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The Betrothed
🇮🇹 Italy The 17th CenturyBased on the famous historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, and set between 1628 and 1630 in Lombardy "northern Italy" during the Spanish domination, tells of the contrasted marriage between the two young textile workers Renzo and Lucia. The 1922 version is the most ambitious and spectacular film in all Italian silent cinema, with remarkable mass scenes and some images that triggered the censorship.
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Orphans of the Storm
🇫🇷 FranceA dramatic epic — France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.
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Jánošík
🇸🇰 Slovakia The 18th CenturyJanosík, a friar retrained as a bandit, becomes the farmers' symbol of resistance and fight against the feudal conditions.
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The Murder of General Gryaznov
🇬🇪 Georgia The 1900sRevolutionary uprising of Georgian laborers in 1905.
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The Black Tulip
The 17th CenturyIn 17th century Holland, a faction of royalists is scheming to restore the monarchy and jail the De Witt brothers, who control the Republic. At the same time Tulip Fever is raging, and bulb-grower Cornelis van Baerle tries to obtain the secret of black tulips. Van Baerle will soon find himself threatened by radical royalists and rival bulb-grower Isaac van Boxtel.
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Anna Boleyn
England The 16th CenturyThe story of the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII, whose marriage to the Henry led to momentous political and religious turmoil in England.
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Der Ochsenkrieg
The 14th CenturyBerchtesgaden in the 15th century: A power struggle between mountain peasants who have been raising milk cows on common land and a village bailiff trying to gain power driving them off the land. Both have a ducal documents that states the opposite.
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Sir Arne's Treasure
🇸🇪 Sweden The 16th CenturyThree Scottish officers, including Sir Archi, murder Sir Arne and his household for a coffin filled with gold. The only survivor is Elsalill, who moves to relatives in Marstrand. There she meets a charming young officer- Sir Archi- and she soon understands that he was one of the murderers.
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The Lost Battalion
🇫🇷 France The 1910sAnd he told them to go to hell — World War I, October 1918. The more than 500 men of the 77th Infantry Division of the United States Army, who have been recruited in New York City and trained in Yaphank, are sent to France, to help break down the German defenses located in the Argonne forest…
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The Plague in Florence
🇮🇹 Italy The 14th CenturySuddenly appearing in Florence, an evil seductress causes Cesare, the city's ruler, and his son to both fall madly in love with her. The son, killing his father before an order to torture the woman can be carried out, then turns the city's churches into dens of sexual debauchery. Acts of evil and corruption continue unabated until the arrival of Death, who brings with her a horrible plague which she is about to loose upon the city.
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Veritas vincit
The 1910s"Truth Wins" - A history film that is particularly elaborate in terms of its features and that attempts to illustrate the perpetual victory of the truth about the lie in three epic episodes.
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The Romance of Lady Hamilton
England 🇮🇹 Italy The 1800sAn aged ambassador's wife loves an admiral but is rejected by society after his death.
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The Sinking of the Lusitania
Atlantic Ocean The 1910sAnimation, Short — Winsor McCay recreates the sinking of the ocean liner Lusitania by a German U-boat in this propaganda piece designed to stir up anti-German sentiment during World War I.
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The Life Story of David Lloyd George
Wales EnglandA biopic of Britain's Great War Prime Minister.
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Frate Sole
The 13th CenturyThe intersecting lives of Francis and Claire of Assisi. Claire turns down the proposals of the wealthy and dedicates herself to the Lord. Francis is the son of a merchant who turns from his life of cavorting with courtesans to an ascetic life in service of the Lord-- Who opens up the path to sainthood for the both of them.
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Lola Montez
The 19th CenturyDancer Lola Montez is the star of Madrid's theaters. All the important men are after her, among them the English ambassador. But the leader of the "Carlist - Movement", a gang of desperados, kidnaps her, she falls for him and he proposes. But the English ambassador is trying to improve the Spanish-English relations and sent his spies after her, getting the information about her future groom, and the Spanish government is very interested in getting ahead.
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Cleopatra
The 1st Century BCThe story of Cleopatra, the fabulous queen of Egypt, and the epic romances between her and the greatest men of Rome, Julius Caesar and Antony. (IMDb) Only a fragment of this film is known to still exist.
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A Tale of Two Cities
England 🇫🇷 France The 18th CenturyAt the outbreak of the French Revolution, Charles Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned former family servant. He is himself imprisoned and condemned by the revolutionary forces there. His wife, the former Lucie Manette, is secretly loved by a gentlemanly wastrel, Sydney Carton. Carton embarks on a daring plan to save the husband of the woman he loves.
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Barnaby Lee
The 17th CenturyPirate melodrama.
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The Lincoln Cycle
The 19th CenturyThis remarkable series of 10 short silent dramas by John M. Stahl, produced by Benjamin Chapin as a vehicle for his performance as Abraham Lincoln, are structured entirely around memory and recollections of the past.
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The Spirit of '76
Pennsylvania The 18th CenturyCatherine Montour (Adda Gleason), a striking half-breed Indian princess, and mistress of King George III (Jack Cosgrove) aspires to become the first Queen of America when the revolution breaks out.
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Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
🇮🇶 Iraq 🇮🇹 Italy The 1910s The 1st Century The 16th CenturyThe Cruel Hand of Intolerance — The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
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Joan the Woman
The 1910s The 15th CenturyA WWI English officer is inspired the night before a dangerous mission by a vision of Joan of Arc, whose story he relives.
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The Dumb Girl of Portici
🇮🇹 Italy The 17th CenturyFenella, a poor Italian girl, falls in love with a Spanish nobleman, but their affair triggers a revolution and national catastrophe.
