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THE
TOP 5
PROJECT

WEEK NO. SIXTEEN
Main Page (including links to all past Top 5 weeks)

THE TOP 5 SILENT FILMS:

view full results       see how points are awarded
Rank Film Points L #1
#1 Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) 51 14 6
#2 La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) 41 9 6
#3 Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) 26 11 1
#4 The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926) 23 7 1
#5 Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) 17 5 1
L=How many lists each film appears on             #1=How many number one votes each film recieves

Another record setting week here at The Top 5 Project. We had twenty-two participants this week (breaking the old record of seventeen). The big winner you ask? With not much surprise, Murnau's Sunrise, with fifty-one points (another record) and appearing on fourteen lists (another record), came in first, with La Passion de Jeanne d'arc a strong yet somewhat distant second, at forty-one points. A real battle ensued for the rest of the Top 5, with Potemkin, The General and Metropolis rounding things out. Nosferatu finished in sixth place just one point below Metropolis. Overall, this was a great week with some great choices to choose from, which I'm sure made it rather difficult for all involved.

Individual lists:

Albert H. Muth
Auteurophile

This is the most impossible category Herr Knox has chosen to date. There are just so many masterpieces, that naming five is completely inconsequential. But, herewith, oh mighty webmaster.

  1. La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928) - The single film that leaves you the most shaken, impassioned, and overwhelmed.

  2. The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) - Yes it's racist, but get over it. It created narrative film grammar.

  3. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) - Light, movement, editing, composition, everything is masterful. Pure cinema.

  4. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931) - Charlie's best. I know the Keatonophiles are pissed, but I favor The Little Tramp.

  5. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) - The perfection of the grammar of film editing. "So comrades come rally, the last fight let us face, the Internationale unites the human race."



Jonathan Rosenbaum
Film Critic, Chicago Reader
Author, Essential Cinema, Movie Mutations and many others

  1. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

  2. Tih Minh (Louis Feuillade, 1919)

  3. Greed (Eric von Stroheim, 1925)

  4. I Was Born, But... (Yasujiro Ozu, 1932)

  5. Spione (Fritz Lang, 1928)




Kent Jones
Editor-at-Large, Film Comment

  1. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

  2. Way Down East (D.W. Griffith, 1920)

  3. The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928)

  4. The River (Frank Borzage, 1929)

  5. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (D.W. Griffith, 1912)

It's difficult to choose one film by Chaplin, Lang, Keaton, Stroheim or Lloyd.


David Sterritt
Chairman, National Society of Film Critics

  1. The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928) - King Vidor's masterpiece is a great story and an incisive analysis of everything from American marriage to American business, superbly acted and enhanced with a pitch-perfect number of Expressionist touches. The results are stunning on every level.

  2. The Man with the Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) - Perhaps the most inventive and audacious of the "city symphony" films, this is a superb illustration of Dziga Vertov's theoretical views and a sensational visual experience in its own right.

  3. Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916) - Of course some portions are underdeveloped and unimaginably filmed. But overall this is a towering achievement, and few movies can be called more ambitious by the standards of their day. It's at once a genuine film folly and a genuine cinematic masterwork.

  4. The Seashell and the Clergyman (Germaine Dulac, 1928) - Antonin Artaud thought director Germaine Dulac drained the subversive passion from his scenario, but few movies of the silent era -- or any era -- have a keener sense of on-the-edge experimentation. Make this a tie with Dulac's more conventional but equally powerful "The Smling Madame Beudet."

  5. Dog Star Man (Stan Brakhage, 1962-64) - Silent cinema lives on in some quarters of today's avant-garde scene. Stan Brakhage was a courageous pioneer who inspired countless others to keep the flame alive, and this is arguably his most influential work. Make this a tie with "Meshes of the Afternoon" by Maya Deren, a key figure in Brakhage's own early development.



Donato Totaro
Editor, Offscreen
Film Studies Lecturer, Concordia University

  1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Weine, 1919) - A masterpiece of art direction rather than directing, but still one of the most influential films ever, and still aesthetically audacious.

