Silent Classics

Marking the centenary of Sergei Eisenstein’s landmark film, with thrilling music by Pet Shop Boys.

The Czech archive version of one of cinema's last and most luminous silent masterpieces, an enduring fable of love, loss and redemption.

An extraordinary story of Shackleton's survival in the wastes of Antarctica, now considered the world's first documentary feature.

A scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism - Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first film is a classic of Surrealist cinema.

Fritz Lang’s expressionist, dystopian vision is one of the first science fiction feature films, and is arguably the most influential.

Premiere. A breathtaking and poignant account of the valiant 1924 British assault on the awe-inspiring peak, beautifully restored by the BFI.

A major BFI restoration starring Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of three classic Arthur Conan Doyle cases.

An incontestable masterpiece of silent cinema, Carl Dreyer's moving biopic features one of the most powerful performances ever captured on film.

A fixture in the critical canon almost since its premiere, Eisenstein’s film about a 1905 naval mutiny was revolutionary in both form and content.

Oscar Micheaux’s startling silent classic – the earliest surviving feature from an African-American director.

Paul Robeson's remarkable film debut, the star playing dual roles in this key work of African American cinema from pioneering filmmaker Oscar Micheaux

Dazzling document of Soviet life, by Dziga Vertov, showing a living city and the people and machines that propel it.