No Academy Award this year — the formula crowns:
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Dir. Louis Feuillade · Jean Aymé · Édouard Mathé · Marcel Lévesque · Théodore Thalès
Paris is prey to an invisible terror against which the police can do nothing: a sinister organization that sows chaos and death. The intrepid journalist Philippe Guérande and his partner embark on a long crusade to put an end to the crimes of the Great Vampire and Irma Vep, his dangerous accomplice. (A ten episode movie serial.)
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Dir. Raoul Walsh · Rockliffe Fellowes · Anna Q. Nilsson · William Sheer · Carl Harbaugh
At 10 years old, Owen becomes a ragged orphan when his mother dies. Abusive next-door neighbors the Conways take him in, and by 17, Owen has learned that might is right. At 25, he's a career gangster: loitering, gambling and drinking in dens of iniquity. Marie Deering arrives in Owen's area, eager to empower the impoverished, gang-affiliated youth through education. Owen slowly but surely leaves his old life behind, choosing the narrow path- all the while falling in love with Marie. Skinny, who's taken over Owen's role in the gang, reappears to him, spelling trouble.
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Dir. Yevgeni Bauer · Vitold Polonsky · Olga Rakhmanova · Georg Asagaroff · Vera Karalli
Young scholar Andrei, fascinated by haunting actress Zoia Kadmina, is surprised when she sends him a note. The two have a brief scheduled meeting, then three months later Andrei is shocked to learn she has died. He becomes obsessed with Zoia's memory and decides he must find out all that he can about her.
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Dir. Cecil B. DeMille · Geraldine Farrar · Wallace Reid · Pedro de Cordoba · Horace B. Carpenter
Hot-blooded gypsy Carmen attempts to seduce Don Jose, a lawman sent to thwart a gang of illegal smugglers in Spain. Carmen's plan backfires when Don Jose's passion for the gypsy girl escalates into a jealous rage as she spurns him for her bullfighter beau, Escamillo, with tragic results.
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Dir. W.W. Young · Viola Savoy · Herbert Rice · Harry Marks · Louis Merkle
Alice goes with her sister to a picnic and then she falls asleep and starts dreaming about a wonderland full of talking animals and walking playing cards.
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Dir. Cecil B. DeMille · Fannie Ward · Sessue Hayakawa · Jack Dean · James Neill
A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.
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Dir. Frank Powell · Theda Bara · Edward José · Mabel Frenyear · May Allison
John Schuyler, a happily married lawyer, is appointed diplomat and sent to England. Due to an unfortunate accident, his wife and child can not come along with him. On the ship to England, Schuyler meets the notorious Vampire - a relentless gold digger who causes the moral degradation of those she seduces, first fascinating and then draining the very life from her victims.
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Dir. D.W. Griffith · Lillian Gish · Mae Marsh · Henry B. Walthall · Miriam Cooper
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.
How scoring works: films are ranked by a composite of a weighted (Bayesian) IMDb rating — the same method as the IMDb Top 250, so a high score from few voters can't outrank a strong score from many — blended with TMDB. Box office is a tiebreaker and a badge, never part of the score. Raw IMDb ratings and vote counts are shown on each card.