  2. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) - The meeting of two great industries –Germany, US– two great styles –Expressionism, Realism– missing perfection only because of some misguided comic relief. Perhaps the greatest love story ever.

  3. Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1930) - Pure cinematic poetry. One sublime scene after another, and then it is over.

  4. Vampyr (Carl Dreyer, 1932) - Still the closest any film has gotten to a pure dream-state.

  5. Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943) - Cheating? Perhaps. It was either this or a Brakhage silent, but Deren gets the edge for getting there first.



Jeffrey M. Anderson
Film Critic & Freelance Entertainment Writer
San Francisco Examiner, Las Vegas Weekly, Oakland Tribune

  1. La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) - This is my pick for the greatest picture ever made, the one that comes closest to transcendental grace. If any actor today grows too arrogant, too convinced of their actorly greatness, then studying the performance of Maria Falconetti ought to provide a properly humbling experience.

  2. Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924) - And this is my favorite movie -- hilarious, endlessly inventive, and endlessly fascinated with the tricks and dexterity of the motion picture camera. (It's also a sentimental favorite; I saw it on a first date with the girl I would eventually marry.)

  3. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) - It's hard to pick a favorite Murnau, but this one -- as well as "Nosferatu" -- stands out because it shows the director working with less lofty material, turning a wretched love triangle into the stuff of high art through sheer personality and poetry alone.

  4. The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924) - Douglas Fairbanks is still a force to be reckoned with. His onscreen energy, daring and dizzily exuberant personality are still unmatched. All of his films are worth seeing, but this one crossed over into greatness with its truly awesome sets (by William Cameron Menzies) and its uniquely vertical camerawork.

  5. Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915) - Any of Feuillade's serials will do ("Judex" and "Fantomas" are also available), just to prove that his use of natural locations and his crisp, organic storytelling are still among the most effortless and masterful in the history of cinema. Who today can keep a story going for six hours without a yawn?

Runners up:
The Unknown (1927), Die Nibelungen (1924), Foolish Wives (1922), The Circus (1928), Pandora's Box (1928), Broken Blossoms (1919), Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Seventh Heaven (1927), The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), Earth (1930)


Laura Clifford
Film Critic & Co-Host, Reeling: The Movie Review Show

  1. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) - Murnau was the master. This film is so engrossing and visually innovative, it doesn't even feel like you're watching a silent film. Murnau was a huge influence on Hitchcock and you can hear Hitchcock's theme "The Dance of the Marionettes," in "Sunrise."

  2. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) - Murnau again with one of the creepiest creepfests ever, loaded with atmospheric dread.

  3. M (Fritz Lang, 1931) - Fritz Lang's highly influential tale of a child murderer.

  4. Battleship Potemkin (SErgei Eisenstein, 1925) - Eisenstein's film is known for its steps sequence, but the film is so much more, both an anatomy of mob rule and Soviet oppression.

  5. Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915) - A serial about murderers and theives as if sprung from the mind of Edward Gorey...

Honorable Mentions:
The Last Laugh (Murnau again), Fritz Lang's Spione (Spies) and Metropolis, Safety Last!, Pandora's Box, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Guy Maddin's Tales from the Gimli Hospital and Cowards Bend the Knee...


Robin Clifford
Film Critic & Co-Host, Reeling: The Movie Review Show

  1. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) - Murnau's masterpiece is probably one of the most timeless films ever made. It would easily be on my top five films of all time list.

  2. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) - Another Murnau classic and a film with one of the scariest monsters ever with Max Schreck as the title character.

  3. The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) - Griffith's landmark film set the stage for filmmaking to this day. Some may object to its racist views but I don't think anyone can deny it is an early film masterpiece.

  4. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) - Eisenstein may have been a propaganda filmmaker for the Soviet Union and Stalin but one cannot deny the power of this film. The Odessa steps scene must be one of the most reproduced and copied scenes ever.

