A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
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.
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
A college student heads to the forest to exchange an item for a special item he desires. But once he arrives, the deal changes which leads to violence.
A new film compiled from the BFI National Archive's unparalleled holdings of early films of China, features films from 1900-48 filmed across China. The cinematic journey of Around China with a Movie Camera contains many films which may never have been seen in China, or at the very least not for over 70 years. These travelogues, newsreels and home movies were made by a diverse group of British and French filmmakers, some professionals, but mainly enthusiastic amateurs, including intrepid tourists, colonial-era expatriates and Christian missionaries.
A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.
A scientist discovers that there's gold on the moon. He builds a rocket to fly there, but there's too much rivalry among the crew to have a successful expedition.
A doctor's research into the roots of evil turns him into a hideous depraved fiend.
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
John, an ambitious but undisciplined New York City office worker, meets and marries Mary. They start a family, struggle to cope with marital stress, financial setbacks, and tragedy, all while lost amid the anonymous, pitiless throngs of the big city.
Two part biography of Greta Garbo - 1. The Temptress 2. The Clown. Reminiscences of her early life in Stockholm, with excerpts from her films. Narrated by Bibi Andersson.
A lottery win of $5,000 forever changes the lives of a miner turned dentist and his wife.
A young sailor dozes off in the grass in Frederiksberg Have and wakes up surrounded by supernatural fairylike creatures. They take him to the mermaid Capriciosa, who gives him a magic, inexhaustible wallet. The only rule he must abide is never to share his fortune with his family. (stumfilm.dk)
A psychiatrist and his needy patient discuss their relationship in a snow-covered field.
Ukrainian silent courtroom drama about the trial on charges of Menachem Mendel Beilis in the ritual murder of 12-year-old Andrey Yushchinsky. Menahem Mendel Beilis was a Ukrainian Jew accused of ritual murder in Kyiv, in the then Russian Empire, in a notorious 1913 trial, known as the Beilis trial or Beilis affair.
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
In 1927 Olive Borden starred in Fox drama The Monkey Talks directed by Raoul Walsh. She played a circus performer who meets a man pretending to be a talking monkey.
Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.
A wild boy is found in the woods by a solitary hunter and brought back to civilization. Alienated by a strange new environment, the boy tries to adapt by using the same strategies that kept him safe in the forest.