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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 Metropolis 1927 Fritz Lang 39
2 City Lights 1931 Charles Chaplin 46
3 The General 1926 Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton 49
4 Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau 81
5 Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau 84
6 The Battleship Potemkin 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein 90
7 The Gold Rush 1925 Charles Chaplin 116
8 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 Carl Theodor Dreyer 123
9 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920 Robert Wiene 141
10 The Man with the Movie Camera 1929 Dziga Vertov 180
11 Sherlock, Jr. 1924 Buster Keaton 198
12 Un chien andalou 1929 Luis Buñuel 304
13 The Birth of a Nation 1915 D.W. Griffith 312
14 Intolerance 1916 D.W. Griffith 314
15 Greed 1924 Erich von Stroheim 321
16 Voyage to the Moon 1902 Georges Méliès 337
17 The Kid 1921 Charles Chaplin 338
18 Nanook of the North 1922 Robert J. Flaherty 411
19 Napoléon 1927 Abel Gance 500
20 The Crowd 1928 King Vidor 572
21 The Last Laugh 1924 F.W. Murnau 597
22 The Wind 1928 Victor Sjöström 605
23 Pandora's Box 1929 Georg Wilhelm Pabst 644
24 Safety Last! 1923 Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor 658
25 The Great Train Robbery 1903 Edwin S. Porter 688
26 Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid 713
27 Steamboat Bill, Jr. 1928 Charles Reisner 781
28 The Thief of Bagdad 1924 Raoul Walsh 813
29 Faust 1926 F.W. Murnau 835
30 Earth 1930 Aleksandr Dovzhenko 841
31 The Artist 2011 Michel Hazanavicius 885
32 Broken Blossoms 1919 D.W. Griffith 900
33 Les Vampires 1915 Louis Feuillade 903
34 Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler 1922 Fritz Lang 957
35 Häxan: Witchcraft through the Ages 1922 Benjamin Christensen 994
36 The Phantom of the Opera 1925 Rupert Julian 1020
37 The Cameraman 1928 Edward Sedgwick 1041
38 The Big Parade 1925 King Vidor 1076
39 Our Hospitality 1923 John G. Blystone and Buster Keaton 1117
40 Strike 1925 Sergei M. Eisenstein 1176
41 Fall of the House of Usher 1928 Jean Epstein 1186
42 Siegfried 1924 Fritz Lang 1195
43 October 1927 Grigoriy Aleksandrov and Sergei M. Eisenstein 1217
44 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat 1896 Auguste and Louis Lumière 1229
45 Wings 1927 William A. Wellman 1283
46 I Was Born, But... 1932 Yasujirô Ozu 1392
47 The Circus 1928 Charles Chaplin 1412
48 The Phantom Chariot 1921 Victor Sjöström 1464
49 The Freshman 1925 Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor 1489
50 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City 1927 Walter Ruttmann 1491
51 The Lodger 1927 Alfred Hitchcock 1532
52 Kriemhild's Revenge 1924 Fritz Lang 1574
53 Ben-Hur 1925 Fred Niblo 1673
54 The Golem 1920 Carl Boese and Paul Wegener 1728
55 The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Lotte Reiniger 1821
56 Seven Chances 1925 Buster Keaton 1840
57 The Navigator 1924 Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton 1886
58 Foolish Wives 1922 Erich von Stroheim 1897
59 Seventh Heaven 1927 Frank Borzage 1928
60 The Iron Horse 1924 John Ford 1956
61 Cabiria 1914 Giovanni Pastrone 1974
62 The Unknown 1927 Tod Browning 1979
63 A Page of Madness 1926 Teinosuke Kinugasa 2012
64 The Last Command 1928 Josef von Sternberg 2036
65 Un chant d'amour 1950 Jean Genet 2075
66 Spione 1928 Fritz Lang 2201
67 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1921 Rex Ingram 2222
68 The Docks of New York 1928 Josef von Sternberg 2225
69 Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory 1895 Louis Lumière 2230
70 Within Our Gates 1920 Oscar Micheaux 2235
71 Prelude: Dog Star Man 1962 Stan Brakhage 2241
72 The Lost World 1925 Harry O. Hoyt 2280
73 Ménilmontant 1926 Dimitri Kirsanoff 2297
74 Diary of a Lost Girl 1929 Georg Wilhelm Pabst 2322
75 The Crazy Ray 1924 René Clair 2362
76 Underworld 1927 Josef von Sternberg 2364
77 Dog Star Man: Part IV 1964 Stan Brakhage 2368
78 People on Sunday 1930 Curt and Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, and Fred Zinnemann 2392
79 The Immigrant 1917 Charles Chaplin 2450
80 The Impossible Voyage 1904 Georges Méliès 2473
81 Dog Star Man: Part II 1963 Stan Brakhage 2482
82 Show People 1928 King Vidor 2500
83 Dog Star Man: Part III 1964 Stan Brakhage 2506
84 The Smiling Madame Beudet 1923 Germaine Dulac 2595
85 Fantomas 1913 Louis Feuillade 2682
86 Mother 1926 Vsevolod Pudovkin 2705
87 The Kiss 1896 William Heise 2709
88 Way Down East 1920 D.W. Griffith 2774
89 Gertie the Dinosaur 1914 Winsor McCay 2776
90 The Ten Commandments 1923 Cecil B. DeMille 2796
This page was last modified on April 7, 2020