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
   Nosferatu

   F. W. Murnau's 1922 unauthorized Dracula adaptation and a foundational vampire horror film.
   1000pts

   DI
2. 2
   The General

   Buster Keaton's 1926 Civil War action-comedy famed for its daring, precisely timed train stunts.
   686pts
3. 3
   The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

   Robert Wiene's 1920 landmark of German Expressionism with jagged, painted dreamlike sets.
   657pts
4. 4
   Metropolis

   Fritz Lang's 1927 German expressionist epic set in a dystopian city divided between workers and rulers.
   626pts
5. 5
   Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

   F. W. Murnau's 1927 lyrical romance, an early Best Picture winner praised for its fluid camerawork.
   603pts
6. 6
   The Gold Rush

   Charlie Chaplin's 1925 comedy following the Little Tramp prospecting through the Klondike.
   541pts
7. 7
   Safety Last!

   Harold Lloyd's 1923 comedy featuring his indelible image dangling from a skyscraper clock.
   469pts
8. 8
   Nanook of the North

   Robert Flaherty's 1922 pioneering documentary chronicling an Inuit family's life in the Arctic.
   384pts
9. 9
   Battleship Potemkin

   Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 revolutionary drama celebrated for its groundbreaking montage and Odessa Steps sequence.
   384pts
10. 10
    Un Chien Andalou

    Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's 1929 surrealist short famous for its shocking dreamlike imagery.
    384pts
11. 11
    Steamboat Bill, Jr.

    Buster Keaton's 1928 comedy home to his legendary falling-building-facade stunt.
    384pts
12. 12
    Sherlock Jr.

    Buster Keaton's 1924 comedy about a projectionist who dreams himself into the movie on screen.
    281pts
13. 13
    Greed

    Erich von Stroheim's 1924 realist epic tracing how a fortune corrupts an ordinary couple.
    0pts
14. 14
    Pandora's Box

    G. W. Pabst's 1929 drama starring Louise Brooks as the magnetic, doomed Lulu.
    0pts
15. 15
    The Passion of Joan of Arc

    Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 masterpiece portraying Joan's trial through stark, intimate close-ups.
    0pts
16. 16
    The Kid

    Charlie Chaplin's 1921 blend of comedy and pathos about the Tramp raising an abandoned child.
    0pts
17. 17
    The Phantom of the Opera

    Rupert Julian's 1925 horror classic with Lon Chaney's iconic unmasking as the disfigured Phantom.
    0pts
18. 18
    Faust

    F. W. Murnau's 1926 expressionist retelling of the man who sells his soul to the devil.
    0pts

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