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. 1
   Metropolis

   Fritz Lang's 1927 German expressionist epic set in a dystopian city divided between workers and rulers.
   1000pts
2. 2
   The General

   Buster Keaton's 1926 Civil War action-comedy famed for its daring, precisely timed train stunts.
   862pts
3. 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. 4
   The Gold Rush

   Charlie Chaplin's 1925 comedy following the Little Tramp prospecting through the Klondike.
   596pts
5. 5
   Nanook of the North

   Robert Flaherty's 1922 pioneering documentary chronicling an Inuit family's life in the Arctic.
   596pts
6. 6
   Faust

   F. W. Murnau's 1926 expressionist retelling of the man who sells his soul to the devil.
   517pts
7. 7
   Safety Last!

   Harold Lloyd's 1923 comedy featuring his indelible image dangling from a skyscraper clock.
   517pts
8. 8
   Nosferatu

   F. W. Murnau's 1922 unauthorized Dracula adaptation and a foundational vampire horror film.
   517pts
9. 9
   The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

   Robert Wiene's 1920 landmark of German Expressionism with jagged, painted dreamlike sets.
   517pts
10. 10
    Battleship Potemkin

    Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 revolutionary drama celebrated for its groundbreaking montage and Odessa Steps sequence.
    517pts
11. 11
    Steamboat Bill, Jr.

    Buster Keaton's 1928 comedy home to his legendary falling-building-facade stunt.
    517pts
12. 12
    Un Chien Andalou

    Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's 1929 surrealist short famous for its shocking dreamlike imagery.
    423pts
13. 13
    Sherlock Jr.

    Buster Keaton's 1924 comedy about a projectionist who dreams himself into the movie on screen.
    310pts
14. 14
    Pandora's Box

    G. W. Pabst's 1929 drama starring Louise Brooks as the magnetic, doomed Lulu.
    310pts
15. 15
    Greed

    Erich von Stroheim's 1924 realist epic tracing how a fortune corrupts an ordinary couple.
    172pts
16. 16
    The Passion of Joan of Arc

    Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 masterpiece portraying Joan's trial through stark, intimate close-ups.
    172pts
17. 17
    The Kid

    Charlie Chaplin's 1921 blend of comedy and pathos about the Tramp raising an abandoned child.
    172pts
18. 18
    The Phantom of the Opera

    Rupert Julian's 1925 horror classic with Lon Chaney's iconic unmasking as the disfigured Phantom.
    172pts