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English films from the 1920s
The best 100 of 211
- 1
The Gold Rush
A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.
- 2
The General
During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.
- 3
Sherlock Jr.
A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meager skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.
- 4
The Circus
Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.
- 5
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
- 6
Safety Last!
When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.
- 7
- 8
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
The just-out-of-college, effete son of a no-nonsense steamboat captain comes to visit his father whom he's not seen since he was a child.
- 9
The Crowd
John, an ambitious but undisciplined New York City office worker, meets and marries Mary. They start a family, struggle to cope with marital stress, financial setbacks, and tragedy, all while lost amid the anonymous, pitiless throngs of the big city.
- 10
The Phantom of the Opera
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
- 11
The Unknown
On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder—a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster's daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo's desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.
- 12
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.
- 13
Nanook of the North
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
- 14
The Man Who Laughs
When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured.
- 15
The Navigator
The wealthy and impulsive Rollo Treadway decides to propose to his beautiful socialite neighbor, Betsy O'Brien. Although Betsy turns Rollo down, he still opts to go on the cruise that he intended as their honeymoon. When circumstances find both Rollo and Betsy on the wrong ship, they end up having adventures on the high seas.
- 16
Greed
When housewife Trina wins the lottery, her comfortable life with her dentist husband John slowly deteriorates, in part by her own increasing paranoia and partly by the machinations of villainous acquaintance Marcus.
- 17
The Thief of Bagdad
A recalcitrant thief vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.
- 18
The Big Parade
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
- 19
He Who Gets Slapped
After a baron steals his scientific discoveries, runs away with his wife, and slaps him in public, a man joins a Parisian circus sideshow as a clown whose act consists of being slapped repeatedly and becomes infatuated with a showgirl colleague whose father intends to marry her off to the baron.
- 20
The Wind
When Letty Mason relocates to West Texas, she finds herself unsettled by the ever-present wind and sand. Arriving at her new home at the ranch of her cousin, Beverly, she receives a surprisingly cold welcome from his wife, Cora. Soon tensions in the family and unwanted attention from a trio of suitors leave Letty increasingly disturbed.
- 21
7th Heaven
In 1910s Paris, a sewer worker disillusioned with Christianity feels his prayers have been answered when he chances upon a street waif and they fall in love.
- 22
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.
- 23
Speedy
A hapless young man living in New York City rallies to save his girlfriend's grandfather's horse-drawn trolley, the last in the city, from being put out of business by a railroad company.
- 24
The Last Command
A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
- 25
Lonesome
Two lonely people in the big city meet and enjoy the thrills of an amusement park, only to lose each other in the crowd after spending a great day together. Will they ever see each other again?
- 26
The Great White Silence
Herbert Ponting travelled to Antarctica with Captain Scott’s ill-fated South Pole expedition and filmed the stunning images that make up this extraordinary documentary. (Originally released in 1912 as With Captain Scott in the Antarctic, the material was re-edited and re-issued by Ponting in 1924 as The Great White Silence.)
- 27
The Freshman
An unathletic college freshman ridiculed by his peers for his mannerisms strives to become popular by making the football team.
- 28
A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate
When Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean, she decides to leave for Paris on her own. After spending a year in the city as a mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel, she is reunited with Jean by chance. This leaves her with the choice between a glamorous life in Paris, and the true love she left behind.
- 29
Three Ages
The rituals of courtship, romantic rivalry, and love play out three times as a man vies with a villain for the girl. In the Stone Age, the rivalry is set off by dinosaurs, a turtle used as a ouija board, and a round of golf with stones. In ancient Rome, the men display their brawn through a chariot race, using dogs instead of horses. In contemporary times, the man finds himself overcome by modernity, including a very fragile car.
- 30
Flesh and the Devil
When lifelong best friends Leo and Ulrich return home after completing their military training, Leo meets the stunning Felicitas at a railway station and is mesmerized by her beauty. A scandal follows, for which Leo is sent away. Returning home three years later, he discovers that much has changed.
- 31
The Kid Brother
The timid youngest son of the most important family in town must use his wits to win the respect of his strong father and the love of a beautiful new woman in town.
- 32
The Lost World
The first film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel about a land where prehistoric creatures still roam.
- 33
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A doctor's research into the roots of evil turns him into a hideous depraved fiend.
- 34
Show People
Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things don't go entirely according to plan.
- 35
Girl Shy
Harold Meadows is a shy, stuttering bachelor working in a tailor shop, who is writing a guidebook, The Secret of Making Love, for other bashful young men. Fate has him meet rich girl Mary, and they fall in love. But she is about to wed an already married man, so our hero embarks upon a hair-raising daredevil ride to prevent the wedding.
