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Top Silent Films

This list include films made before the sound era and later films with little or no dialogue, even if they have a score and sound effects.

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 The General 1927 Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton 42
2 City Lights 1931 Charles Chaplin 55
3 The Gold Rush 1925 Charles Chaplin 60
4 The Battleship Potemkin 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein 65
5 Metropolis 1927 Fritz Lang 66
6 Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau 95
7 The Birth of a Nation 1915 D.W. Griffith 112
8 Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau 115
9 Intolerance 1916 D.W. Griffith 133
10 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 Carl Theodor Dreyer 139
11 Greed 1924 Erich von Stroheim 162
12 Napoléon 1927 Abel Gance 194
13 Sherlock, Jr. 1924 Buster Keaton 226
14 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920 Robert Wiene 237
15 The Crowd 1928 King Vidor 258
16 The Man with the Movie Camera 1929 Dziga Vertov 284
17 Nanook of the North 1922 Robert J. Flaherty 339
18 Pandora's Box 1929 Georg Wilhelm Pabst 367
19 Un chien andalou 1929 Luis Buñuel 369
20 The Wind 1928 Victor Sjöström 410
21 The Big Parade 1925 King Vidor 444
22 The Phantom of the Opera 1925 Rupert Julian 463
23 Earth 1930 Aleksandr Dovzhenko 465
24 Voyage to the Moon 1902 Georges Méliès 473
25 The Last Laugh 1924 F.W. Murnau 496
26 Broken Blossoms 1919 D.W. Griffith 501
27 The Kid 1921 Charles Chaplin 522
28 The Thief of Bagdad 1924 Raoul Walsh 571
29 Safety Last! 1923 Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor 606
30 The Freshman 1925 Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor 628
31 Les Vampires 1915 Louis Feuillade 697
32 October 1928 Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei M. Eisenstein 766
33 Steamboat Bill, Jr. 1928 Charles Reisner 844
34 Strike 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein 858
35 Ben-Hur 1925 Fred Niblo 861
36 Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid 906
37 Wings 1927 William A. Wellman 934
38 Foolish Wives 1922 Erich von Stroheim 946
39 The Navigator 1924 Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton 989
40 Our Hospitality 1923 John G. Blystone and Buster Keaton 1100
41 Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler 1922 Fritz Lang 1113
42 The Cameraman 1928 Edward Sedgwick 1166
43 Kriemhild's Revenge 1924 Fritz Lang 1186
44 The Great Train Robbery 1903 Edwin S. Porter 1191
45 Faust 1926 F.W. Murnau 1249
46 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City 1927 Walter Ruttmann 1277
47 Way Down East 1920 D.W. Griffith 1294
48 La Roue 1923 Abel Gance 1326
49 Siegfried 1924 Fritz Lang 1417
50 Seventh Heaven 1927 Frank Borzage 1563
51 The Sheik 1921 George Melford 1566
52 The Docks of New York 1928 Josef von Sternberg 1588
53 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat 1895 Auguste and Louis Lumière 1649
54 An Italian Straw Hat 1928 René Clair 1678
55 The Wedding March 1928 Erich von Stroheim 1751
56 The Cheat 1915 Cecil B. DeMille 1752
57 Storm over Asia 1928 Vsevolod Pudovkin 1798
58 Cabiria 1914 Giovanni Pastrone 1807
59 The Kid Brother 1927 Ted Wilde 1822
60 The Black Pirate 1926 Albert Parker 1879
61 Show People 1928 King Vidor 1901
62 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1921 Rex Ingram 1919
63 Mother 1926 Vsevolod Pudovkin 1927
64 I Was Born, But... 1932 Yasujiro Ozu 1941
65 Fantomas 1913 Louis Feuillade 1971
66 Spione 1928 Fritz Lang 1978
67 The Unknown 1927 Tod Browning 1980
68 The Last Command 1928 Josef von Sternberg 1995
69 The Circus 1928 Charles Chaplin 2005
70 The Iron Horse 1924 John Ford 2024
71 Varieté 1925 Ewald André Dupont 2119
72 The Golem 1920 Carl Boese and Paul Wegener 2184
73 The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg 1927 Ernst Lubitsch 2197
74 The Ten Commandments 1923 Cecil B. DeMille 2231
75 The Lost World 1925 Harry O. Hoyt 2251
76 Orphans of the Storm 1921 D.W. Griffith 2323
77 The Son of the Sheik 1926 George Fitzmaurice 2324
78 Flesh and the Devil 1926 Clarence Brown 2325
79 The End of St. Petersburg 1927 Vsevolod Pudovkin 2448
80 People on Sunday 1930 Curt and Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, and Fred Zinnemann 2451
81 The Lodger 1927 Alfred Hitchcock 2464
82 Underworld 1927 Josef von Sternberg 2474
83 Big Business 1929 James W. Horne and Leo McCarey 2516
This page was last modified on March 23, 2008