The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

A brief portrait of famous and brave bullfighter Manuel Benítez el Corbobés; an account on still photos of his triumphs and failures.

This is a short, simple ballet performance. Colors are used here, but the print is quite badly damaged.

Made in 1903, Eccentric Waltz showcases an exhibition by dancers Boldoni and Solinski, residents at the famous Eldorado cabaret in the Boulevard de Strasbourg in Paris. The lavish stencil colouring emphasises the woman's swirling skirt. (BFI)

This is another short, simple dance number. It’s quite stunning and unusual though with a bat turning into a woman who proceeds to give us a skirt dance before disappearing into thin air. The dance is mesmerising with the skirt stunningly changing colour throughout the film.

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.

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre.

The world appears black on black until it separates from itself, looks at itself, includes itself, and sees colour.

In 1926, Buster Keaton was at the peak of his glory and wealth. By 1933, he had reached rock bottom. How, in the space of a few years, did this uncontested genius of silent films, go from the status of being a widely-worshipped star to an alcoholic and solitary fallen idol? With a spotlight on the 7 years during which his life changed, using extracts of Keaton’s films as magnifying mirrors, the documentary recounts the dramatic life of this creative genius and the Hollywood studios.

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 documentary from Erkki Karu, one of the earliest pioneers of Finnish cinema: This government-produced propaganda film introduces the nature, sports, military, agriculture and capital of Finland.

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

This 10-minute short documentary exploring the shifting state of the American poultry industry was preserved in 2015 from an original nitrate print. More information is available on the film's page in the National Film Preservation Foundation's website, where this version can be found featuring original music by Michael D. Mortilla.

The film depicts the marriage between the mad Charles VI of France and his wife Queen Isabeau.

The subject is a group of women bathing in a public swimming pool. The camera was placed on the edge of the pool and the full extent of the film shows the women in the pool. Only the heads and shoulders of most of the women are visible but it is possible to see they are wearing rented bathing attire.

An early silent film, made before intertites became common (which is why very early silent films are narrated, at best). This was filmed in 1907 but released in 1908. It was made at the request of Teddy Roosevelt, who saw coyotes being caught in Oklahoma *by hand*, and folks back east didn't believe him. While this movie is called "The Wolf Hunt", it was actually coyotes being caught, not wolves.

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A meditation on an Alaskan autumn.

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?