- 36
The Cat and the Canary
Relatives gather at a haunted mansion for a will reading where the sole heir is threatened by a clause that could disinherit her if she goes mad, all while a homicidal maniac escapes nearby.
- 37
Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life
A silent documentary which follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia as they and their herds make their epic seasonal journey to better pastures.
- 38
College
A bookish college student dismissive of athletics is compelled to try out sports to win the affection of the girl he loves.
- 39
It
A flapper shopgirl woos her rich boss with animal magnetism -- the captivating personal quality otherwise known as "it."
- 40
The Iron Horse
Brandon, a surveyor, dreams of building a railway to the west. He sets off with his son, Davy, to survey a route. They discover a new pass which will shave 200 miles off the expected distance, but they are set upon by a party of Cheyenne. One of them, a white renegade with only two fingers on his right hand, kills Brandon and scalps him. Davy is all alone now.
- 41
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
In 15th century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.
- 42
Blackmail
London, 1929. Frank Webber, a very busy Scotland Yard detective, seems to be more interested in his work than in Alice White, his girlfriend. Feeling herself ignored, Alice agrees to go out with an elegant and well-mannered artist who invites her to visit his fancy apartment.
- 43
Peter Pan
Peter Pan enters the nursery of the Darling children and, with the help of fairy dust, leads them off to Never Never Land, where they meet the nefarious Captain Hook.
- 44
Wrong Again
Stable hands Stan and Ollie are tending a thoroughbred named "Blue Boy." But when they overhear two men talking about a $5000 reward for the return of the stolen "Blue Boy," they miss the part about it being the painting, not the horse. They take the horse to the owner's house to claim the reward. The owner instructs them to put "Blue Boy" on the piano and Ollie explains, "these millionaires are peculiar."
- 45
The Epic of Everest
The official record of Mallory and Irvine's 1924 expedition. When George Mallory and Sandy Irvine attempted to reach the summit of Everest in 1924 they came closer than any previous attempt. Inspired by the work of Herbert Ponting (The Great White Silence) Captain Noel filmed in the harshest of conditions, with specially adapted equipment, to capture the drama of the fateful expedition.
- 46
Shooting Stars
The husband and wife acting team of Mae Feather and Julian Gordon is torn apart when he discovers she is having an affair with the screen comedian Andy Wilks.
- 47
The Cocoanuts
During the Florida land boom, the Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land and thwart a jewel robbery.
- 48
Spite Marriage
An unimpressive but well-intentioned man is given the chance to marry a popular actress, of whom he has been a hopeless fan. But what he doesn't realize is that he is being used to make the actress' old flame jealous.
- 49
The Merry Widow
Prince Danilo falls in love with dancer Sally O'Hara. However, his uncle, King Nikita I of Monteblanco, forbids the marriage due to her being a commoner. Thinking she's been jilted by her prince, Sally marries lecherous old Baron Sadoja, whose wealth has kept the kingdom afloat. When he suddenly dies, Sally must be wooed all over again by Danilo.
- 50
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich Argentine family, one of its two descending branches being half of French heritage, the other being half German. Following the death of the family patriarch, the man's two daughters and their families resettle to France and Germany, respectively. In time the Great War breaks out, putting members of the family on opposing sides.
- 51
West Point
Arrogant and wise-cracking Brice Wayne enrolls at the United States Military Academy at West Point and adjusts to life as a plebe. He tries out for the plebe football team, where he excels and shows up the varsity team. However, his ego is unrivaled, especially in competition with upperclassman Bob Sperry. At the same time, Brice meets a local girl named Betty Channing who cheers for him at football practices.
- 52
Exit Smiling
The travails of a third-rate traveling theatre company and its wardrobe lady / maid who dreams of stepping in as their melodramatic production's (Flaming Women) female lead.
- 53
- 54
Moana
Robert J. Flaherty’s follow-up to Nanook of the North shifts from the Arctic to the South Seas, portraying Samoan village life with a painterly eye. Blending ethnographic detail with a romanticized “Gauguin idyll,” the film celebrates daily rituals, communal traditions, and the passage into adulthood, suffused with what Flaherty called “pride of beauty, pride of strength.”
- 55
Underground
A working-class love story set in and around the London Underground of the 1920s. Two men – gentle Bill and brash Bert – meet and are attracted to the same woman on the same day at the same Underground station. But the lady chooses Bill, and Bert isn't the type to take rejection lightly...
- 56
Habeas Corpus
Loony scientist hires Laurel and Hardy to raid the cemetery to keep him supplied with dead bodies for his experiments.
- 57
From Soup to Nuts
Inexperienced waiters (Laurel & Hardy) are hired for a swank dinner party.
- 58
Rio Rita
Capt. James Stewart pursues the bandit "The Kinkajou" over the Mexican border and falls in love with Rita, though he suspects that her brother is the bandit.