  5. The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924) - Again, Murnau, with a story that doesn't use a single title card to help the narrative. The man was, simply, a genius.



Kelley Baker
Filmmaker

  1. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) - a lot of people have made fun of the Odessa Steps sequence over the years, but it is great! What Eisenstein accomplished in this film is nothing short of amazing. This film began my love affair of the early Russian films, and the Filmmakers who wrote their film theories down. I have a lot of their writings. They were able to do so much with so little. They really had to plan everything they were shooting and use as much of it as possible. They had no money, and no film. This was right after the Russian Revolution. Not a lot of film and equipment laying around. This film has influenced me in the way that I make my films. I plan and plan and plan, because like the early Russians, I don't have much money either. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you plan. I still like seeing this film.

  2. The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926) - Buster Keaton is the man, and he shot this movie in Oregon. I have always liked this movie. Maybe because I have always identified with Keaton more than any of the other silent era comedians. He was not a good looking man, and his humor very often comes from pain. I always find a lot in his movies. I think he was a true genius with his movies.

  3. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) - I am a life long fan of Fritz Lang! Of all of his silent films, this is my favorite. The Dr. Mabuse film is a close second. But Metropolis was ahead of it's time. I saw a print of this film when I was in college and it lead me to finding everything I could by Lang. I even had the opportunity to have dinner one night with a woman who was Lang's Assistant in Hollywood for many years. I got to hear great stories about the man.

  4. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Weine, 1919) - I like the look of this movie, and I read some where once that Lang was supposed to direct this and couldn't. Supposedly he was involved with the set design. An interesting take on madness. Something that I think many filmmakers and artists are interested in.

  5. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) - It's those darn Germans again! As creepy as they come. I remember the pointed ears, long fingernails, and fangs of our main character. That creeped me out. I chuckled at the bad "day for night" photography, but hey! They did the best they could. It was 1922 for God's sake! I think a lot of horror movies owe a debt to this movie. It was one of the first. Murnau was a great director who died too young.

Honorable mentions:
I know, I know, I haven't mentioned Chaplin. The Gold Rush would probably be number 6. I love eating the shoe, and the little table top dance. Truly a masterpiece Chaplin was a master of his craft.


J.E. Snavely
Home Theatre Cinephile

  1. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)

  2. La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl th. Dreyer, 1928)

  3. Metroplis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

  4. Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929)

  5. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)



Peter Sobczynski
Film Critic, eFilmCritic.com

Kind of a broad category but these are five that I respond to, knowing full well that I am leaving many worthy titles out.

  1. La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl th. Dreyer, 1928)

  2. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)

  3. Greed (Eric von Stroheim, 1925)

  4. Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)

  5. Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1923)



R. Dixon Smith
Film Critic, MovieMail UK

  1. Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927)

  2. Sunrise (F. W. Murnau, 1927)

  3. La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928)

  4. The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström, 1920)

  5. The General (Buster Keaton, 1926)



Carter Liotta
Filmmaker

  1. Wings (William A. Wellman, 1927) - The actors really flew their own planes.

  2. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) - Love that False Maria!

  3. The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925) - Quite gritty for a 20's reel.

  4. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) - though they really ripped off Brian DePalma.

  5. Silent Movie (Mel Brooks, 1976) - Ba-Ba-LOO!



Rick Curnutte
Film Critic & Editor, The Film Journal
Member, Online Film Critics Society

  1. La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928)

  2. The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926)

  3. Way Down East (D.W. Griffith, 1920)

  4. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

  5. The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928)



Michael Parent
Film Student

  1. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) - German Cinema was at the top of the Art before the Nazis took the Power. Nosferatu is an Expressionnist Film and to me the best adaptation of Bram Stocker's Dracula. The set is frightening, Max Schreck scares me up and the movie seems so real and from an other time that I even believe it everytime I see it.

  2. Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936) - Being a huge fan of Chaplin's work and an History student I can surely say that this movie about the Great Depression is so right and hilarious that the interprete of the Tramp was conscious of the history he was living in. Well in my Silent Film Top 5 it has to be one of Chaplin's Film and my favorite is Modern Times.

