| 1. The Passion of Joan of Arc – Dreyer |
| 2. Sunrise- Murnau |
| 3. Intolerance- Griffith |
| 4. Battleship Potemkin- Eisenstein |
| 5. Metropolis- Lang |
| 6. Nosferatu- Murnau |
| 7. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari- Wiene |
| 8. The Birth of a Nation- Griffith |
| 9. The General- Keaton |
| 10. The Gold Rush- Chaplin |
| 11. Sherlock Jr. Keaton |
| 12. Greed- von Stroheim |
| 13. Strike- Eisenstein |
| 14. The Last Laugh- Murnau |
| 15. Foolish Wives- von Stroheim |
| 16. Mabuse: The Gambler- Lang |
| 17. October- Eisenstein |
| 18. The Crowd- Vidor |
| 19. The Big Parade- Vidor |
| 20. The Wind- Sjöström |
| 21. The Circus- Chaplin |
| 22. Destiny- Lang |
| 23. Pandora’s Box- Pabst |
| 24. Steamboat Bill Jr- Keaton |
| 25. Broken Blossoms- Griffith |
| 26. Faust- Murnau |
| 27. Mother- Pudovkin |
| 28. Blackmail- Hitchcock |
| 29. Way Down East- Griffith |
| 30. Blind Husbands- von Stroheim |
| 31. Our Hospitality- Keaton |
| 32. La Roue- Gance |
| 33. Seventh Heaven- Borzage |
| 34. The Unknown- Browning |
| 35. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg Lubitsch |
| 36. The Phantom Carriage- Sjöström |
| 37. The Cameraman- Keaton |
| 38. The Navigator- Keaton |
| 39. Seven Chances- Keaton |
| 40. The Phantom of the Opera- Julian |
| 41. The Merry Widow- von Stroheim |
| 42. The Kid- Chaplin |
| 43. Safety Last!- Newmeyer |
| 44. The Last of the Mohicans- Brown |
| 45. Robin Hood – Dwan |
| 46. Orphans of the Storm- Griffith |
| 47. Male and Female- DeMille |
| 48. The Wedding March- von Stroheim |
| 49. The Thief of Bagdad- Walsh |
| 50. Variety- Dupont |
| 51. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ- Niblo |
| 52. The Cheat- DeMille |
| 53. Underworld- von Sternberg |
| 54. Wings- Wellman |
| 55. Street Angel- Borzage |
| 56. A Page of Madness- Kinugasa |
| 57. Don Juan- Crosland |
| 58. The Adventures of Prince Achmed- Reiniger |
| 59. Girl Shy- Newmeyer |
| 60. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse- Ingram |
| 61. Phantom- Murnau |
| 62. La Boheme- Vidor |
| 63. The Freshman- Newmeyer |
| 64. The Mark of Zorro- Niblo |
| 65. The Love Parade- Lubitsch |
| 66. Flesh and the Devil- Brown |
| 67. Merry-Go-Round- von Stroheim |
| 68. Spies- Lang |
| 69. Sparrows- Beaudine |
| 70. Docks of New York- von Sternberg |
| 71. The Iron Horse- Ford |
| 72. The Sheik- Melford |
| 73. For Heaven’s Sake- Taylor |
| 74. The Virginian- Fleming |
| 75. Disraeli- Green |
This is a great list, very similar to mine. One big difference is I have Man With a Movie Camera at #4 (behind Sunrise, Joan of Arc, and Battleship Potemkin respectively). So I was going to ask, have you seen it? Did it not qualify because it’s technically a documentary? Or did it just not make the cut?
Hi Leo– Sorry I missed this until now. Mr. Harris below is correct. I haven’t seen it because it’s a documentary and I simply do not do documentaries.
The Man With the Movie Camera is a wonderful film. I know Mr. Dominici does not consider documentaries, but I think “city symphony” films (a very select sub-sub-sub-genre) exist in a space somewhere between documentary and fiction film. I feel comfortable with TMWTMC in this sort of list because it’s such a remarkable experiment in pure film form, and not created for a didactic or educational purpose like what typically gets classified as documentary.
I agree that it is a really strong list, My biggest objection would be the lack of appreciation for Pabst. Pandora’s Box is at least 15 spots too low, and The Love of Jeanne Ney is missing entirely. I’d probably make room for The Joyless Street too.
Thanks Mr. Harris– Which film or films are you moving down to make room for Pandora’s Box?
Yeah that makes sense, I also don’t normally count documentaries but with films from the 10’s and 20’s it’s almost hard to tell a distinction… But anyways, my top 10 is very similar to yours, as I’ve noticed it actually has been for most of these decade lists so far:
1. Sunrise
2. The Passion of Joan of Arc
3. Battleship Potemkin
4. Man With a Movie Camera
5. Metropolis
6. The General
7. Intolerance
8. The Gold Rush
9. Greed
10. Nosferatu
Actors with most apparitions in the « Best Performances of the Year » category, in the 20’s :
Emil Jannings (2) :
} 1# en 1924.
} 2# en 1925.
Buster Keaton (2) :
} 2# en 1924.
