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Top Silent Films

This list includes films with little to no dialogue even if they have musical scores and/or sound effects.

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 City Lights 1931 Charles Chaplin 40
2 Metropolis 1927 Fritz Lang 43
3 The General 1926 Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton 86
4 Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau 107
5 Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau 117
6 The Battleship Potemkin 1925 Sergei Eisenstein 131
7 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 Carl Theodor Dreyer 152
8 The Gold Rush 1925 Charles Chaplin 171
9 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920 Robert Wiene 174
10 The Man with the Movie Camera 1929 Dziga Vertov 240
11 Sherlock, Jr. 1924 Buster Keaton 281
12 Intolerance 1916 D.W. Griffith 369
13 Voyage to the Moon 1902 Georges Méliès 377
14 Un chien andalou 1929 Luis Buñuel 382
15 The Kid 1921 Charles Chaplin 406
16 The Birth of a Nation 1915 D.W. Griffith 448
17 Greed 1924 Erich von Stroheim 473
18 Nanook of the North 1922 Robert J. Flaherty 587
19 Napoléon 1927 Abel Gance 621
20 Safety Last! 1923 Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor 687
21 Koyaanisqatsi 1982 Godfrey Reggio 704
22 The Crowd 1928 King Vidor 775
23 The Great Train Robbery 1903 Edwin S. Porter 777
24 Pandora's Box 1929 Georg Wilhelm Pabst 788
25 Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid 823
26 The Last Laugh 1924 F.W. Murnau 835
27 The Wind 1928 Victor Sjöström 861
28 The Artist 2011 Michel Hazanavicius 911
29 Steamboat Bill, Jr. 1928 Charles Reisner 974
30 Häxan: Witchcraft through the Ages 1922 Benjamin Christensen 996
31 The Phantom of the Opera 1925 Rupert Julian 1003
32 Les Vampires 1915 Louis Feuillade 1069
33 The Circus 1928 Charles Chaplin 1121
34 The Thief of Bagdad 1924 Raoul Walsh 1199
35 Faust 1926 F.W. Murnau 1221
36 Broken Blossoms 1919 D.W. Griffith 1275
37 Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler 1922 Fritz Lang 1307
38 Earth 1930 Aleksandr Dovzhenko 1330
39 The Big Parade 1925 King Vidor 1382
40 The Cameraman 1928 Edward Sedgwick 1409
41 Wings 1927 William A. Wellman 1419
42 Fall of the House of Usher 1928 Jean Epstein 1424
43 The Phantom Chariot 1921 Victor Sjöström 1476
44 I Was Born, But... 1932 Yasujirô Ozu 1538
45 Siegfried 1924 Fritz Lang 1622
46 Our Hospitality 1923 John G. Blystone and Buster Keaton 1649
47 The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Lotte Reiniger 1696
48 Strike 1925 Sergei Eisenstein 1795
49 Ben-Hur 1925 Fred Niblo 1798
50 The Lodger 1927 Alfred Hitchcock 1876
51 Within Our Gates 1920 Oscar Micheaux 1879
52 October 1928 Grigoriy Aleksandrov and Sergei Eisenstein 1939
53 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City 1927 Walter Ruttmann 2111
54 The Golem 1920 Paul Wegener 2134
55 Baraka 1992 Ron Fricke 2158
56 Un chant d'amour 1950 Jean Genet 2173
57 Shaun the Sheep Movie 2015 Mark Burton and Richard Starzak 2198
58 Kriemhild's Revenge 1924 Fritz Lang 2201
59 The Iron Horse 1924 John Ford 2246
60 The Freshman 1925 Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor 2281
61 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat 1896 Auguste and Louis Lumière 2351
62 A Page of Madness 1926 Teinosuke Kinugasa 2355
63 Diary of a Lost Girl 1929 Georg Wilhelm Pabst 2400
64 The Last Command 1928 Josef von Sternberg 2405
65 The Unknown 1927 Tod Browning 2461
66 The Navigator 1924 Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton 2475
67 Show People 1928 King Vidor 2532
68 Seventh Heaven 1927 Frank Borzage 2654
69 Way Down East 1920 D.W. Griffith 2655
70 Foolish Wives 1922 Erich von Stroheim 2668
71 Cabiria 1914 Giovanni Pastrone 2692
72 Seven Chances 1925 Buster Keaton 2712
73 The Impossible Voyage 1904 Georges Méliès 2762
74 The Man Who Laughs 1928 Paul Leni 2816
75 The Docks of New York 1928 Josef von Sternberg 2837
76 The Immigrant 1917 Charles Chaplin 2848
77 Suspense 1913 Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber 2851
78 The Smiling Madame Beudet 1923 Germaine Dulac 2866
79 The Ten Commandments 1923 Cecil B. DeMille 2900
80 One Week 1920 Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton 2925
81 The Cheat 1915 Cecil B. DeMille 2941
82 Ménilmontant 1926 Dimitri Kirsanoff 3037
This page was last modified on March 12, 2025