- 59
The Patsy
An awkward teenager hopelessly in love with her older sister's boyfriend tries to make him notice her.
- 60
The Wild Party
Wild girls at a college pay more attention to parties than their classes. But when one party girl, Stella Ames, goes too far at a local bar and gets in trouble, her professor has to rescue her. Gossip linking the two escalates until Stella proves she is decent by shielding an innocent girl and winning the professor's respect.
- 61
London After Midnight
The abandoned Balfour House, the owner of which was found dead five years earlier, comes back to life with the arrival of two suspicious sinister-looking tenants. This film was lost in the 1965 MGM vault fire; only a few stills exist.
- 62
Don Q Son of Zorro
Don Cesar De Vega crosses swords with a vicious member of the Queen's Guard, and steals the affection of a young heiress. When the officer frames the young upstart for murder, Don Cesar fakes his own death and retreats to the crumbling ruins of the family castle he plots his vengeance.
- 63
Queen Kelly
In Kronberg, Ruritania, the planned wedding of Queen Regina and Prince Wolfram is disrupted when the prince falls in love with Patricia Kelly, a beautiful orphan at the convent. The prince kidnaps Patricia and takes her to the palace, but the queen drives her out. After a botched suicide attempt, Patricia unwillingly allows her scurrilous aunt to marry her off to a decrepit scoundrel. Undaunted, Wolfram follows Patricia to her new home in East Africa.
- 64
Piccadilly
A young Chinese woman, working in the kitchen at a London dance club, is given the chance to become the club's main act.
- 65
Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Flying House
After eating a rarebit at a party, a woman has a strange dream in which her husband converts their home into a flying machine to escape having to pay the exorbitant interest on the mortgage, on a flight that takes them around the world and to the moon.
- 66
The Red Mill
A servant girl plays matchmaker for the local burgomaster's daughter while setting her own sights on a visiting Irishman.
- 67
Don Juan
If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical Borgia family consisting of Caesar, Lucrezia and the Count Donati. Juan has his way with and was pursued by many women, but it is the one that he could not have that haunts him. It will be for her that he suffers the wrath of Borgia for ignoring Lucrezia and then killing Count Donati in a duel. For Adriana, they will both be condemned to death in the prison on the river Tigre.
- 68
Angora Love
Stanley and Oliver are adopted by a runaway goat, whose noise and aroma in turn get the goat of their suspicious landlord.
- 69
Prelude
A man listening to Rachmoninoff's 'Prelude' dreams he is the victim of premature burial.
- 70
Ramona
Based on the Helen Hunt Jackson novel of 1884 about a young woman of partial Native American descent, who experiences love and loss in 1800s California.
- 71
The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands
The film focuses on the naval warfare around the Battle of Coronel and Battle of the Falkland Islands during the First World War. It was the last in a successful series of documentary reconstructions of First World War battles by British Instructional Films made between 1921 and 1927.
- 72
Plane Crazy
Referred as the actual first Mickey Mouse short. Inspired by Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris, Mickey builds a plane to take Minnie for a trip.
- 73
The King of Kings
The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and the great showman’s singular cinematic bag of tricks, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent—part Gospel, part Technicolor epic.
- 74
Robin Hood
Amid big-budget medieval pageantry, King Richard goes on the Crusades leaving his brother Prince John as regent, who promptly emerges as a cruel, grasping, treacherous tyrant. Apprised of England's peril by message from his lady-love Marian
- 75
Trolley Troubles
Oswald, the trolley conductor gets stopped in the tracks by a cow who refuses to move. He then faces a steep hill, which the trolley has trouble with. When it finally gets over the hill, the trolley speeds wildly out of control. Can Oswald's lucky rabbit's foot save him?
- 76
Black and Tan
Duke Ellington plays hot jazz in a fictional story that finds him down on his luck; he tries in vain to dissuade his friend, dancer Fredi Washington, from working with heart trouble even though it means work for his band. Sure enough, she collapses on stage...
- 77
- 78
The Blackbird
Two thieves, the Blackbird and West End Bertie, fall in love with the same girl, a French nightclub performer named Fifi. Each man tries to outdo the other to win her heart.
- 79
Kodachrome Two-Color Test Shots No. III
This two-color (green-blue and red) film was produced as a demonstration reel at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, under the direction of Kodak scientist John Capstaff. It features leading actresses, including Mae Murray, Hope Hampton, and Mary Eaton, posing and miming for the camera to showcase the capability of the complex Kodachrome process to capture their translucent movie star complexions and colorful, high-fashion clothing.
- 80
The Cardboard Lover
A ditzy American girl visiting Monte Carlo is hired by a tennis champ to be his "cardboard lover"--to pretend to be in love with him so he can teach his two-timing fiancé a lesson and win her back. What he doesn't realize is that the girl isn't pretending --she actually is in love with him, and she sets out to win him for herself.
