his way through the lead, and the supporting cast includes Bessie Love and Lewis Stone. The effects were astonishing for 1925 and remain a key milestone in the history of visual effects. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Fantasy · Sci-Fi · Silent

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

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