The Docks of New York

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.