} 1# en 1926.
Charlie Chaplin (1) :
} 1# en 1925.
Maurice Chevalier (1)
} 2# en 1929.
Gary Copper (1) :
} 3# en 1929.
My top favorite (Passion) is also your favorite. once again we are in agreement. Even my top 10 would include Murnaus masterpieces sunrise and nosferatu(like your top 10 does)
What are you best decades for movies Drake. Starting from 1910-2010.
I believe the best are the 70s.
In my opinion the 80s are BY FAR the most underrated and underrapreciated. What would your most underrated decade be?
@Azman– I do think the 1960’s is the single best decade. Just the highest concentration of great auteurs working. 1970’s are right there, too.
Hmm. Not sure on underrated. I’d have to see what’s rated high and not and that’s challenging to do. I think TSPDT used to let us know how many top 1000 films are on the list by decade or something but I haven’t seen that in awhile.
Where is Abel Gance’s Napoleon!!? Sure one the greatest films ever made!
@Erwin- I would love to get my hands on it and see it. Thanks for the comment.
Would you agree that Murnau is the best director of 1920s. 2 masterpieces (Sunrise, Nosferatu) , The Last Laugh, Faust and and Phantom. Close behind would be Dreyer, Lang and Griffith.
@Rujk- Keaton would have to be top 3 of the 1920s at least. And you say “best director of the 1920s” here but this is a combined page. Griffith wouldn’t show up for the 1920s. I’m not sure Dreyer is there either- Keaton would have to go ahead of him as well.
Yes, when you mentioned Keaton I saw that I forgot him. For Griffith I meant 1920s and 1910s.
I have just finished 1910s and 1920s for my retrospective marathon. This is my list of the top 100 best movies of these two decades (I still haven`t seen Student Prince of old Heidelberg, The Merry Widow, Male and Female and quite some other movies on the list above).
@Drake- I will also like to ask you: that, when I start writing my retrospective website, can I use your grading system (or a variation of it)? I find it much easier to navigate than numbers or stars.
1. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928- Dreyer, MP)
2. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927- Murnau, MP)
3. Battleship Potemkin (1925, Eiseinstein- MP)
4. Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916- Griffith, MP)
5. Napoleon (1927, Gance- MP)
6. Metropolis (1927, Lang- MP)
7. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920- Wiene, MP)
8. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922- Murnau, MP)
9. The Birth of a Nation (1915- Griffith, MP)
10. The General (1926- Keaton & Bruckman, MP)
11. Greed (1924- Stroheim, MP)
12. Sherlock Jr. (1924- Keaton, MP)
13. Strike (1925- Eiseinstein, MS/MP)
14. The Phantom Carriage (1921- Sjöström, MS/MP)
15. The Last Laugh (1924- Murnau, MS/MP)
16. Die Nibelungen (1924- Lang, MS/MP)
17. The Gold Rush (1925- Chaplin, MS/MP)
18. La roue (1923- Gance, MS)
19. The Crowd (1928- Vidor, MS)
20. Man with a Movie Camera (1929- Vertov, MS)
21. Faust (1926- Murnau, MS)
22. Destiny (1921- Lang, MS)
23. Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922- Lang, MS)
24. Un Chien Andalou (1929- Bunuel, MS)
25. The Big Parade (1925- Vidor, MS)
26. Pandora`s Box (1929- Pabst, MS)
27. Foolish Wives (1922- Stroheim, MS)
28. The Wind (1928- Sjöström, MS)
29. The Circus (1928- Chaplin, MS)
30. Spies (1928- Lang, MS)
31. Cabiria (1914- Pastrone, MS)
32. Les Vampires (1915- Feuillade, MS)
33. 7th Heaven (1927- Borzage, HR/MS)
34. Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928- Reisner & Keaton, HR/MS)
35. Seven Chances (1925- Keaton, HR/MS)
36. Häxan (1922- Christensen, HR/MS)
37. The Navigator (1924- Keaton & Crisp, HR/MS)
38. Variety (1925- Dupont, HR/MS)
39. October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928- Eisenstein & Aleksandrov, HR)
40. Champagne (1928- Hitchcock, HR)
41. Our Hospitality (1923- Keaton & Blystone, HR)
42. Way Down East (1920- Griffith, HR)
43. Underworld (1927- Sternberg, HR)
44. The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920- Wegener & Boese, HR)
45. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928- Epstein, HR)
46. The Unknown (1927- Browning, HR)
47. The Kid (1921- Chaplin, HR)
48. Broken Blossoms (1919- Griffith, HR)
49. The Docks of New York (1928- Sternberg, HR)
50. Mother (1926- Pudovkin, HR)
51. A Page of Madness (1926- Kinugasa, HR)
52. Wings (1928- Wellman, HR)
53. Blackmail (1929- Hitchcock, HR)
54. The Cameraman (1928- Keaton & Sedgwick, HR)
55. The Thief of Bagdad (1924- Walsh, HR)
56. Waxworks (1924- Leni & Birinsky, HR)
57. Blind Husbands (1919- Stroheim, HR)
58. The Phantom of the Opera (1925- Julian, HR)
59. Go West (1925- Keaton, HR)
60. The Magician (1926- Ingram, HR)
61. Tartuffe (1925- Murnau, R/HR)
