Films of the 1920s

Film
Before 1920 | 1920-1929 | 1930-1939 | 1940-1949 | 1950-1959 | 1960-1969 | 1970-1979 | 1980-1989 | 1990-1999 | 2000-2009 | 2010-2019 | 2020-2029

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1920-1929

• Buster Keaton starred in several short Slapstick comedies, including:
  • The Balloonatic
  • The Blacksmith
  • The Boat
  • Convict 13
  • Cops
  • The Garage — 14th and last film co-starring Fatty Arbuckle and Keaton, before Keaton went into business for himself
  • The Goat
  • Hard Luck
  • The Haunted House
  • The High Sign
  • The Love Nest
  • My Wife's Relations
  • Neighbors
  • One Week
  • The Paleface
  • The Playhouse
  • The Scarecrow
• He also starred in several feature comedies, including
  • Battling Butler
  • The Cameraman
  • College
  • The General
  • Go West
  • The Navigator
  • Our Hospitality
  • Seven Chances
  • Sherlock, Jr.
  • Spite Marriage
  • Steamboat Bill, Jr. — Famous for its By Wall That Is Holey gag
  • Three Ages

• Ditto Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin started to work at a slower pace in the 1920s, but he still starred in three feature films:
  • The Kid
  • The Gold Rush
  • The Circus
• and his last three comedic shorts:
  • The Idle Class
  • Pay Day
  • The Pilgrim

• Harold Lloyd was more prolific than Chaplin and more popular than Keaton. His features and short films from this decade include:
  • A Sailor-Made Man
  • Grandmas Boy
  • Doctor Jack
  • Never Weaken
  • Safety Last!
  • Why Worry?
  • Girl Shy
  • Hot Water
  • The Freshman
  • For Heaven's Sake
  • The Kid Brother
  • Speedy
  • Welcome Danger

1920

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) — A masterpiece of the Expressionist movement
• The Daughter of Dawn
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• The Golem, How He Came into the World (Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam)
• Huckleberry Finn
• Humoresque
• The Last of the Mohicans
• The Man from Kangaroo
• The Mark of Zorro
• Oliver Twist
• The Penalty
• Pollyanna
• Something New
• The Symbol of the Unconquered
• Way Down East
• Within Our Gates
• Wuthering Heights

1921

• The Ace of Hearts
• The Blot
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
• Leap Year
• Little Lord Fauntleroy
• The Love Light
• Miss Lulu Bett
• Orphans of the Storm — the last collaboration of star Lillian Gish and director D. W. Griffith, and Griffith's last commercial hit
• The Phantom Carriage
• The Sheik
• The Three Musketeers — Douglas Fairbanks version
• Tol'able David
• The Wildcat

1922

• Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (Dr. Mabuse der Spieler) — Invented gangster film tropes that would be used for many years
• Foolish Wives
• Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages
• The Headless Horseman
• Nanook of the North — A pioneering Documentary and the template for all future ones.
• Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror
• The Prisoner of Zenda (Lewis Stone version)
• Robin Hood
• Sherlock Holmes
• Sky High
• The Toll of the Sea — The oldest surviving technicolour feature known to still exist
• When Knighthood Was in Flower

1923

• The Covered Wagon
• The Extra Girl
• Faithful Heart
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Little Old New York
• Rosita
• La Roue
• Salome
• Scaramouche
• Souls for Sale
• The Ten Commandments
• Warning Shadows
• Where the North Begins
• The White Sister
• A Woman of Paris — A Charlie Chaplin film without Charlie Chaplin
• Zaza

1924

• Aelita
• America
• The Chechahcos
• The Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom
• The City Without Jews
• Dante's Inferno
• The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
• The Family Secret
• The Great White Silence
• Greed — A 9½-hour epic by Erich von Stroheim, edited to 2½ hours against his wishes, the cut footage destroyed
• The Hands of Orlac
• He Who Gets Slapped
• The Iron Horse
• The Last Laugh
• Michael
• Die Nibelungen
• Peter Pan
• The Sea Hawk
• The Thief of Bagdad
• Waxworks
• Wild Oranges

1925

• The Battleship Potemkin (Bronyenosyets Potyomkin) — Establishes (among many others) the Baby Carriage trope.
• Ben-Hur — The first feature film adaptation of the story.
• The Big Parade
• Body and Soul
• The Circle
• Clash of the Wolves
• Cobra
• The Eagle
• Grass
• Lady of the Night
• Lady Windermere's Fan — adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play
• Little Annie Rooney
• Lord Jim
• The Lost World
• Master of the House
• The Merry Widow
• Les Misérables — 6 hour French film, said to be the most accurate adaptation.
• The Monster
• Orochi
• The Phantom of the Opera
• The Plastic Age
• The Pleasure Garden
• The Red Kimono
• Sally of the Sawdust
• Stage Struck
• Stella Dallas
• Strike
• Tartuffe
• Too Many Kisses
• Tumbleweeds
• The Unholy Three
• Variety
• The Wizard of Oz