- 81
Rubber Tires
When the Stack family suffers some financial setbacks, daughter Mary Ellen suggests they buy a car and relocate to California. Unbeknownst to them, their used car is worth more than they ever could have imagined.
- 82
The Informer
A man betrays his best friend, a member of a terrorist organisation, to the authorities and is then pursued by the other members of the organisation.
- 83
Do Detectives Think?
An escaped convict is out to kill the judge who sentenced him. Two inept detectives are hired to guard the judge.
- 84
The Plastic Age
Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.
- 85
- 86
The Centaurs
A female centaur enters a clearing in the woods and picks flowers. She is met by a male centaur and the two romance each other. They then seek parental consent for their union. Surviving footage of a now lost film.
- 87
Outside the Law
Silent Madden and his daughter Molly have left the criminal underworld of San Francisco thanks to the wise teachings of Chang Low, a Confucian master. But the evil Black Mike Sylva is determined to frame Madden to avenge a mistake from the past…
- 88
Fieldwork Footage
Under the tutelage of anthropologist Franz Boas (her former Columbia professor) and Harlem Renaissance arts patron Charlotte Osgood Mason, Zora Neale Hurston spent nearly two years, from 1927 to 1929, studying the folkloric customs, work songs, spirituals, and vernacular language of African American communities along the River Road and from New Orleans to Florida.
- 89
The Circus: Premiere
Footage from the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film 'The Circus'.
- 90
Say It with Songs
Joe Lane, radio entertainer and songwriter, learns that the manager of the studio, Arthur Phillips, has made improper advances to his wife, Katherine. Infuriated, Lane engages him in a fight, and the encounter results in Phillips' accidental death. Joe goes to prison for a few years, and when he is released he visits his son, Little Pal, at school and is begged by him to run away together.
- 91
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a master at solving the most impenetrable mysteries, but he has his work cut out for him on his latest case. As the famed detective investigates an alleged theft, he’s brought face to face with his most devious adversary yet — Professor Moriarty.
- 92
When Knighthood Was in Flower
Mary Tudor falls in love with a new arrival to court, Charles Brandon. She convinces her brother King Henry VIII to make him his Captain of the Guard. Meanwhile, Henry is determined to marry her off to the aging King Louis XII of France as part of a peace agreement.
- 93
The Unholy Night
When a rash of murders depletes their number, a billionaire's employees are brought together at an Englishman's estate.
- 94
The Magician
A young woman, Margaret Dauncey, is caught between the forces of a charlatan magician, Oliver Haddo, whom she is unable to resist, and the love of a handsome surgeon, Arthur Burdon, who has saved her from being a helpless cripple by performing a delicate operation on her spine.
- 95
The Singing Fool
After years of hopeful struggle, waiter and aspiring singer-songwriter Al Stone is on his way. He gets his huge break on a magical night when his song wows big-time producer Louis Marcus and gold-digging showgirl Molly, whom Al fancies. Broadway success and marriage follow, but sure enough, hard times are on the way.
- 96
It's a Great Life
Casey and Babe are sisters who work in a department store and each year the store puts on a show. As expected, things are going wrong with every act until Casey comes out to help Babe with her song. They are a hit, but in the final act, Casey again comes out and this time the president sees her act and fires both her and Babe on the spot. Benny is able to book Casey, Babe and Dean into Vaudeville and their act is popular. But before they have their shot at stardom, Dean and Babe leave Casey and the act.
- 97
Our Modern Maidens
Young, vivacious Billie uses her charms on influential businessman Glenn Abbott in hopes of getting her secret fiancé Gil a diplomatic appointment. Meanwhile, Gil's affections meander to beautiful ingenue Kentucky, Billie's best friend.
- 98
Glorifying the American Girl
A young woman, who wants to be in the Follies, is making ends meet by working at a department store's sheet music department, where she sings the latest hits. She is accompanied on piano by her childhood boyfriend, who is in love with her, despite her single-minded interest in her career. When a vaudeville performer asks her to join him as his new partner, she sees it as an opportunity to make her dream come true. Upon arriving in New York City, our heroine finds out that her new partner is only interested in sleeping with her and makes this a condition of making her a star. Soon, however, she is discovered by a representative of Ziegfeld.
- 99
Lights of New York
Eddie is conned into fronting a speakeasy for a local gangster who intends to frame him for the murder of a cop.
- 100
Gertie on Tour
Windsor McCay's partially lost follow-up to his tremendouly successful Gertie the Dinosaur. Gertie has been brought into the modern world. Continually perplexed by her new surroundings, she begins to explore the new sights. But when she sleeps, she dreams of the way it used to be, in the days when the world was full of dinosaurs like herself.