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Winning a Continent
🇿🇦 South Africa The 1830sThis epic film was one of the first South African dramatic film productions. It tells the story of the Boers’ Great Trek at the end of the 1830s, concluding with a hegemonic reconstruction of the 1838 Battle of Blood River, where a few hundred armed Afrikaners defeated several thousand Zulus.
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The Crisis
Mississippi The 1860s The 1850sAmerica's Greatest American Story — Stephen Brice, a young lawyer in Civil War-era St. Louis, falls in love with Virginia Carvel, the daughter of his benefactor. But she is loyal to the South and Brice is committed to Lincoln's cause. In the course of the war, their convictions separate them, and Virginia becomes engaged to her cousin Clarence Colfax, a Confederate officer. Brice becomes an officer under General Sherman, and eventually finds himself faced with the captured Colfax, facing execution for spying. Brice must decide whether or not to intercede in his rival's behalf.
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The Birth of a Nation
South Carolina The 1870s The 1860sThe Fiery Cross of the Ku Klux Klan! — Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
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Martyrs of the Alamo
Texas The 1830sThe story of the defense of the mission-turned-fortress by 185 Texans against an overwhelming Mexican army in 1836.
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The Coward
Virginia The 1860sSet during the American Civil War, Keenan stars as a Virginia colonel and Charles Ray as his weak-willed son. The son is forced, at gunpoint, by his father to enlist in the Confederate army. He is terrified by the war and deserts during a battle. The film focuses on the son's struggle to overcome his cowardice.
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Jane Shore
EnglandThe life and loves of Jane Shore, mistress to Edward IV. An early British epic.
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Cabiria
🇹🇳 Tunisia 🇮🇹 Italy The 3rd Century BCAll Nations Bow to This - The Greatest Spectacle the World Has Seen! — Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?
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Cajus Julius Caesar
🇮🇹 Italy The 1st Century BCA colossal epic film like this that tries to depict the life and glory of Julius Caesar, must have a variety of scenery appropriate to the film's hero. This includes the Senate and its conspirators..or .. strange places beyond Rome full of barbarians that must fall under the Rome yoke. Let's not forget the sequences depicting the masses mentioned before.. or.. the human side of Caesar and his troublesome relationship with his son Brutus.
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For Ireland's Sake
🇮🇪 Ireland The 18th CenturySet in the late 1790s, a depiction of Irish villagers rebelling against British occupation (Red Coats) over the right to bear arms.
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Richelieu
🇫🇷 France The 17th CenturyBased on a play by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Originally released in six reels, but later cut to four due to poor reviews. A lost film.
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Quo Vadis?
🇮🇹 Italy The 1st Century"Quo Vadis?" was a landmark in early Italian historical epic films, and certainly Enrico Guazzoni’s grand scale masterpiece laid the foundations for what genuine colossal Italian spectacles should be. It had a great deal of influence on Giovanni Pastrone’s "Cabiria" (1914) and D.W. Griffith’s "Intolerance" (1916).
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1812
The 1810sMade in 1912, this film has become known as one of the greatest pieces of pre-Soviet cinema. The silent film tells the story of the Patriotic war of 1812 when Napoleon attempted to invade Russia. This joint French and Russian film sparked major excitement in Moscow at its premier screening and continues to entertain audiences throughout the world today. The 32-minute silent film was the point of origin for some of the more advanced camera techniques used today. Sirotin of the Voice of Russia said that, “The film is interesting to spectators even today and is frequently shown both in Russia and abroad.”
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Cleopatra
The 1st Century BCThe fabled queen of Egypt's affair with Roman general Marc Antony is ultimately disastrous for both of them.
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His Trust Fulfilled
🇺🇸 United States of America The 1860sContinuing where His Trust (1911) leaves off, George takes care of his deceased master's daughter after her mother's death. He sacrifices his own meager savings to give the girl a good life, until the money runs out and he tries to steal money from the girl's rich cousin.
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The Battle
🇺🇸 United States of America The 1860sUnion soldiers march off to battle amid cheering crowds. After the battle turns against the Union Army, one soldier runs away, hiding in his girlfriend's house. Ashamed of his cowardice, he finds his courage and crosses enemy lines to bring help to his trapped comrades.
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Swords and Hearts
🇺🇸 United States of America The 1860sA poor girl is secretly in love with a wealthy young planter.
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
🇫🇷 FranceEsmeralda, a beautiful gypsy street dancer, arouses the desire of men, especially of Claude Frollo, the archdeacon of Notre Dame. The latter asks Quasimodo, the deaf and deformed bell-ringer of the cathedral, to kidnap the girl. Quasimodo, who has been adopted by Frollo and obeys his every word, captures the gypsy but she is saved thanks to Phoebus, a handsome captain, and his archers. Arrested by Phoebus, the hunchback is condemned to be flogged at the pillory. When Esmeralada, moved to pity by his lot, gives him water to drink, Quasimodo falls in love with her. Later, Phoebus is stabbed to death and Esmeralda is wrongly accused of the murder. Sentenced to hang, she is saved by Quasimodo who offers her asylum and... the love of his heart.
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May revolution
The 1810s¡Argentina rises! — La Revolución de Mayo (in Spanish, The May Revolution) is an Argentine silent movie made in 1909 and premiered in 1910. As the name denotes, it is focused on the events of the May Revolution, whose centennial took place by then. It was directed by Mario Gallo, and it was the first Argentine film made with professional actors.
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A Sixteenth Century Russian Wedding
The 16th CenturyA dramatization of a wedding in 16th-century Russia, between members of two prominent boyar families (based on paintings by Konstantin Makovskii): Three matchmakers first visit the family of the prospective bride, and then do the same with the prospective bridegroom's family. Later, as the time of the wedding draws near, the bride is dressed with great formality and prepared for the ceremony, as the guests get ready to celebrate the upcoming wedding.
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