No Academy Award this year — the formula crowns:
Composite 72.99
Composite 72.99
Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer · Harold Lloyd · Mildred Davis · Bill Strother · Noah Young
When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.
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Dir. Buster Keaton · Buster Keaton · Joe Roberts · Natalie Talmadge · Francis X. Bushman Jr.
A young man falls for a young woman on his trip home; unbeknownst to him, her family has vowed to kill every member of his family.
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Dir. Abel Gance · Séverin-Mars · Ivy Close · Gabriel de Gravone · Pierre Magnier
Sisif, a railwayman, saves a young girl named Norma orphaned by a train crash and raises her as his own daughter alongside his son, Elie. As she becomes an adult, Sisif grapples with whether to tell Norma the truth about her parentage.
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Dir. Charlie Chaplin · Charlie Chaplin · Edna Purviance · Syd Chaplin · Mai Wells
The Tramp is an escaped convict who is mistaken as a pastor in a small town church.
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Dir. Jean Epstein · Gina Manès · Léon Mathot · Edmond van Daële · Claude Benedict
The good guys win out in this sweet tale about a young orphan who is abused for much of her life but who eventually finds happiness when she marries an honest man who extricates her from her situation.
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Dir. Charlie Chaplin · Edna Purviance · Clarence Geldart · Carl Miller · Lydia Knott
When Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean, she decides to leave for Paris on her own. After spending a year in the city as a mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel, she is reunited with Jean by chance. This leaves her with the choice between a glamorous life in Paris, and the true love she left behind.
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Dir. Buster Keaton · Buster Keaton · Margaret Leahy · Wallace Beery · Joe Roberts
The rituals of courtship, romantic rivalry, and love play out three times as a man vies with a villain for the girl. In the Stone Age, the rivalry is set off by dinosaurs, a turtle used as a ouija board, and a round of golf with stones. In ancient Rome, the men display their brawn through a chariot race, using dogs instead of horses. In contemporary times, the man finds himself overcome by modernity, including a very fragile car.
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Dir. Wallace Worsley · Lon Chaney · Patsy Ruth Miller · Norman Kerry · Kate Lester
In 15th century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.
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Dir. Cecil B. DeMille · Theodore Roberts · Charles De Rochefort · Estelle Taylor · Julia Faye
The first part tells the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land, his receipt of the tablets and the worship of the golden calf. The second part shows the efficacy of the commandments in modern life through a story set in San Francisco. Two brothers, rivals for the love of Mary, also come into conflict when John discovers Dan used shoddy materials to construct a cathedral.
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Dir. Sam Taylor · Harold Lloyd · Jobyna Ralston · John Aasen · Wally Howe
A hypochondriac vacations in the tropics for the fresh air - and finds himself in the middle of a revolution instead.
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.