The 18 Best Black-and-White Films of the 1920s

A century on, these silent-era landmarks still hypnotize: expressionist nightmares, death-defying slapstick and revolutionary spectacle from the medium's boldest decade. Which one wins?

1

Metropolis

Fritz Lang's 1927 German expressionist epic set in a dystopian city divided between workers and rulers.

1000pts

2

The General

Buster Keaton's 1926 Civil War action-comedy famed for its daring, precisely timed train stunts.

862pts

3

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F. W. Murnau's 1927 lyrical romance, an early Best Picture winner praised for its fluid camerawork.

724pts

4

The Gold Rush

Charlie Chaplin's 1925 comedy following the Little Tramp prospecting through the Klondike.

596pts

5

Nanook of the North

Robert Flaherty's 1922 pioneering documentary chronicling an Inuit family's life in the Arctic.

596pts

6

Faust

F. W. Murnau's 1926 expressionist retelling of the man who sells his soul to the devil.

517pts

7

Safety Last!

Harold Lloyd's 1923 comedy featuring his indelible image dangling from a skyscraper clock.

517pts

8

Nosferatu

F. W. Murnau's 1922 unauthorized Dracula adaptation and a foundational vampire horror film.

517pts

9

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Robert Wiene's 1920 landmark of German Expressionism with jagged, painted dreamlike sets.

517pts

10

Battleship Potemkin

Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 revolutionary drama celebrated for its groundbreaking montage and Odessa Steps sequence.

517pts

11

Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Buster Keaton's 1928 comedy home to his legendary falling-building-facade stunt.

517pts

12

Un Chien Andalou

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's 1929 surrealist short famous for its shocking dreamlike imagery.

423pts

13

Sherlock Jr.

Buster Keaton's 1924 comedy about a projectionist who dreams himself into the movie on screen.

310pts

14

Pandora's Box

G. W. Pabst's 1929 drama starring Louise Brooks as the magnetic, doomed Lulu.

310pts

15

Greed

Erich von Stroheim's 1924 realist epic tracing how a fortune corrupts an ordinary couple.

172pts

16

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 masterpiece portraying Joan's trial through stark, intimate close-ups.

172pts

17

The Kid

Charlie Chaplin's 1921 blend of comedy and pathos about the Tramp raising an abandoned child.

172pts

18

The Phantom of the Opera

Rupert Julian's 1925 horror classic with Lon Chaney's iconic unmasking as the disfigured Phantom.

172pts