Films
Read about the filmsFind a film by title, director, mood or the time you have.
A former Russian general, now an impoverished Hollywood extra, is cast by a director who recognises him from the revolution that destroyed his old life.
A poor girl selling matches on a winter street escapes hunger and cold through visions that grow increasingly elaborate.
A performer whose face was surgically fixed into a grin is pulled between love, spectacle, and aristocratic power.
A face, a trial, and nowhere for the truth to hide.
An impoverished Viennese prince falls for a working-class woman while family debt and social expectation prepare marriages for both of them.
A young woman arrives on an isolated Texas plain where relentless wind turns social danger into psychological siege.
A silent adaptation of Zane Grey’s novel directed by Herman C. Raymaker, listed as lost in the Library of Congress’s February 2021 inventory. Later versions appeared in 1933 and 1947.
An ageing burlesque performer tries to keep her convent-raised daughter away from the backstage life that has consumed her.
Two Christmas-tree salesmen and one resistant customer escalate a failed doorstep sale into the systematic destruction of property.
A struggling pianist and his dancer partner face poverty, illness, and the cost of accepting work that could separate them.
After killing a man during an assault, a young woman finds guilt, police procedure, and blackmail closing around her.
Beaumarchais’s Figaro moves through a late-silent adaptation drawing on The Marriage of Figaro and material from the surrounding plays.
A soldier with amnesia gradually recovers memories and returns to a society transformed by revolution.
A poor young woman forms a bond with a disabled war veteran whose isolated farm offers both refuge and a test of independence.
A city wakes, works, plays, and becomes cinema while the camera reveals its own tricks.
Lulu moves through desire, scandal, and social punishment with a presence the film cannot contain.
A family outing repeatedly fails to begin as a car, neighbours, weather, and irritation dismantle the promise of a perfect day.
A Hungarian servant’s attempt to retain her child is crushed by class power, bureaucracy, and the authority of a wealthy family.
Edmond Dantès’s imprisonment, escape, reinvention, and revenge unfold across an unusually expansive silent adaptation of Dumas.
A British officer who resigns before a military campaign receives four white feathers and travels to Sudan to prove his courage in disguise.
MGM stars appear in a succession of songs, comedy sketches, dances, and novelty acts designed to display the studio’s arrival in sound.
A woman who killed her lover claims self-defence, until a letter threatens the account on which her marriage and trial depend.
Two lifelong friends love the same woman on the Isle of Man, and a promise made before one man leaves creates a private tragedy on his return.
A young man tending an isolated river property meets a woman bound to an absent lover, and winter turns their encounter into dependence.
Petruchio courts Katherina through a contest of authority, performance, and humiliation in an early sound Shakespeare adaptation.
Sixteen minutes of dream logic sever cause from effect and make familiar objects suddenly unsafe.
An English soldier loses his memory of Lola, the dancer he loved in Paris. Their later reunion brings his wartime promise into conflict with his marriage.
Still deciding? Ask Momo.
Read a film closely
Character companions, film comparisons and a closer look at particular scenes.
- Seven Samurai
Who are the seven samurai?
Names, actors and roles to keep the seven apart.
- The Wages of Fear
The original, Sorcerer, or the remake?
Three films compared before you choose.
- Breathless
What disappears in a jump cut?
A diagram of the time Godard leaves out.
- Wild Strawberries
What do the dreams mean?
Trace the clocks, mirror and final scene.
After watching · Spoilers - Persona
Why hear the same speech twice?
Follow who speaks and whose face fills the frame.
After watching · Spoilers - Bicycle Thieves
What happens at the end?
The final encounter, seen through father and son.
After watching · Spoilers