His Official Appointment (1912)

Withstanding misery, a young man who seemed to live like an ordinary person suffers and tries to seek help from the closest person named friend.

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.

Sallie Gardner at a Gallop was one of the earliest silent films — a production experiment by the photographer Eadward Muybridge on June 15, 1878 that led to the development of motion pictures. The motion picture consists of 24 photographs in a fast-motion series that were shown on a zoopraxiscope.

A bricklayer and his wife clash over his end-of-the-week partying.

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.

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

The mysterious Count Orlok summons Thomas Hutter to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen. After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger

A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.

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

In this sound-era silent film, a tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower seller.

Professor Barbenfouillis and five of his colleagues from the Academy of Astronomy travel to the Moon aboard a rocket propelled by a giant cannon. Once on the lunar surface, the bold explorers face the many perils hidden in the caves of the mysterious planet.

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnnie Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

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.

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.