The Sawdust Paradise (1928)

Why Broncho Billy Left Bear County

Through a kindly act Broncho Billy earns the deep gratitute of Marion Rivers, who presents him with a Bible. Not long afterwards, she comes upon him as he is about to hold up the stage, but at sight of the girl he is overwhelmed with shame and taking out the little Bible promises her that he will live honorably. In the meantime, Marion's father holds up the stage at another point, and one of the stagecoach drivers, mounting a bareback pony, rides off for the sheriff. Broncho Billy sees Rivers get away with the money, and when he hears the sheriff and his men coming, for Marion's sake he goes to warn her father. To shield him, he takes the bags of money and rides away with the men after him. He leaves the money at the mile post with a note saying: "SAheriff, I'm through with Bear County, this stick-up was my last", and rides across the border. (Moving Picture World Synopsis)

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.

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.

Freaks

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

Elmer Gantry

A charismatic charlatan begins a business — and eventually romantic — relationship with a roadside evangelist to sell religion to 1920s America. Based on Sinclair Lewis' novel of the same name.

The Sealed Room

The Count sets out to make a private room for him and his Countess, built in such a way no one can see, hear, and most importantly, disturb them. But unbeknownst to the Count, his wife has set her eyes on the court minstrel. Based on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado” and Honoré de Balzac's “La Grande Breteche”.

The Rum Diary

Tired of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, itinerant journalist Paul Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local San Juan newspaper run by the downtrodden editor Lotterman. Adopting the rum-soaked lifestyle of the late ‘50s version of Hemingway’s 'The Lost Generation', Paul soon becomes entangled with a very attractive American woman and her fiancée, a businessman involved in shady property development deals.  It is within this world that Kemp ultimately discovers his true voice as a writer and integrity as a man.

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.

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.

Three Hours

Left penniless by her vengeful ex-husband, Madeline is forced to become a pickpocket to pay for a new wardrobe. One of her victims is a Mr. Finlay, who threatens to turn her over to the police -- until he hears Madeline's woeful tale of her cruel, possessive husband.

Broken Blossoms

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

Lulu is a young woman so beautiful and alluring that few can resist her siren charms. The men drawn into her web include respectable newspaper publisher Dr. Ludwig Schön, his musical producer son Alwa, circus performer Rodrigo Quast, and seedy old Schigolch. When Lulu's charms inevitably lead to tragedy, the downward spiral encompasses them all.

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.

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.

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?

Two Moon Junction

A young Southern débutante temporarily abandons her posh lifestyle and upcoming, semi-arranged marriage to have a lustful and erotic fling with a rugged drifter who works at a local carnival.

The Phantom Carriage

An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.

The Dangerous Age

Married for 22 years, Mary Emerson treats her husband, John, more like a son than a husband. He is stung by her rebuffs and, therefore, succumbs to the youthful charms of Gloria Sanderson, whom he meets on a business trip. But just after he mails a letter to Mary telling her that he will not return, John finds Gloria in the arms of her fiancé.

Fantômas

A French silent film serial which follows the exploits of the archvillain Fantômas, who commits crimes while eluding Inspector Juve's tireless persecution.

Loves of Casanova

Republic of Venice, 1760. Pursued by a vengeful husband, the intrepid womanizer Casanova, who symbolizes the decline of the city and its fall into debauchery, manages to escape and, by a circuitous route, arrives in Saint Petersburg, where he will be involved in the many plots that threaten the throne of Czar Peter III…

Cœur fidèle

The good guys win out in this sweet tale about a young orphan who is abused for much of her life but who eventually finds happiness when she marries an honest man who extricates her from her situation.

Drums of Love

A princess is betrothed to a deformed monarch, but falls hard for his handsome brother.

The Late Mathias Pascal

Mathias Pascal, only son of a once-rich family, marries beautiful Romalinda, who has a terrible mother-in-law. She controls her daughter, and soon his home life becomes a nightmare. His only moments of lights are his mother and baby, but both die on the same day. Shocked, he leaves his hometown and goes to Monte Carlo, where he wins a fortune at the casino. Returning home, he reads his own obituary in a paper. They have found a corpse in a creek and connected it with his disappearance. Mathias, noticing that he is now free from all ties to his old life, decides to start a new one.

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.

The Godless Girl

High school students led by the Girl and Boy turn from Christianity toward secret atheistic meetings. When a girl is accidentally killed by a stairway collapse, the Girl and Boy go to reform school where they are treated brutally.

The Son of the Sheik

Ahmed, son of Diana and Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan, falls in love with Yasmin, a dancing girl who fronts her father's gang of mountebanks. She and Ahmed meet secretly until one night when her father and the gang capture the son of the sheik, torture him, and hold him for ransom.

Beggars of Life

After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada.

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

A young prince falls in love with a beautiful barmaid while at university in old Heidelberg.