  3. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) - Genius of this time didn't lived long and it reflects the change of every societies in the beginning of the 20th century. Battleship Potemkin announces a conscience for the people and in Russia the Revolution and the rise of Communism. The sequence with the Odessa steps is so famous that even in other masterpieces it was refered. It's the definition of a new language in Cinema that Eisenstein presented in this Masterpiece.

  4. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) - One of the first Sci-Fi film of all time. Even if Lang said it was to show the society of the time; industrialisation, the rise of a authoritarian governement and the people being slaves for the big industries. The futuristic views and sets of this magnificent movie are near the Science Fiction Film.

  5. The Birth Of A Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915) - Griffith directed the first motion picture of all time with this epic on American History. He is a pioneer for film makers, directors, editors, photography etc. Well the first master of the Seventh Art.

Runners Up:
Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel), L'Age D'Or (Luis Buñuel), The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin), City Lights (Charles Chaplin), La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer), Intolerance (D.W. Griffith), Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith), The General (Buster Keaton), Sunrise (F.W. Murnau), Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene)


Jeff Cardarelli
Film Enthusiast

  1. The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926)

  2. The Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)

  3. The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925)

  4. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)

  5. The Cameraman (Buster Keaton & Edward Sedgwick, 1928)



Adam Trovillion
Film Enthusiast

  1. La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928)

  2. Greed (Erich Von Stroheim, 1925)

  3. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)

  4. The Man with the Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

  5. Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927)

Runners-Up:
Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Metropolis, Sunrise, Un Chien Andalou and City Lights.


Doug Pratt
DVD Critic, DVDLaser.com

  1. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

  2. The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926)

  3. Orphans of the Storm (D.W. Griffith, 1921)

  4. Meshes in the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943)

  5. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)



Eric Enders
Film Enthusiast

  1. Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)

  2. The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925)

  3. The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926)

  4. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

  5. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)



Matt Severson
Film Enthusiast

  1. La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928)

  2. Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929)

  3. Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926)

  4. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)

  5. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)




Kevin Cassidy
Film Enthusiast

  1. Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927)

  2. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo, 1925) - This film is twice as exciting as the more famous remake by William Wyler - mind you the 1907 version by Sidney Olcott is also a lot more interesting than Wyler's version.

  3. I was Born But… (Yasujiro Ozu, 1932)

  4. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

  5. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)



Kevyn Knox
Film Critic, Essayist + Historian

Probably the most creative, inventive, experimental era in cinema's vast history, so narrowing it down to just five was rather difficult - I can think of about three dozen possible candidates (which you can see in my runners-up below) - although two of them were rather easy, both being part of my own personal list of all-time top 10 films. Also, due to the aforementioned love of silent films, many great filmmakers, such as Chaplin, Lang, Griffith, Eisenstein, von Stroheim and Gance, are delegated to runners-up status. As another note, I usually try to stay away from naming more than one film per director on these lists, but there was just no way to keep Murnau's two films from not making the grade.

  1. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

  2. La Passion de Jeanne d'arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928)

  3. The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924)

  4. The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926)

  5. The Man With the Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

Runners-up:
La Voyage dans la lune (Méliès), City Lights (Chaplin), Modern Times (Chaplin), Intolerance (Griffith), The Birth of a Nation (Griffith), Greed (von Stroheim), Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein), Our Hospitality (Keaton, etc), Napoleon (Gance), Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel), Dog Star Man (Brakhage), Window Water Baby Moving (Brakhage), Heart of the World (Maddin)

*points are given as follows: for numbered lists, first place recieves 5 points, second place recieves 4, third place 3, fourth place 2 and fifth place gets 1 point; for unumbered lists, each film will recieve 3 points; total points are then tallied up and a comprehensive Top 5 list is created


The Next Topic is:
Name The Top 5 Films by Women Directors

e-mail me at kevynknox@thecinematheque.com with your picks for week #17,
no later than 4pm on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2006.

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