Iracema (1931)

Champagne

A spoiled heiress defies her millionaire father by flying off to France to pursue her lover and live in luxury on the profits of his champagne empire. To teach her a lesson, her father pretends he’s lost everything, forcing her to give up her carefree lifestyle and find work in a nightclub. There she encounters a mysterious man whose motives seem increasingly sinister.

Easy Virtue

Unjustly accused of adultery in a scandalous divorce, Larita Filton flees to the French Riviera. She soon falls in love with a young Englishman, John Whittaker, and begins anew under an assumed name. But when John brings her home to his disapproving family, Larita’s past begins to resurface.

The Ring

Both Jack Sander and Bob Corby are boxers in love with Mabel. Jack and Mabel wed, but their marriage is flat. The young wife looks to Bob for comfort.

Love One Another

A look at various lives, one of which is Jewish girl Hanne Liebe, as she grows up and experiences the pains of living as a Jew in Russia, leading to a revolution.

Wedding Trough

Alone on a farm, a man spends his days tending to his animals, with a particular love for his sow. After an illicit encounter between the two creatures, the pig gives birth. However, tragedy strikes when the man tries to force the newborn piglets to love him as he loves them.

The Farmer's Wife

Successful middle-aged farmer Samuel Sweetland becomes widowed, then his daughter marries and leaves home. Deciding he wishes to remarry, Sweetland pursues some local women he considers prospects.

Broken Barriers

This 1919 silent is the first American film based on the same Sholem Aleichem stories as Fiddler on the Roof, but produced 50 years before the blockbuster musical. Unlike most adaptations of Aleichem’s work, Broken Barriers (Khavah) focuses not on Tevye the milkman, but on his daughter Khavah, who falls in love with the gentile boy Fedka and must navigate the reverberations from this with both her community and her family.

The Street of Forgotten Men

Easy-Money Charley, the best fake crippled beggar in New York, loses his beloved dog and adopts a dying prostitute's daughter to fill the empty place in his heart. But his fellow crooks and dissemblers mock him for sentimentality, and he disowns the child in order to bring her up secretly in the safety of a distant suburb. He brings her up as a young lady in ignorance of her true history or of his; but when he discovers that her affections have taken an unexpected slant, it brings about an end to their tranquil life, a crisis of conscience, and an opportunity for the sinister 'White-Eye' to take a hand...

Pushpaka Vimana

An unemployed man, who dreams of living it large, finds a rich man drunk and lying in the sewer. Things take a turn when he imprisons him and takes his identity to get a taste of his lifestyle.

The Perils of Pauline

The Perils of Pauline is a motion picture serial shown in weekly installments featuring the actress Pearl White playing the title character. Pauline has often been cited as a famous example of a damsel-in-distress, although viewers will find her character more resourceful and less helpless than the classic 'damsel' stereotype. Nine episodes (from a condensed 1916 re-release) survive to this day.

The Sheik

Sheik Ahmed desperately desires feisty British socialite Diana, so he abducts her and carries her off to his luxurious tent-palace in the desert. The free-spirited Diana recoils from his passionate embraces and yearns to be released. Later, allowed to go into the desert, she escapes and makes her way across the sands...

Stringless Puppets

A young man living far from his beloved one wastes his existence absorbed in modern distractions until he loses contact with her.

The Heart of Nora Flynn

Nora is nursemaid to a wealthy family and in love with their chauffeur Nolan. When she hides her mistress' lover in her room, jealous Nolan shoots him and Nora, who refuses to tell about her mistress affair, is dismissed.

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.

Train of Shadows

Experimental silent homage to the origins of cinema, recreating the apparent disappearance of a French photographer in the 1920s.

Days

Kang lives alone in a big house, Non in a small apartment in town. They meet, and then part, their days flowing on as before.

Thirty a Week

Although she is engaged to the wealthy Freddy Ruyter, Barbara Wright prefers her father's handsome Irish chauffeur, Dan Murray, and marries him. The newlyweds struggle to survive on Dan's meager income, but Barbara's father, furious with them both, nearly destroys their happiness by securing Dan's dismissal from several jobs. ...

The Racing Strain

Lucille Cameron, the spirited daughter of a Kentucky colonel, discovers that her father is nearly bankrupt as a result of his dealings with New York horseman and stock promoter Jim De Luce....

