Mind those steps! Perhaps the most famous movie scene in the history of cinema. The documentary style story of mutiny aboard the Potemkin as the sailors fight oppression and fire on Tzarist troops attempting to quell rebellion in the city of Oddessa. Almost every shot is so beautiful it could work as a still.
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BROKEN BLOSSOMS / ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1919)
CertificationU Our Rating
Two works from the father of narrative cinema. In "Broken Blossoms" (1919); a Chinaman arrives in London to teach the locals the ideals of Buddhism but finds them most unreceptive and, instead, opens a shop which becomes the refuge for a xenophobic boxer's abused daughter. Lillian Gish is brilliant and Griffith poetic. "Abraham Lincoln", (1930), was Griffith's first talkie and is a straightforward biopic from childhood to his premature assassination.
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DER GOLEM WIE ER IN DIE WELT KAM (1920)
CertificationPG Our Rating
This classic piece of early silent cinema is noted not merely for its dramatic camerawork and cast of thousands but also for its contribution as a cinematic template, particularly in the genre of horror. Set in 16th Century Prague, a monstrous creature of Jewish myth is unleashed by a Rabbi to save his people from anti-Semitic legislation; unfortunately for all concerned The Golem's taste for destruction is not sated by the demands of his master, and so begins an unstoppable rampage.
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HAXAN (1922)
Certification15 Our Rating
A disturbing Danish film, reanacting witchcraft trials from the 15th and 16th on till the early 20th Century. Mixing scenes of reanactment, animation and illustrated slideshows to depict events of alleged real-life events and possessions, we are shown images of extreme cruelty which smack of the experimental edges of medical research. This must have been tantamount to the work of the devil when it first came out. Sick-minds they had back in 1922! The DVD has a choice of soundtracks, the best of
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STORM OVER ASIA (1928)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Adapted from a Novokshenov novel this semi-ethnographic, semi-polemical epic follows a Mongol uprising against British occupiers not long after the communist revolution in Russia. When a young herdsman is captured by the British a twist of fate leads them to believe he is a descendant of Genghis Khan and, hoping that such a presence will pacify the people, he is dully installed as a puppet leader. This as you might expect turns out to be a terrible error of judgement on the part of the interlope
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THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
CertificationU Our Rating
A disturbingly racist portrayal of the American Civil War, stunningly made, but unforgivably sympathetic to the KKK. This is an historic landmark of cinema, remarkable for its technical innovations if not its content.
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THE IRON HORSE (1924)
CertificationPG Our Rating
John Ford's 50th and most celebrated silent film demonstrates the ideals of expansion, enterprise and achievement, but condones racism and exploitation. The scale of this film surpassed all of the other silent westerns and put Ford in the history books. Double-dealing, vengeance and romance are all covered with a poetic sense of history as we see the country united by a trans-continental railroad, realized by a great man and brought about through the sweat of the working man. A classic, black an
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