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Free silent films
Most silent film is gone. What survives does so because somebody kept a print in a shed, or a collector struck a copy, or an archive reached a nitrate reel before it went. That is why the material here matters more than its condition suggests: for a good number of these titles, the copy you are watching is close to all there is.
Silent films are also where our audio description work fits most naturally, because a silent film has no dialogue to talk over and the title cards can simply be read aloud. Where we have written description for one of these, its page says so.
6 films
2 of them carry an audio description track written and recorded here — all the described films are listed together.
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One Week (1920)Audio described
A wedding present arrives: a build-it-yourself house, and a printed card telling the newlyweds to put it up according to the numbers on the boxes. They do exactly that. What…
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The Great Train Robbery (1903)Audio described
Two men walk into a railroad telegraph office, level revolvers at the operator, make him work the key, beat him down and tie him under his own desk. They take on the train at the…
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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)
The Universal Film Manufacturing Company was not known in the silent era as premier producer of motion pictures. Yet, in 1916 they produced a film that could not be made…
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Bronenosets Potyomkin (Battleship Potemkin) (1925)
Considered one of the most important films in the history of silent pictures, as well as possibly Eisenstein's greatest work, Battleship Potemkin brought Eisenstein's theories of…
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Frankenstein (1910)
This is Edison's COMPLETE 1910 silent Frankenstein film.
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The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in Faust) for unknown Christine Daae…