Reno: A City Symphony Film

Two friends travel around the city of Reno, Nevada, and go skating at a nearby parking garage.

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.

Way Down East

A naive country girl is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.

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.

Robot Dreams

A lonely dog's friendship with his robot companion takes a sad turn when an unexpected malfunction forces him to abandon Robot at the beach. Will Dog ever meet Robot again?

Above the Lake

Avant-garde homage to pre-revolution Russian silent movies, and to the poet Aleksandr Blok.

The Aerial

An entire city has lost its voice. Mr. TV, the owner of the city's only television channel, is carrying out a sinister plan to control all of the city's inhabitants.

Too Many Kisses

Wanting his son to get away from his many girlfriends and buckle down to work, the New York industrialist father of a playboy sends him to an obscure village in Spain to find samples of a rare mineral. When the son gets to Spain, he runs afoul of the local police chief - who has a secret that he tries to keep the young man from discovering.

Evening Clothes

Attracted by his wealth, avaricious Germaine marries D'Artois, then leaves him for a more sophisticated man. D'Artois retaliates by moving to the city and learning the proper social graces. His new life style proves to be too expensive for him, and at the end he is left with nothing but one suit of evening clothes and his now contrite wife.

The Miracle Man

A gang of crooks evade the police by moving their operations to a small town. There the gang's leader encounters a faith healer and uses him to scam gullible public of funds for a supposed chapel. But when a real healing takes place, a change comes over the gang. Lost film, only the most famous scene has survived.

Fifth Avenue

When her cotton crop is burned, Barbara Pelham, a beautiful southern girl, comes to New York to find work as a fashion designer, staying with Mrs. Kemp, a woman she meets on the northbound train. In Mrs. Kemp's house, Barbara encounters Peter Heffner, a wealthy stockbroker, and discovers from him that she has taken up residence in a whorehouse. There is a police raid, but Barbara escapes arrest and returns home. Heffner's son, Neil, goes south to inspect some family property and there meets Barbara, with whom he falls in love. They decide to be married, and she accompanies him to New York, where she meets the elder Heffner for a second time. He denounces her as a whore, but Barbara goes to Mrs. Kemp, who explains the misunderstanding to everyone's satisfaction.

The Joyless Street

In 1921, we follow two women - Marie and Grete - from the same poor Viennese neighborhood, as they try to better the lives of themselves and their families during the period of Austrian postwar hyperinflation.

Cabiria

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?

Carmen

A Spanish soldier falls under the spell of a fiery gypsy girl named Carmen. His obsession with her leads to his ruin.

The Last Laugh

An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel, is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.

Someone to Love

A poor but honest sheet-music salesman is parted from his wealthy fiancée when she comes to believe he’s nothing but a golddigger. But circumstance places him on the board of an exclusive girls’ school, where he can prove his integrity as well as his love. This film is believed lost.

The Wolf Man

Gerald Stanley (John Gilbert) is an English gentleman who is engaged to Beatrice Joyce (Alma Frances). But Stanley's personality changes whenever he drinks, and his brother (who also loves Beatrice) uses this to his advantage.

The Racket

A renegade police captain sets out to catch a sadistic mob boss. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

Bear

Bear (10 minutes, 35 seconds) was Steve McQueen's first major film. Although not an overtly political work, for many viewers it raises sensitive issues about race, homoeroticism and violence. It depicts two naked men – one of whom is the artist – tussling and teasing one another in an encounter which shifts between tenderness and aggression. The film is silent but a series of stares, glances and winks between the protagonists creates an optical language of flirtation and threat.

A Daughter Of Destiny

Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel Alraune has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his "mad doctor" roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions -- least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself. Alraune was remade in 1930, with Brigitte Helm repeating her role, and again in 1951, with Hildegarde Knef as the "heroine" and Erich von Stroheim as her misguided mentor.

Aelita: Queen of Mars

A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.

Woman in the Moon

A scientist discovers that there's gold on the moon. He builds a rocket to fly there, but there's too much rivalry among the crew to have a successful expedition.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

A doctor's research into the roots of evil turns him into a hideous depraved fiend.

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

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.

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.