62. The Wedding March (1928- Stroheim, R/HR)
63. The Last Command (1928- Sternberg, R/HR)
64. The Last of the Mohicans (1920- Tourneur & Brown, R/HR)
65. Diary of a Lost Girl (1929- Pabst, R/HR)
66. The Man Who Laughs (1928- Leni, R/HR)
67. He Who Gets Slapped (1924- Sjöström, R/HR)
68. Shoulder Arms (1918- Chaplin, R/HR)
69. Three Ages (1923- Keaton, R/HR)
70. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921- Ingram, R/HR)
71. Safety Last! (1923- Taylor & Newmeyer, R/HR)
72. Street Angel (1928- Borzage, R/HR)
73. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926- Reiniger, R/HR)
74. The Cheat (1915- DeMille, R/HR)
75. Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927- Ruttmann, R/HR)
76. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927- Hitchcock, R/HR)
77. Orphans of the Storm (1921- Griffith, R)
78. The Love Parade (1929- Lubitsch, R)
79. Robin Hood (1922- Dwan, R)
80. The Iron Horse (1924- Ford, R)
81. The Virginian (1929- Fleming, R)
82. Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928- Brenon, R)
83. Joyless Street (1925- Pabst, R)
84. L`Inferno (1911- Bertolini, Liguoro & Padovan, R)
85. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923- Worsley, R)
86. Battling Butler (1926- Keaton, R)
87. The Pilgrim (1923- Chaplin, R)
88. College (1927- Keaton & Horne, R)
89. A Dog`s Life (1918- Chaplin, R)
90. A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923- Chaplin, R)
91. The Penalty (1920- Worsley, R)
92. Nanook of the North (1922- Flaherty, R)
93. The Unholy Three (1925- Browning, R)
94. Phantom (1922- Murnau, R)
95. The Immigrant (1917- Chaplin, R)
96. Condemned! (1929- Ruggles, R)
97. Bulldog Drummond (1929- Jones, R)
98. The Hands of Orlac (1924- Wiene, R)
99. The Cameraman`s Revenge (1912- Starevich, R)
100. The Sheik (1921- Melford, R)
Now I go to 1930s.
@RujK- Wow- impressive- and yeah of course on the grading.
@Drake- thank you for reply and the grading system.
@RujK- Where did you find Napoleon? It there a good version available? And I should get to Les Vampires this month- it was just added to criterion streaming
@Drake- I bought BFI restoration of Napoleon on blu ray , it is one of the best cinematic experiences I have ever had.
I am also glad to hear you are going to watch Les Vampires (can’t wait to read review). Also glad to hear that it was added to criterion streaming (even if I don’t own an account on it). I watched it on YouTube, the quality is questionable, but the strength of Les Vampires are not the visuals, but the narrative, so you don’t really loose that much. I also think that Musidora gives one of the best performances of 1910s, she is perfectly cast.
I wanted to watch more from Feuillade, but Phantomas on YouTube is in French so that was the problem.
@RujK- awesome- I don’t have a multiregional Bluray player but I hope this is an indication Napoleon will soon come to a format I can see.
I think I mentioned this in the year archive but Lev Kuleshev’s “By the Law” is sorely missing from this list. The final scene alone is enough to put it in the archives. I think it would be comfortably in the top 20 but I’m curious to hear your thoughts on it. I hope when you revisit these rankings you get a chance to check it out because it’s certainly an underrated gem.
A beauty from the end scene
https://ibb.co/S63Ydfh
And another
https://ibb.co/b6JMLNZ
And a beauty from the opening
https://ibb.co/VNxmDBt
And these were just from a quick google search. The film is full with great shots and clever editing motifs (a great picture of the queen the movie continually returns to). Though I guess great editing from kuleshev is to be expected
@Matthew Moore- thank you for the share here
My top 10 of the 1910s & 1920s films :
1 – Napoleon (1927, Abel Gance)
2 – The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, C. T. Dreyer)
3 – Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang)
4 – Sunrise (1927, F. W. Murnau)
5 – Intolerance (1916, D. W. Griffith)
6 – Birth of a Nation (1915, D. W. Griffith)
7 – Nosferatu (1922, F. W. Murnau)
8 – The Gold Rush (1925, Charlie Chaplin)
9 – The General (1926, Buster Keaton)
10 – J’Accuse (1919, Abel Gance)
@KidCharlemagne – Jealous about Napoleon!
@KidCharlemagne- I am pretty sad I couldn’t catch J’Accuse when I did my 10s & 20s study. Do you consider it as a MP, and did you catch any other Gance’s?
I consider it a MP. I love the use of color from Gance (reminds me of some scenes from Pierrot le fou with Fueller), the technique is really impressive. I really think that it’s a movie for Drake who like « style-over-substance » film, it’s not subtle (classic love story between 3 characters and a « anti-war » movie).
I see La Roue, again, great technique but it’s really long (6 or 7 hours) and Austerlitz. Good movie.