Altars of Desire (1927)

Metropolis

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Above the Lake

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

Ballads of the Exodus

The life of Moses as told through the Book of Exodus, the imagination of a dying boy, and the ballads of his father.

People on Sunday

A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

The Birth of a Nation

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

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.

A Fool There Was

John Schuyler, a happily married lawyer, is appointed diplomat and sent to England. Due to an unfortunate accident, his wife and child can not come along with him. On the ship to England, Schuyler meets the notorious Vampire - a relentless gold digger who causes the moral degradation of those she seduces, first fascinating and then draining the very life from her victims.

The Saga of Gösta Berling

Gösta Berling is a young and attractive minister. Because of his alcoholism and his daring sermons, he is finally defrocked. He becomes a tutor of countess Marta's stepdaughter and they fall in love. But the countess has a plan of her own.

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.

The Intrigue

A sci-fi/espionage film in which world powers vie for control of a death ray during World War I as an undercover countess infiltrates enemy ranks to prevent them from getting their hands on the weapon.

Vanity Fair

In early 19th century England, ambitious and ruthless orphan Rebecca Sharp advances from the position of governess to the heights of British society.

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...

Our Mrs. McChesney

Mrs. Emma McChesney is a determined and successful traveling saleswoman for T. A. Buck's Featherbloom Petticoat Company. When Buck dies and his son, T. A. Buck, Jr., takes charge, the company suffers and Emma nearly accepts a job offer from Buck's rival, Abel Fromkin.

A Son of Erin

Dennis O'Hara is a poverty-stricken Irishman who believes that if he comes to America he will immediately land a job as a policeman. So he manages to scrape together the funds to get him to Manhattan, and leaves his sweetheart Katie O'Grady behind while he makes his fortune. Naturally he discovers that joining the force isn't as easy as he expected, and when he does finally get in, he winds up in trouble because of the graft collections of his boss.

The Kid

A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.

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.

The Norrtull Gang

A collective of office girls and their tribulations in the male world, female solidarity, the place of women in the labor and civil rights struggles and the conflict between love and work.

In Search of Mother

His mother abandoned him as a child, so he had no choice but to live outside society. Even so, he grows up determined to reunite with her. Worried that she might be living in misery, he saves his money to help, only to find that she has married into wealth and social position and has no intention of seeing her outcast Yakuza son...

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.

Black Sea Mutiny

On the proletarian solidarity of the French navy with the revolutionary people of Russia. The action takes place in the early years of Soviet power in the coastal city of Russia. The French cruiser Mirabeau threatens the city from the sea.

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.

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.

You Never Know Women

On her way to the theater, Vera, star of a Russian vaudeville troupe, is rescued from a falling girder by Eugene Foster, a wealthy broker who persists in his efforts to win the girl. Foster engages the troupe to perform at his home, and Vera, stunned by a fall, awakens to find Foster pleading his love, while Norodin, her partner who loves her, sees them embrace. Norodin, who performs an underwater stunt, asks Vera not to be present for his act and causes her to believe him dead; heartbroken, Vera tells Foster of her mistake; and enraged, he attempts to seize her. The magician appears, pins Foster to the wall with knives, and advises him to leave before the last blade is thrown.

The Story of the Kelly Gang

Just as Galeen and Wegener's Der Golem (1915) can be seen as a testament to early German film artistry, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) symbolizes both the birth of the Australian film industry and the emergence of an Australian cinema identity. Even more significantly, it heralds the emergence of the feature film format. However, only fragments of the original production of more than one hour are known to exist, preserved at the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra; Efforts at reconstruction have made the film available to modern audiences.

The Manxman

A fisherman and a rising lawyer who grew up together as brothers fall in love with the same woman.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Taken from The Arabian Nights, a wicked sorcerer and the beautiful prince Achmed battle one against the other during a series of wondrous adventures.

Modern Times

A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time..

A Sporting Chance

John Stonehouse (William Russell) checks into a hotel, intending to commit suicide. But instead he winds up helping a girl, Gilberte Bonheur (Fritzi Brunette), out of a jam. He finds her bending over a man who she has apparently killed, and since he's about to kill himself anyway, he offers to assume the blame. Throw a valuable emerald into the works, and the fact that the dead man suddenly comes back to life, and Stonehouse -- not to mention the audience -- becomes thoroughly befuddled by it all. Everything clears up, however, when Gilberte gives him a theater ticket -- it turns out that everything he went through was the plot to a stage play, enacted in real life by the actors. The critics roasted the play, saying it wasn't true to life, and this was their proof that the situations really could happen. Gilberte retires from acting when Stonehouse proposes.

Faust

God and Satan wager on the soul of a learned and prayerful alchemist as part of their eternal war over Earth.

Muurmanin pakolaiset

In northern Finland in the fall of 1916, Saima Niva rescues a man drifting in the river, who turns out to be a German lieutenant Braun. Braun and his six comrades have managed to escape the prisoner of war at the Muurmann railway station, but the lieutenant has had to get rid of the lost group. While Braun is recovering, under the good care of Saima, Niva's neighbor and henchman of the gendarmes, the greedy policeman Simpura, gets a tip about the refugees camped in the desert.

Vaihdokas

When the general manager of the factory, Lumiala returns from his travels, he learns that his wife Anna has hired a young man named Oras as an office assistant. Anna, who feels Oras is the fruit of his youthful sin, is ready to defend the boy despite his family's petitions and Ora's crimes. Ora's girlfriend Pansy also tries to keep him on the right track.

Enoch Arden

Moving Picture World described the film: "There is a small need to describe this subject as the poem of Lord Tennyson is so well known, so suffice it to say that this Biograph subject is an unusually faithful portrayal of that beautiful romance of Enoch Arden, Annie Lee and Philip Ray, taken in scenes of rare beauty". This is the combined feature version of Enoch Arden Parts I and II.

Forgotten Faces

A petty thief who robs the very rich at speakeasies, and gets away with it because the rich don't want the bad publicity, is finally caught and sent to Sing Sing. After good behavior, he gets an emergency permission for a return home, so that he may save his daughter from the hands of her disreputable mother. However, he must first promise not to kill his wife while he is out of prison.

Peachskin

On his way out of a wedding, a young boy named Peachskin finds a jewel by chance. Bringing it back to its owner, she becomes his benefactress in the years that pass.

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl

The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.

City Lights

A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.

Pandora's Box

The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.

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.

The Gold Rush

A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.