The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue a...

Runtime

1h 9m

Director

Walter Ruttmann

Cast

Paul von Hindenburg

In the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin revolt against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.

Runtime

1h 15m

Director

Sergei Eisenstein

Cast

Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Grigori Aleksandrov

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishin...

Runtime

1h 19m

Director

Robert Flaherty

Cast

Allakariallak, Alice Nevalinga, Cunayou

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opt...

Runtime

1h 21m

Director

Carl Theodor Dreyer

Cast

Maria Falconetti, Eugène Silvain, André Berley

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

Runtime

3h 17m

Director

D.W. Griffith

Cast

Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron