My top ten films for each year of the 1920s. These are always up for revision as I watch more films, revisit ones I’ve seen before, and think about them over time. The films as listed in the “Best of Year” section are held fast at the end of the year (and include a listing of all films I saw that year as well as films released that year).

Oh, and I don’t really believe in top “ten” lists, despite using the common nomenclature for the title of this page. This is going to be the top several films of each year, down to whatever point I think the films stop being worthy of inclusion. Might be eight one year, might be twenty-three another.

1929

1. Man With a Movie Camera
2. The Godless Girl
3. Blackmail
4. The Love Trap
5. Bulldog Drummond
6. Sunnyside Up

TOP FIVE YET TO WATCH
Pandora’s Box
Diary of a Lost Girl
Woman in the Moon
Applause
The Canary Murder Case

1928

1. Steamboat Bill Jr
2. The Cameraman
3. The Circus
4. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
5. Our Dancing Daughters
6. Lonesome

TOP FIVE YET TO WATCH
The Passion of Joan of Arc
The Crowd
The Docks of New York
Show People
A Girl in Every Port

1927

1. Metropolis
2. Sunrise
3. The General
4. Wings
5. The Cat and the Canary
6. College

TOP FIVE YET TO WATCH
Napoléon
The Unknown
Underworld
Seventh Heaven
Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness

1926

1. For Heaven’s Sake
2. The Scarlet Letter
3. The Adventures of Prince Achmed
4. The Bat
5. The Son of the Sheik
6. The Black Pirate

TOP FIVE YET TO WATCH
Faust
Mother
Battling Butler
So This is Paris
The Pleasure Garden

1925

1. The Gold Rush
2. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
3. The Freshman
4. The Battleship Potemkin

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Phantom of the Opera
Seven Chances
Strike
The Big Parade
Don Q Son of Zorro

1924

1. Sherlock Jr.
2. Girl Shy
3. Changing Husbands
4. The Thief of Bagdad

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Navigator
The Last Laugh
Greed
The Iron Horse
He Who Gets Slapped

1923

1. Safety Last
2. Why Worry?
3. The Pilgrim
4. A Woman of Paris

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Ten Commandments
The Three Ages
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
La roue
Felix in Hollywood

1922

1. Haxan
2. Nosferatu
3. Nanook of the North
4. Robin Hood
5. Cops

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
Foolish Wives
The Prisoner of Zenda
Phantom
Doctor Jack

1921

1. The Kid
2. The Boat
3. The Goat
4. The Three Musketeers
5. The Sheik

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Phantom Carriage
Orphans of the Storm
Destiny
The Haunted Castle
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

1920

1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
2. One Week
3. Way Down East
4. The Golem

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Mark of Zorro
Within Our Gates
Pollyanna
Last of the Mohicans
The Spiders: Part II