The 15 Best Films Of The 1920s

A few decades after the first experiments with the new technology of film, cinema in the 1920s was beginning to come of age. Filmmakers mastered the essentials and embarked on ambitious storytelling projects with increased flair and sophistication, turning movies from novelty to art in just a few short years. The film industry began operating at full capacity in the 1920s, churning out feature-length productions on a scale and frequency that would have been unthinkable a decade earlier. 

Filmmakers of the 1920s start to diversify, some becoming experts in the large-scale epics that were the earliest versions of blockbusters, while others honed a unique style as auteurs that would define the period as part of a larger artistic movement. Our first movie stars come from this era, both silent comedians whose death-defying pratfalls rival any stunts performed today as well as romantic matinee idols who had audiences eating out of the palm of their hands. A lot of film fans — even those who appreciate the history of cinema — tend to neglect the 1920s, a decade almost entirely pre-talkies. Still, silent cinema has a great deal to offer, not just in terms of the influence it had on later films, but as enjoyable entertainment in its own right.

There were plenty of romances throughout the silent era, along with plenty of comedies (largely from Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd) that have a romantic element. Yet few films feel as much like a precursor to the modern rom-com as "My Best Girl," starring America's Sweetheart (despite being a Canadian citizen) Mary Pickford and Charles "Buddy" Rogers, who would become her third and final husband after a high-profile divorce from swashbuckling matinee idol Douglas Fairbanks. 

Rogers plays Joe Grant, the son of a department store owner who attempts to avoid accusations of nepotism by not telling anyone who his father is. Pickford's poor stockgirl Maggie falls in love with him, not realizing his true identity and that he happens to already have a fiancé. Against all odds, sparks fly and the chemistry between these two lovebirds is undeniable. Both Pickford and Rogers have an irrepressible charm, and they are well-matched in this sweet and good-natured romantic comedy.

It's difficult to find words to express how in awe we are of director Lotte Reiniger's work in "The Adventures of Prince Achmed." Not only does she craft a moving, coherent adaptation of "One Thousand and One Nights," but she does so using silhouette animation. This is a painstaking process of manipulating cardboard cutouts of each of the characters and set pieces so that they would appear to be in motion, almost as though they were shadow puppets. The amount of work involved is staggering. 

As you notice her attention to detail and the delicate lines of each figure as they move gracefully throughout the film, the scope of this project becomes overwhelming. "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" is the earliest surviving feature-length animated film, showing the full extent of what the medium is capable of given the creative ambition and technical skill of the animator. Eat your heart out, Walt Disney.

"Within Our Gates" occupies an extremely significant position in film history as the earliest surviving film made by a Black director, Oscar Micheaux. His work not only showcases a voice that hadn't been heard in cinema before but reflects an entire community of middle-class Black Americans who didn't see anything approaching their actual lived experiences onscreen until this point. 

"Within Our Gates" features the journey of a young Black woman who travels to the North to raise funds for a school to serve children in her local community. Released the year after "Birth of a Nation," "Within Our Gates" operates as a stern refutation of the former film's depiction of racial violence, with a brutal flashback sequence detailing the murder of Sylvia's family by marauding white men, the same characters who would likely be hailed as heroes in D.W. Griffith's controversial film. Micheaux would go on to make more than 40 movies after this one.

Although American and European films occupy the most space in cinematic history textbooks, even in the 1920s there were already thriving film industries in Asia and other parts of the world. Japan in particular was developing rapidly, as evinced by Teinosuke Kinugasa's "A Page of Madness." An avant-garde film from the Shinkankakuha school, it tells the story of a man who takes on a job as a janitor at a psychiatric institution as a means of atonement towards his wife, who is a patient there. As stressors related to work and family flare up, he begins to experience a series of dreams and fantasies that blur the lines of reality in his mind. 

Startlingly eerie in its visual compositions, "A Page of Madness" has earned critical acclaim after being considered lost for nearly 50 years. BBC Nottingham referred to it as "a balletic musing on our subconscious nightmares, examining dream states in a way that is both beautiful and highly disturbing," while Time Out called it "one of the most radical and challenging Japanese movies ever seen."

If you think they didn't have films that felt like dropping acid all the way back in the 1920s, guess again! "Un Chien Andalou" is an experimental short film with deep roots in the surrealist art movement. It was a collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, so that should probably tell you everything you need to know. There's not so much a plot to "Un Chien Andalou" as there are themes and visual metaphors. The entire production plays out like a journey through the subconscious, with images blurring together and rapidly being distorted into something else. 

From a technical perspective, it masters the art of the match shot, where a series of images are put together so that our mind infers an action. In this case, it results in the iconic image of a man holding a razor up to a woman's eye, followed by a thin line of clouds cutting across the moon, followed by a dead cow's eye being sliced open, creating a horrifying visual that is perhaps this film's most enduring element.

For horror enthusiasts, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is a must-see. A German expressionist film borne out of the anxiety and disillusionment of the First World War, it's filled with sharp angles and distorted imagery of its cityscape. Our hero Francis must protect the woman he loves from the machinations of the evil Dr. Caligari and his sleepwalking henchman Cesare (played by Conrad Veidt at the beginning of his long career). 

Not everything is quite as it seems: "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" asks us to question not just the authority of institutions (Dr. Caligari is the head of a psychiatric hospital), but whether or not we can trust our own perceptions of reality itself. Often credited as having the very first twist ending in cinematic history, it went on to have a massive impact on the entire horror genre. Its influence is seen everywhere, from the wave of dark German films that would come in its wake to the gothic storytelling of Tim Burton.

"The Big Parade" was released just seven years after the end of World War I, when audiences didn't particularly need to be told that war was hell (they had all just lived through it). Directed by King Vidor and starring John Gilbert, "The Big Parade" nevertheless offers up one of the best anti-war films in cinematic history. Gilbert plays Jim Apperson, a wealthy, entitled young man who decides to enlist when war breaks out thinking that it will be an adventure. 

When he is shipped off to France, he quickly learns about the horrors of combat, as the film shows him marching through eerily desolate forests, waiting for bombs and artillery fire to fall on him and his brothers-in-arms. Gilbert, often unfairly maligned as his career fell apart once Hollywood was on the cusp of the sound era, puts in a powerful performance alongside Renee Adoree, who plays his French love interest.