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Silent Classics
The first three decades of cinema gave us some of the greatest films ever made, which had to tell their stories purely visually, giving us countless unforgettable images.
Thanks to excellent preservation and restoration efforts, these films are now available to watch in pristine condition, often with new scores by world renowned musicians.
The Battles of Coronel and Falkland IslandsThe Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands
War 1927 106 minsSilentDirector: Walter Summers
This dramatic reconstruction of two decisive naval battles from the First World War is one of the finest films of the British silent era.
BlancanievesBlancanieves
Drama 2011 105 minsDirector: Pablo Berger
Pablo Berger’s imaginative black-and-white ‘silent’ movie relocates the story of Snow White to 1920s Spain – complete with bullfighting dwarfs
Battleship PotemkinBattleship Potemkin
Historical drama 1925 69 minsSilentDirector: Sergei M. Eisenstein
A fixture in the critical canon almost since its premiere, Eisenstein’s film about a 1905 naval mutiny was revolutionary in both form and content.
The Birth of a NationThe Birth of a Nation
Historical drama 1915 191 minsSilentDirector: D.W. Griffith
D W Griffith's highly controversial and abhorrently racist, yet historically significant American silent epic about the American Civil War and its aftermath.
Un Chien AndalouUn Chien Andalou
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1928 16 minsSilentDirector: Luis Buñuel
A scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism - Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first film is a classic of Surrealist cinema.
A Cottage on DartmoorA Cottage on Dartmoor
Drama 1930 88 minsSilentDirector: Anthony Asquith
Anthony Asquith (Underground) directs this embroiled melodrama, a tale of love and revenge, shot on location on the bleak landscape of Dartmoor.
DownhillDownhill
Drama 1927 105 minsSilentDirector: Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock’s fifth film features an early variation on his fabled ‘wrong man’plot, as Ivor Novello stands accused of getting a girl pregnant.
The Lodger: A Story of the London FogThe Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
Crime 1926 91 minsSilentDirector: Alfred Hitchcock
Ivor Novello plays a strange lodger who may be behind a number of Jack the Ripper-style killings in Alfred Hitchcock’s silent thriller.
The Master of the HouseThe Master of the House
Drama 1925 107 minsSilentDirector: Carl Th. Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s richly detailed tragicomedy of domestic manners is by turns funny, intensely emotional and deeply affecting.
NosferatuNosferatu
Horror 1922 89 minsSilentDirector: F.W. Murnau
This influential Dracula adaptation contains some of the most famous images of expressionist film, and remains shocking and stylish after 100 years.
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Horror 1925 91 minsSilentDirector: Rupert Julian
'Man of a thousand faces' Lon Chaney stars in the first version of Gaston Leroux's oft-filmed novel.
TurksibTurksib
Documentary 1929 75 minsSilentDirector: Viktor Turin
With bold and exhilarating flair, Turksib charts the monumental efforts to build a railway linking the regions of Turkestan and Siberia in 1920s USSR.
UndergroundUnderground
Romance 1928 93 minsSilentDirector: Anthony Asquith
The BFI National Archive restoration of one of Anthony Asquith's finest silent films set in London's Underground, with a new score.