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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 1926 Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton 44
2 Metropolis 1927 Fritz Lang 62
3 City Lights 1931 Charles Chaplin 65
4 The Battleship Potemkin 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein 77
5 The Gold Rush 1925 Charles Chaplin 85
6 Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau 104
7 Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau 119
8 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 Carl Theodor Dreyer 142
9 The Birth of a Nation 1915 D.W. Griffith 145
10 Intolerance 1916 D.W. Griffith 160
11 Greed 1924 Erich von Stroheim 181
12 Napoléon 1927 Abel Gance 227
13 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920 Robert Wiene 235
14 Sherlock, Jr. 1924 Buster Keaton 257
15 The Crowd 1928 King Vidor 297
16 The Man with the Movie Camera 1929 Dziga Vertov 314
17 Nanook of the North 1922 Robert J. Flaherty 372
18 Pandora's Box 1929 Georg Wilhelm Pabst 375
19 The Wind 1928 Victor Sjöström 400
20 Un chien andalou 1929 Luis Buñuel 414
21 The Big Parade 1925 King Vidor 461
22 The Last Laugh 1924 F.W. Murnau 501
23 Voyage to the Moon 1902 Georges Méliès 505
24 The Kid 1921 Charles Chaplin 514
25 The Phantom of the Opera 1925 Rupert Julian 527
26 Earth 1930 Aleksandr Dovzhenko 545
27 Broken Blossoms 1919 D.W. Griffith 568
28 The Thief of Bagdad 1924 Raoul Walsh 612
29 Safety Last! 1923 Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor 726
30 October 1928 Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei M. Eisenstein 779
31 Les Vampires 1915 Louis Feuillade 787
32 Steamboat Bill, Jr. 1928 Charles Reisner 789
33 The Freshman 1925 Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor 824
34 Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid 972
35 Strike 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein 1005
36 Ben-Hur 1925 Fred Niblo 1058
37 Foolish Wives 1922 Erich von Stroheim 1094
38 Wings 1927 William A. Wellman 1106
39 Koyaanisqatsi 1982 Godfrey Reggio 1161
40 The Cameraman 1928 Edward Sedgwick 1164
41 Our Hospitality 1923 John G. Blystone and Buster Keaton 1206
42 The Navigator 1924 Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton 1234
43 Faust 1926 F.W. Murnau 1246
44 Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler 1922 Fritz Lang 1264
45 Way Down East 1920 D.W. Griffith 1373
46 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City 1927 Walter Ruttmann 1393
47 The Great Train Robbery 1903 Edwin S. Porter 1451
48 Kriemhild's Revenge 1924 Fritz Lang 1506
49 Siegfried 1924 Fritz Lang 1519
50 Spione 1928 Fritz Lang 1647
51 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1921 Rex Ingram 1686
52 The Golem 1920 Carl Boese and Paul Wegener 1741
53 Cabiria 1914 Giovanni Pastrone 1783
54 Fantomas 1913 Louis Feuillade 1842
55 The Wedding March 1928 Erich von Stroheim 1853
56 The Cheat 1915 Cecil B. DeMille 1886
57 The Lost World 1925 Harry O. Hoyt 1914
58 An Italian Straw Hat 1928 René Clair 1917
59 Storm over Asia 1928 Vsevolod Pudovkin 1927
60 Häxan: Witchcraft through the Ages 1922 Benjamin Christensen 1940
61 The Sheik 1921 George Melford 1969
62 The Docks of New York 1928 Josef von Sternberg 1993
63 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat 1896 Auguste and Louis Lumière 2000
64 Seven Chances 1925 Buster Keaton 2044
65 Mother 1926 Vsevolod Pudovkin 2054
66 The Kid Brother 1927 Ted Wilde 2056
67 I Was Born, But... 1932 Yasujiro Ozu 2060
68 The Unknown 1927 Tod Browning 2067
69 La Roue 1923 Abel Gance 2070
70 Baraka 1992 Ron Fricke 2090
71 The Black Pirate 1926 Albert Parker 2128
72 Show People 1928 King Vidor 2134
73 Seventh Heaven 1927 Frank Borzage 2188
74 The Circus 1928 Charles Chaplin 2255
75 The Last Command 1928 Josef von Sternberg 2259
This page was last modified on June 23, 2010