1. Napoléon (Abel Gance, France, 1927)

2. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, USA, 1927)

3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, Germany, 1920)

4. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, France, 1928)

5. The General (Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, USA, 1927)

6. The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin, USA, 1925)

7. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1927)

8. Pandora's Box (G.W. Pabst, Germany, 1929)

9. Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, USA, 1924)

10. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1925)

• Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Alberto Cavalcanti, Walter Ruttmann, Germany, 1927) Poignant for capturing Berlin at a time when Germany was just starting to recover from the Great War (and draconian postwar penalties) and the Nazi party had yet to seize control of the country. The rhythms, energy and mechanized nature of life are articulated via inventive editing techniques, though, at times, montage shots such as bustling crowds followed by herded cattle is a bit over the top. Nonetheless, Berlin is a vital document of a day in the life of a modern metropolis.
• The Big Parade (King Vidor, USA, 1925) Despite being imitated to the point of dreaded cliché in the years since its initial screening, Big Parade still holds up due to its brilliant contrast between eager, clueless American doughboys awaiting battle and the absolute carnage that follows. King Vidor successfully articulates the senseless barbarity of war and manages to impart a happy ending that doesn’t come across as hokey and overly sentimental. The crippled hero, played by John Gilbert, and his French ladylove, charming Renée Adorée, definitely earn their closing embrace.
• The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, USA, 1915) The masterfully edited climax wallows in cheap, exorbitantly polarizing melodrama, glorifying Klansmen and demonizing freed slaves in the turbulent Reconstruction-era South. But the Civil War battle sequences and the eerily verisimilar assassination of Lincoln powerfully resonate. For all the film's landmark technical achievements, Griffith’s great triumph is taking dusty history and making it breathe, vibrant and impassioned, crafting an image of a nation wrestling with itself and forging a new identity from a fiery cauldron of vindictive intolerance and wounded pride.
• The Crowd (King Vidor, USA, 1928) Successfully captures the minor-key rhythms of married life and doesn’t fall into cheap melodrama when horrible events occur (like the death of a child). One of Vidor’s most delicately sketched, beautifully staged works, The Crowd reveals how even the most ambitious man can become just another faceless player in the competitive world of the Big City.
• Faust (F.W. Murnau, Germany, 1926) The exaggeratedly expressive camerawork and overwrought performances serve to underscore rather than undermine Murnau’s striking examination of temptation, destructive desire and the terrible price mortals pay for unearned glories. Emil Jannings’ Mephisto is deliciously deceitful, and the climactic stake-burning sequence apocalyptically terrifying.
• Greed (Erich Von Stroheim, USA, 1924) Even in its truncated/butchered two-and-a-quarter-hour version, Greed is still an intense viewing experience. Von Stroheim’s assertive melding of realistic and symbolic imagery, coupled with absorbing deep-focus camerawork, ground the world of a man-child and his once sweet, later miserly wife in a moralistic hell that can be excruciating (yet oddly exhilarating) to endure. It’s a good thing the mercurial director didn’t tackle the six remaining sins -- not that Hollywood had any intention of letting him do so after he turned in an original ten-hour master print, never seen by the viewing public.
• Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, USA, 1916) Perhaps the ultimate example of cinematic reach exceeding logistically attainable grasp, Intolerance remains one of the most stunningly ambitious films ever made. Griffith’s technique of crosscutting between four tales throughout the ages is more innovative than effective (the venerable Passion sequence gets a particularly short shrift) and the melodrama, especially in the modern tale, is wildly over the top. Nonetheless, Intolerance is a hugely important epic, pushing the boundaries of the form and emphatically proving that there was no such thing as “too big” when it came to a Hollywood production.
• The Kid (Charles Chaplin, USA, 1921) Chaplin’s touching tale of the Little Tramp and an orphaned boy (Jackie Coogan, in a remarkable performance) is a bravura example of sentimentalism handled just right. Setting the principal action in slums modeled on the type the London-born Chaplin grew up in, The Kid manages a series of clever set pieces while never losing hold of its larger narrative thread.
• Der Letzte Mann (The Last Man) [The Last Laugh] (F.W. Murnau, Germany, 1924) The absurd, tacked-on happy ending comes across as a parody of artificial plot turns rather than a total concession by Murnau to studio demands. Regardless, Emil Jannings is in top form as a doorman demoted to bathroom attendant, his degradation magnified by the derisive reaction his lowering of job status provokes from the gossipy neighbors in his tenement. The inventively fluid camerawork and bizarrely subjective viewpoint only add to the film’s unsettlingly powerful impact.
• The Man With a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1929) Director Vertov, editor Elizaveta Svilova and cameraman Mikhail Kaufman attempt "pure cinema" with this examination of a day in the life of machines and workers in various cities throughout the Soviet Union. But it’s the impossibility of trying to capture life in a natural state with a camera, primarily due to self-consciously aware participants, subjective camera angles and intentionally associative montage editing, that becomes the true message. We see what the filmmakers allow us to see (which sort of flies in the face of the whole collectivist ideal). Fortunately, Vertov and his collaborators have assembled and cross-layered some amazing visuals, thus ensuring the film’s lasting importance.
• The Navigator (Donald Crisp, USA, 1924) Keaton stages some wonderful sight gags on a crewless, drifting ocean liner carrying a clueless young couple who learn, through sheer necessity, to fend for themselves. The pratfall timing is exquisite, and there’s a genuine sense of peril when the ship draws the attention of cannibals on a nearby island.
• Oktyabr (October) (Grigory Alexandrov, Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1927) The rapid-fire editing techniques are more intellectually stimulating than pulse-quickening. But that was Eisenstein’s intention in staging a grand reenactment of the 10-year anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik uprising that toppled the provisional Russian government. Too detached to have any appreciable emotional impact, October nonetheless is a technical marvel. You don’t have to buy into the propaganda to admire the cinematic virtuosity.
• Seven Chances (Buster Keaton, USA, 1925) Contrived but brilliantly executed story of a man (Keaton) who will inherit millions of dollars if he can marry before the clock strikes 7:00. The women as a swarm of locusts chasing Keaton through city streets and down a hill during an avalanche are truly inspired. Pure adrenalized Keaton in top form.
• The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (Ernst Lubitsch, USA, 1927) Lubitsch’s masterful sense of storytelling and visual symmetry shine throughout this endearing tale of a young prince who yearns to enjoy life but is bound by the rigid constraints befitting his title. Ramon Novarro brings the right amount of naiveté and melancholy to the role of the prince, and Norma Shearer believably convinces us that it’s love at first sight upon meeting the royal heir. The ending doesn’t cop out, revealing how duty to country supersedes personal wishes, no matter how passionate or true.
• The Wind (Victor Sjöström, USA, 1928) Wind and desire, madness and a murder are inextricably bound in this powerful examination of primal urges and the terrible force of nature unleashed. Lillian Gish delivers one of her strongest performances as a woman ill-equipped to deal with the harsh climate and sexual demands thrust upon her. Even with the tacked-on happy ending, The Wind remains one of the edgier films to come out of the big studio system during the era.
• Underworld (Josef von Sternberg, USA, 1927) Melding a European art house aesthetic with gritty American realism, Underworld is the great gangster film of the silent era. The editing and camerawork are top notch, as is Von Sternberg's effective use of the close-up to convey the emotional turmoil of his characters. From Scarface to GoodFellas, Underworld’s influence on the urban crime drama cannot be overstated. It's a truly landmark and powerfully engaging film.