Criterion Collection by Decade (1920s), a list by Adam McGready

7.6

/14258/

72

/377/

70

/317/

3.5

/27620/

100

/35/

80

/279/

4.0

age 12+

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 fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

89

8.1

/67307/

79

/1163/

79

/1045/

4.4

/119726/

98

/63/

93

/953/

98

/21/

4.0

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 opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

80

7.6

/18877/

74

/541/

76

/421/

4.0

/56073/

93

/29/

81

/287/

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.

68

56

7.3

/2649/

61

/44/

64

/62/

3.6

/2205/

73

/15/

68

/51/

The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and the great showman’s singular cinematic bag of tricks, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent—part Gospel, part Technicolor epic.

82

7.7

/12777/

70

/244/

75

/252/

3.9

/17502/

93

/44/

86

/308/

4.0

The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.

65

42

6.2

/1319/

61

/32/

62

/29/

3.4

/3272/

86

/7/

53

/12/

A minister is malevolent and sinister behind his righteous facade. He consorts with, and later extorts from, the owner of a gambling house, and betrays an honest girl, eventually driving them both to ruin.

77

67

7.5

/3826/

68

/101/

70

/83/

3.8

/5052/

90

/20/

87

/38/

Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.

81

73

7.9

/4984/

74

/100/

73

/87/

4.0

/5369/

95

/21/

90

/48/

A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.

72

61

7.5

/5435/

69

/134/

69

/113/

3.8

/6900/

A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.

84

83

8.0

/15536/

77

/416/

77

/345/

4.1

/32862/

100

/16/

89

/126/

An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.

75

57

7.7

/2893/

71

/77/

74

/73/

3.8

/4510/

71

/14/

82

/19/

Two lonely people in the big city meet and enjoy the thrills of an amusement park, only to lose each other in the crowd after spending a great day together. Will they ever see each other again?

86

8.1

/24552/

78

/654/

77

/556/

4.1

/42882/

97

/77/

93

/254/

4.0

When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.

76

69

7.5

/6527/

69

/140/

70

/124/

3.8

/9454/

95

/19/

78

/38/

Harold Lamb is so excited about going to college that he has been working to earn spending money, practicing college yells, and learning a special way of introducing himself that he saw in a movie. When he arrives at Tate University, he soon becomes the target of practical jokes and ridicule. With the help of his one real friend Peggy, he resolves to make every possible effort to become popular.

74

53

7.0

/2605/

64

/43/

69

/63/

3.6

/3366/

100

/7/

70

/9/

When a man becomes tyrannical towards his family, the women of the house decide to teach him a lesson in gratitude.

81

73

7.6

/4724/

73

/110/

73

/106/

3.8

/6442/

100

/6/

89

/54/

Speedy loses his job as a soda jerk, then spends the day with his girl at Coney Island. He then becomes a cab driver and delivers Babe Ruth to Yankee Stadium, where he stays to see the game. When the railroad tries to run the last horse-drawn trolley (operated by his girl's grandfather) out of business, Speedy organizes the neighborhood old-timers to thwart their scheme.

87

8.2

/144356/

80

/2584/

81

/2285/

4.2

/113601/

100

/49/

95

/774/

age 8+

A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.

77

76

7.3

/14781/

70

/354/

71

/322/

3.7

/25783/

96

/24/

77

/222/

82

/15/

London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.

60

?

6.4

/163/

57

/9/

53

/9/

3.3

/332/

A documentary on the 1924 Olympic Game in Paris.

61

11

6.3

/161/

62

/12/

55

/13/

3.3

/480/

A documentary covering the Olympic Games at Chamonix in 1924.

?

5.9

/85/

62

/4/

52

/8/

A documentary on the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

73

13

7.2

/236/

74

/7/

74

/14/

3.5

/398/

A profile of the 1928 Olympic Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

58

16

5.7

/271/

62

/19/

51

/15/

3.3

/906/

A documentary on the Olympic games of ancient Greece, made during the 1924 games.

?

5.8

/76/

53

/6/

52

/5/

A documentary on the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. Made by Istituto Luce, there is an understandable focus on Italian athletes, but it is the first Olympic documentary that describes the techniques of certain events.

78

70

7.6

/5197/

72

/118/

69

/97/

3.8

/5413/

92

/12/

85

/46/

The timid youngest son of the most important family in town must use his wits to win the respect of his strong father and the love of a beautiful new woman in town.

87

8.1

/38202/

79

/844/

79

/865/

4.1

/39960/

97

/30/

93

/341/

90

/7/

4.0

Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.

85

83

8.0

/14344/

77

/350/

78

/419/

4.1

/28860/

100

/20/

93

/131/

A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

81

76

7.7

/10151/

72

/230/

75

/203/

3.8

/15617/

100

/12/

88

/174/

On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder – a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster's daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo's desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.

66

26

6.7

/671/

65

/17/

66

/12/

3.4

/2085/

Zara, a phony psychic in a Hungarian carnival who, under the guidance of a Svengali-like con man crashes — and proceeds to swindle — American high society.

74

68

6.9

/6839/

66

/142/

67

/188/

3.5

/8385/

94

/18/

75

/61/