Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

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 at the time.

1927-09-23 | de

The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.

2007-09-02 | en

Nanook of the North

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.

1922-06-11 | en

Finlandia

A documentary from Erkki Karu, one of the earliest pioneers of Finnish cinema: This government-produced propaganda film introduces the nature, sports, military, agriculture and capital of Finland.

1922-10-21 | fi

La remise des décorations

1903-04-15 | fr

The Funeral of Vera Kholodnaya

This film records the vast public response to the early death of Vera Kholodnaya, the first star of Russian cinema.

1919-06-29 | ru

Kings of Comedy: Masters of the Silent Screen

A documentary about some of the comedians of the silent era featuring clips from their films and biographical information.

2007-12-31 | en

The Dangers of the Fly

The Dangers of the Fly is an educational film made by Ernesto Gunche and Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, also responsible for Gaucho Nobility (1915), the biggest blockbuster of Argentinean silent cinema. De la Pera was a talented photographer, always willing to try new gadgets and techniques. This film experiments with microphotography in the style of Jean Comandon's films for Pathé and it is part of a series which included a film about mosquitoes and paludism and another one about cancer, which are considered lost. Flies were a popular subject of silent films and there are more than a dozen titles featuring them in the teens and early twenties.

1920-11-23 | es

Carmencita

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.

1894-03-14 | xx

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge

A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.

1888-10-15 | xx

The Last Word in Chickens

This 10-minute short documentary exploring the shifting state of the American poultry industry was preserved in 2015 from an original nitrate print. More information is available on the film's page in the National Film Preservation Foundation's website, where this version can be found featuring original music by Michael D. Mortilla.

1924-01-01 | nl

Los 5 Faust de F. W. Murnau

2002-11-26 | es

El circo

Madrid, Spain, 1949. The Circo Americano arrives in the city. While the big top is pitched in a vacant lot, the troupe parades through the grand avenues: the band, a witty impersonator, the Balodys, acrobats, jugglers, acrobatic skaters, clowns and… Buffallo Bill.

1950-12-31 | es

Days of Thrills and Laughter

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

1961-03-21 | en

Dickson Greeting

William K.L. Dickson brings his hat from his one hand to the other and moves his head slightly, as a small nod toward the audience. This was the first film produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company to be shown to public audiences and the press.

1891-05-20 | xx

A Day with the Gipsies

A troupe of gypsies takes a traveler along with them on their day trip.

1922-01-01 | en

Man with a Movie Camera

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

1929-05-12 | ru

Passage of Venus

Photo sequence of the rare transit of Venus over the face of the Sun, one of the first chronophotographic sequences. In 1873, P.J.C. Janssen, or Pierre Jules César Janssen, invented the Photographic Revolver, which captured a series of images in a row. The device, automatic, produced images in a row without human intervention, being used to serve as photographic evidence of the passage of Venus before the Sun, in 1874.

1874-12-09 | fr

Encierro de toros

1898-01-30 | es

The History of the Civil War

The epic story of the Russian Civil War (1918-21): the White Terror, the counterrevolutionary uprisings, the guerrilla war, the Kolchak front, the Wrangel front and the Kronstadt rebellion. Chaos and violence, devastation and death.

1921-06-01 | ru