1926

• 3 Bad Men
• The Adventures of Prince Achmed - the oldest surviving animated feature film.
• Beverly of Graustark
• The Blackbird
• The Black Pirate
• La Bohème - without the music!
• The Boob - yes, that's the title
• Don Juan
• Ella Cinders
• Exit Smiling
• Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage - F.W. Murnau's film adaptation
• Flesh and the Devil
• The Flying Ace
• The General
• The first cinematic adaptation of The Great Gatsby, with Warner Baxter. Now a lost film.
• Hands Up!
• The Magician
• Mare Nostrum
• Miss Mend
• Mother
• A Page of Madness - very rare example of a surviving Japanese silent film
• The Scarlet Letter - Adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, starring Lillian Gish
• The Son of the Sheik
• So's Your Old Man
• Sparrows
• The Strong Man
• Tell It to the Marines
• The Temptress
• Torrent
• What Price Glory
• The Winning of Barbara Worth

1927

• The Cat and the Canary
• Chang
• Downhill
• Get Your Man
• It
• The Jazz Singer — First feature-length "talkie" (although it's actually mostly silent)
• The Kid Brother
• The King of Kings
• The Lodger — The first of many suspense thrillers directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• London After Midnight
• Love —adaptation of Anna Karenina
• Metropolis — Futuristic Fritz Lang film arguably responsible for nearly every Science Fiction trope we're familiar with in film today.
• Mockery
• Mr. Wu
• Napoleon — An epic five 1/2 hour drama about the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Might never be seen in its intact form again thanks to Executive Meddling.
• Our Dancing Daughters
• The Red Mill
• The Ring
• The Scar of Shame
• 7th Heaven
• The Show
• Stark Love
• The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
• Two Arabian Knights
• Underworld — The very first gangster picture.
• The Unknown — One of Lon Chaney's finest performances.
• Wings — A World War One film, and the first film to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

1928

• Across to Singapore
• The Burning of Red Lotus Temple (Huo shao hong lian si) — Genre-defining first Chinese wuxia film. One of the longest films ever made.
• Champagne
• The Cossacks
• The Crowd
• The Docks of New York
• The Fall of the House of Usher — French feature film
• In Old Arizona
• The Last Command
• Lights of New York
• Lonesome
• The Man Who Laughs
• The Mating Call
• The Mysterious Lady
• October
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc)
• The Patsy
• The Power of the Press
• The Racket
• Sadie Thompson
• Street Angel
• Show People
• Spies
• Storm Over Asia
• The Viking
• The Wedding March
• West of Zanzibar
• White Shadows in the South Seas
• The Wind

1929

• Alibi
• Applause
• Blackmail — The first talkie directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• The Broadway Melody
• Bulldog Drummond
• The Cocoanuts
• Desert Nights
• Diary of a Lost Girl
• Disraeli
• Hallelujah!
• The Hollywood Revue of 1929
• The Iron Mask
• The Kiss
• The Letter
• Linda
• The Love Parade — One of the first true film musicals; it's all-talking, with songs integrated into the story.
• Lucky Star
• Man with a Movie Camera (1929) — Every Camera Trick in the book, and the fastest Montages ever attempted.
• Marianne
• Our Modern Maidens
• The Pagan
• Pandora's Box
• Piccadilly
• Sally
• The Single Standard
• Sunny Side Up
• The Thirteenth Chair
• A Throw of Dice
• Where East Is East
• Why Be Good?—A film starring Colleen Moore. It was thought to be lost with only the synchronized soundtrack available, but the film was discovered in Italy.
• Wild Orchids
• Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond) — The first Interplanetary Voyage made with attention to realism. Directed by Fritz Lang.

The Silent Age Of Animation

• Alice Comedies
• Bobby Bumps (1920-25)
• "Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid", the pilot short for Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies animation
• Classic Disney Shorts
  • "Plane Crazy"
  • "The Gallopin' Gaucho"
  • "Steamboat Willie"
  • "The Skeleton Dance"
• Dinky Doodle
• Felix the Cat
  • Felix the Cat (Otto Messmer)
  • "Felix in Hollywood"
• Interplanetary Revolution
• Newman Laugh-O-Grams — Walt Disney's first cartoon series
• Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
• Out of the Inkwell
  • "Koko's Earth Control"
• Screen Songs — series debuts in 1929
• Talkartoons — series debuts in 1929

Notable Live-Action Shorts

• The Beau Brummels (1928)
• Black and Tan (1929)
• Un Chien Andalou (1929) — Most remembered for its Eye Scream moment at the beginning.
• Entr'acte (1924)
• The Fall of the House of Usher — American short film
• Lambchops — 1929 live-action short starring George Burns and Gracie Allen
• Laurel and Hardy started making comic short films in 1927
  • The Battle of the Century (1927)
  • Big Business (1929)
  • Double Whoopee (1929)
• The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928)
• The Little Rascals aka Our Gang — silent shorts from 1922 to 1929, when they converted to sound. The series lasted until 1944.
• Manhatta — documentary short about Big Applesauce
• Mighty Like a Moose (1926) — comic short starring Charley Chase
• Pass the Gravy (1928)
• The Sex Life of the Polyp (1928)
• La Souriante Madame Beudet (1922)
• St. Louis Blues (1929)
• A Straightforward Boy (1929)
• There It Is (1928) — short film mixing live-action and animation

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