Whether you are a movie buff who has spent years watching classic films, or perhaps a newbie who wants to learn more about the history of cinema, I have rounded out a list of the best silent films to watch.
This is your chance to see where it all started!
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
The original “propaganda film,” this movie sees a bunch of sailors revolt against the government. The final scene is considered one of the greatest achievments in all of cinema. As soldiers fire on a crowd of bystanders, you watch in horror as sailors, mothers and babies fall to their death.
City Lights (1931)
She’s a blind girl, he’s a tramp. Can these two make their relationship work? You’ll have to wait to find out, but it’s not a spoiler to say that Chaplin’s comedy will make you laugh and cry in equal measure. In one scene, he’s boxing a giant man. In the next, he’s knocking you out with one of the greatest endings of all time. Only Chaplin could pull off this kind of mashup.
The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
This is the movie that spawned blockbusters. In it, a thief from Bagdad (Douglas Fairbanks) tries to win over a princess who is locked away in her castle. It makes for a rousing adventure that mixes stunts, action, romance and comedy the same way most blockbusters do today.
Sadie Thompson (1928)
Gloria Swanson received her first of three Oscar nominations as Best Actress for her work as Sadie Thompson, a prostitute who becomes the object of attention of a religious fanatic. The role would be reprised by two legendary names, first Joan Crawford in 1932’s Rain and then Rita Hayworth in 1953’s Miss Sadie Thompson. Both actresses gave solid performances, but Swanson’s Sadie arguably remains the best of the lot. She is thoroughly fascinating and, at times, so overcome by the intensity of her own acting, one can easily notice strong swearing coming from her lips. Lionel Barrymore is his usual excellent self as the parson, but this is as much Gloria’s film as Sunset Blvd., an incontestable proof that her talent went way beyond the iconic Norma Desmond.
Greed (1924)
Every parent should show their kids Greed. Yeah, they might fall alseep during the four-hour runtime, but there’s no greater example of where greed can take you. Erich von Stroheim made a cautionary tale in the form of an epic, which tells the story of a dentist whose girlfriend wins the lottery and how that money sends them down a path toward despair.
Modern Times (1936)
This is the closest we can get to a visual anti-depressent. A hilarious Charlie Chaplin plays a mechanic who gets caught (literally) in the machine of industrialism. The only way out is a sense of humor and a way with words.
Metropolis (1927)
Like Modern Times, this is a movie about the machine of industrialism. Thousands of extras cram into the frame, pushing buttons and pulling levers as they try to keep a dystopian future alive. It’s a giant, visceral blockbuster that shocked audiences in 1927 and is still shocking today. This is a science-fiction movie that is more modern than most modern blockbusters.
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
DC’s Joker is generally considered the greatest comic book villain of all time and he wouldn’t have existed or would have been that popular if not for a silent movie that inspired his inception, The Man Who Laughs. The Joker is practically a spitting image of the main character of the said movie. He’s a clown who was disfigured from childhood with a permanent scar on both sides of his lips that gives him a constant grin. The man then travels around in a freakshow carnival only to get entangled in royalty.
Safety Last! (1923)
Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are the two main comics from the silent era, but if those are the only names you know, then Harold Lloyd will be a happy discovery. His movie Safety Last! is incredibly funny, with one of the greatest stunts of all time. When his character tries to climb a building, he ends up hanging from a clock tower instead.
Faust (1926)
(German: Faust – Eine deutsche Volkssage) is a 1926 silent film produced by UFA, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Gösta Ekman as Faust, Emil Jannings as Mephisto, Camilla Horn as Gretchen/Marguerite, Frida Richard as her mother, Wilhelm Dieterle as her brother and Yvette Guilbert as Marthe Schwerdtlein, her aunt. Murnau’s film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of Faust as well as on Goethe’s classic version. UFA wanted Ludwig Berger to direct Faust, as Murnau was engaged with Variety; Murnau pressured the producer and, backed by Jannings, eventually persuaded Erich Pommer to let him direct the film.Faust was Murnau’s last German film, and directly afterward he moved to the US under contract to William Fox to direct Sunrise (1927); when the film premiered in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Murnau was already shooting in Hollywood.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Heroines don’t come any stronger than Joan, who fights, claws and eventually dies, for her faith. You’ve never seen a more powerful performance than Renee Falconetti’s, the heroine at the center of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s masterpiece. She’s got the strength to make Ripley hit the deck and Sarah Connor pee her pants, along with all the “priests” who try to break her. It’s a performance that sticks with you long after the credits roll.
Earth (1930)
This one sees a group of farmers revolting against the landowners who treat them like slaves. It’s one of the first activism movies, with a group of farmers who will do anything to break free.