Scaramouche

A law student becomes an outlaw French revolutionary when he decides to avenge the unjust killing of his friend. To get close to the aristocrat who has killed his friend, the student adopts the identity of Scaramouche the clown.

The Dying Swan

After being betrayed by her playboy lover, a heartbroken mute young woman joins a ballet company; during a performance of “The Dying Swan,” she enraptures a painter obsessed with portraying death genuinely.

Salomé

Based on Oscar Wilde's play, the films tells the story of how Salomé agrees to dance for King Herod in return for the head of John the Baptist.

My Best Girl

Joe Merrill, son of the millionaire owner of a chain of 5 and 10 cent stores, poses as Joe Grant, and takes a job in the stockroom of one of his father's stores, to prove that he can be a success without his father's influence. There he meets stockroom girl Maggie Johnson, and they fall in love. This causes problems, because Mrs. Merrill had planned for her son to marry Millicent Rogers, a high society girl.

Archangel

At the height of the October Revolution during the 1919 allied intervention in Arkhangelsk, the exploits of one-legged Canadian soldier Lt. John Boles are told, after he is taken in from the cold by a dysfunctional Russian family and mistakes a local woman for his presumed dead lover.

The Scarlet Letter

In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne and kindly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love. After Dimmesdale must go away for a time to England, he returns to discover that Hester has given birth to their child and is the focus of local censure.

The Barker

A successful carnival barker deals with the arrival of his eager son, who he'd hoped would stay far from the carnival world, his son's entanglement with a showgirl, and his own jealous mistress.

Lady of the Night

The story of two baby girls, born near in proximity but worlds apart in society: Molly Helmer, the daughter of a thief, and Florence Banning, the daughter of the judge who sent Molly's father to prison. The girls' lives come together as they reach the age of eighteen, when Florence leaves the security of the exclusive Girls Select School, and Molly, now orphaned, begins her life after reform school.

Feet of Clay

Kerry Harlan (La Rocque) is unable to work because he was injured in a battle with a shark, so his youthful wife Amy (Reynolds) becomes a fashion model. While she is away from home, Bertha, the wife of his surgeon, is trying to force her attentions on Kerry and is accidentally killed in an attempt to evade her husband. After the scandal Amy is courted by Tony Channing, but she returns to her husband and finds him near death from gas fumes. Because they both attempted to make suicide, their spirits are rejected by "the other side," and learning the truth from Bertha's spirit they fight their way back to life. This film is presumed lost.

The Flying Torpedo

In the future (1921), an alliance of several foreign countries plot to attack the US. American officials, coming to the realisation that the country is basically defenceless, offer $1,000,000 to anyone who can come up with a weapon to defeat the invaders. Winthrop Clavering, a writer and inventor, hears of the reward and tells his friend Bartholomew Thompson, a scientist and inventor who has been working on developing flying torpedo. However, enemy agents have also heard about Thompson's project, and set out to kill him and steal his plans. This film is now considered lost.

The Forbidden Room

Fulfilling a promise made to his mother on her deathbed, Dr. James Gibson finds his sister Pauline who has run away after giving birth to an illegitimate child. His sister's mind has snapped and Gibson takes his sister and his baby niece home with him. The years pass and the niece has grown into a beautiful woman, while her mother is kept locked in a room that the young woman is forbidden to enter. Gibson and his wealthy neighbor, John Morris, are both interested in hypnotism, and one night the two men conduct an experiment by hypnotizing Gibson's niece. This film is presumed lost.

A Christmas Carol

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

Storm Over Asia

In 1918 a young and simple Mongol herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes to the hills after brawling with the trader who cheated him. In 1920 he becomes a Soviet partisan, and helps the partisans fight for the Soviets against the occupying British army. However he is captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama. After the trapper is shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. They find him still alive, so the army restores his health and plans to use him as the head of a puppet regime. The trapper is thus thrust into prominence as he is placed in charge of the puppet government. By the end, however, the "puppet" turns against his masters in an outburst of fury.

Variety

The murderer “Boss” Huller – after having spent ten years in prison – breaks his silence to tell the warden his story.

The Rag Man

Tim Kelly is an orphan who runs away after his orphanage burns down. Presumed to be killed in the fire, he is able to roam the streets of New York freely. He meets Max Ginsberg, an old Jewish junk dealer with rheumatism, and the two strike a partnership and a close friendship.

The Winning of Barbara Worth

While building an irrigation system for a Southwestern desert community, an engineer vies with a local cowboy for the affections of a rancher's daughter.

Body and Soul

A minister is malevolent and sinister behind his righteous facade. He consorts with, and later extorts from, the owner of a gambling house, and betrays an honest girl, eventually driving them both to ruin.

A Cottage on Dartmoor

A jealous barber's assistant becomes enraged by the attentions the manicurist he's obsessed with and a repeat customer pay to one another.

The Dragon Painter

A wild man and genius becomes a master painter's disciple, but loses his divine gift when he finds love.