Horror, by F. W. Murnau, German, 1926.
Faust is an elderly scholar who has lost faith in life. He is defeated by his inability to help others and by his awareness of his own mortality. One day, he meets Mephistopheles, who offers him a pact: in exchange for his soul, Mephistopheles will give him ...

Science fiction, by Yakov Protazanov, Soviet Union, 1924.
The film follows the story of Los, an engineer who dreams of traveling through space. One day, during an experiment, he receives a transmission from Mars, which seems to come from Queen Aelita. Los builds a spaceship and departs for Mars, ...

Short film, comedy, by Sergei Eisenstein, 1923, Soviet Union.
The film consists of 3 parts. The opening scene begins with a shot of Eisenstein taking off his cap and bowing in front of the poster revealing the stage play, followed by a shot of Grigori Aleksandrov as Glumov, in front of the same p...

Historical, drama, by David Wark Griffith, United States, 1916.
The Kolossal that changed the history of cinema by bringing ingenious and numerous innovations also to the cinematographic language. Made by Griffith as a response to accusations of racism for his previous film, Birth of a Nation. Fo...

Drama, war, by Sergej Eisenstein, Russia, 1925.
The revolt of the sailors of the battleship Potemkin and the citizens of Odessa against the ruthless police of the tsar, who reacts with reprisals and carries out a massacre. Sergej Eisenstein makes a film commissioned by Goskino, the office for cin...

Drama, horror, by Teinosuke Kinugasa, Japan, 1926.
A page of madness is an independent film shot on a nearly non-existent budget and then lost for forty-five years. Fortunately the director rediscovered it in his archive in 1971. It is a film made by a group of Japanese avant-garde artists, the S...

Comedy, by Jean Vigo, France, 1933.
The holidays are over and it's time for the kids to return to the terrible boarding school, run by obtuse and conformist tutors, unable to encourage the growth of any spirit of freedom and creativity. The only thing these austere professors are capable of is as...

Documentary, by Benjamin Christensen, Sweden, 1922.
Desecration of tombs, torture, demon-possessed nuns and witches' sabbath: Haxan, Witchcraft Through the Ages is an incredibly original and unconventional film that has become legendary over time. Between documentary and dramatic fiction, the fil...

Drama, by F.W. Murnau, Germany, 1924.
Jannings is the doorman of the Atlantic hotel in Berlin, happy with his role and his uniform. But his boss thinks he is too old to receive customers at the entrance and sets him up to clean the bathrooms. Jannings, deeply troubled by what happened, gets drunk...

Horror, fantasy, by Robert Wiene, Germany, 1920.
The symbolic film of cinematic expressionism. Francis tells a story to a man: in 1830, in a small town, a guy named Caligari, plays the barker at the fair to present the attraction of him, a sleepwalker that he holds under hypnosis in a coffin. The...

Documentary, by Dziga Vertov, Russia, 1934.
The most famous film while the director Dziga Vertov was alive, a great success of socialist documentary cinema. An experimental documentary celebrating Lenin with the use of sound and folk songs. The liberation of Muslim women in Uzbekistan, footage of...

Documentary, by Dziga Vertov, Russia, 1929.
After a few years spent making propaganda documentaries, Dziga Vertov realizes his masterpiece, inspired by the theories on reality cinema and Kinoglaz. An experimental visual symphony with futurist roots. An ordinary day of a cinematographer wandering ...

Short films, by Auguste and Louis Lumière, France, 1895-1900.
The Lumière brothers, "official" inventors of the cinema, made more than 50 short films in just a few years, the so-called "animated views", real-life scenes and short-lived gags. Viewers from all over the world were fascinated by the ...

Short film, adventure, fantasy, adventure, by Georges Méliès, France, 1912.
Perhaps the best film made by Méliès, full of extravagant special effects. Professor Maboul, played by steeso Méliès and six other people try to reach the North Pole. While the man uses a plane and crosses the constellati...

Short film, fantasy, by Georges Méliès, France, 1903.
Freely adapted from La Biche au Bois, a popular tale by the Goignard brothers, and from "Sleeping Beauty". Georges Méliès plays Prince Bel-Azor. Most of the film was shot indoors, while the final scene of the wedding procession was shot outdoo...

Short film, fantasy, by Georges Méliès, France, 1906.
Adaptation of the Faust legend, with elements borrowed from magic shows. In addition to directing and acting in it, Méliès personally takes care of all the technical and artistic aspects of the film, at a time when the French film industry was...

Short film, fantasy, by Georges Méliès, France, 1905.
Georges Melies makes one of his most narrative films inspired by the story of Washington Irving, who takes a nap and wakes up 20 years later. When he wakes up and returns home, he discovers that his wife is gone and that his friends have died ...