The Last Laugh (1924)
A man pretends to work at a fancy hotel even though he is jobless. It’s a sad story (couldn’t he pretend to be a businessman or something?) and F.W. Murnau doesn’t sugarcoat his delusions of grandeur. The Last Laugh echoes with the sounds of sadness, along with the echoes of an empty soul.
The Gold Rush (1925)
Old Hollywood did slapstick best, and The Gold Rush remains a top example of the genre. Charlie Chaplin plays a miner with a heart of… well, nothing. He sets across a mountain, looks for gold and eats a pair of shoes. He’s not the brightest bulb, but you can’t help but root for him anyway.
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
If you love Sherlock Holmes, you’ll love this overlooked classic. The great Buster Keaton plays a detective who isn’t so great at his job. He couldn’t crack an egg — let alone a case — but that’s not going to stop him from chasing bad guys in some of the funniest stunts of all time.
Vampyr (1932)
Think Dracula and Nosferatu set the bar for vampire movies? Just watch Vampyr, a series of vignettes in a seaside village. Cloaked in mystery and shrouded in fog, Theodor Dreyer’s entry to the genre feels like sifting through someone else’s dream. You don’t know where you are, how you got there or how you’re going to get out, but you do know that you’re mesmerized.
Nosferatu (1922)
The first vampire movie ever made (or at least, the oldest surviving one), Nosferatu brought Bram Stoker’s character out of the shadows and into the light. The projector light, that is. The rest of F.W. Murnau’s classic takes place very much in the shadows.
Sunrise:
A Song for Two Humans (1927)You’ll need a box of tissues to get through this 1927 classic. When a married famer gets seduced by a young woman and tries to kill his wife, he doesn’t go through with it and takes her to the city in a 30-minute montage. F.W. Murnau made vampires popular and wizards cinematic, but nothing compares to this melodrama about two lovebirds. It’s quite possibly the greatest silent film ever made.
Fantomas (1913)
Speaking of O.G’s, Fantomas is one of the first thrillers ever made. Following a serial killer in France, this film serial is the basis for every crime show on Netflix. A killer in the shadows? A detective with a drinking problem? It’s all here in Fantomas!
Intolerance (1916)
D.W. Griffith follows a group of people who deal with adversity throughout the ages. Released two years after The Birth of a Nation, it was made as an apology for that movie, which saw the KKK as the heroes of its story. The movie can’t quite make up for it, but it comes about as close to an mea culpa as one can get.
The General (1926)
Tom Cruise couldn’t do what he does if Buster Keaton didn’t run, jump and stunt his way through this 1920s classic. Keaton’s comedy serves as the blueprint for stuntman cinema — his train conductor is what every Cruise character aspires to be.
A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Neil Armstrong wouldn’t land on the moon for another 60+ years, so no one knew what the moon actually looked like. Maybe the moon really was made out of cheese? Maybe there were space pirates on the moon? Maybe the moon had eyeballs and could smile like a person? The first-ever science-fiction film turned our wildest imaginations into a moving picture.
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
One of the great montage movies, Man with a Movie Camera took to the streets of Kyiv, Moscow and Odesa to film everyday life, only the images were edited, framed and structured like a music video. Dziga Vertov experimented with the camera like a child molding a piece of clay: he shaped the images to his will and made a playful movie in the proccess.
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
There is something about silent films which lend themselves to horror cinema, maybe because of their similar reliance on imagery. In this 1925 silent adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel, Lon Chaney portrays the terrifying Phantom of the Opera, a rapscallion who becomes a sort of mentor to opera singer Christine Daae which turns into an unhealthy and lustful obsession with the singer. Dread and old, vintage 1920s filmmaking go hand in hand to make this film great. The phantom’s look is already hair-raising on its own, though, and by the end of the film, the audience even feels a twinge of sympathy for the deformed phantom.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920)
Of course, Fredric March and Spencer Tracy might have been great as the title character(s) in 1931 and 1941, but it was really John Barrymore’s turn as Dr. Henry Jekyll and his evil alter ego Edward Hyde that encased the Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation in American cinema.The film revolves around Jekyll attempting to understand human nature better and seeing if there is a possibility to segregate the virtues and vices of a man. This experimentation is what turns him into the monstrous Hyde as he goes around womanizing, berating, and killing people with no remorse. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde alternates from sepia tones to black and white and gives a dark look at the Jekyll and Hyde dynamic with a frightening performance from John Barrymore. It was filled to the brim with macabre and dismal philosophy that claims to audiences that, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it,” as Oscar Wildes writes. There may be some merit to that sentiment, but it ultimately became Jekyll’s undoing and made this such a thought-provoking silent film.
Dimly Lit Alley-Way 
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