This partially-extant silent film focuses on the lives of people in rural China during the early twentieth century. Wang Guisheng (played by Wang Yuanlong) is an orphan who grew up at his uncle's, working as a farmhand. Since childhood, he has been close with his female cousin, Li Ah Zhen (played by Li Minghui), and they expect to marry. But when her mother dies of illness and overwork, Ah Zhen's father re-marries, and the evil stepmother connives to marry Ah Zhen off to the stepmother's nephew. Then a government representative comes to the village recruiting peasants to establish a new settlement on the borderlands, she persuades the despondent Guisheng to sign up. Guisheng leaves his love behind, only to find hardship on the frontier. Ah Zhen, who has fallen ill, is set upon by her groom on her wedding night...BUT the next morning his stabbed corpse is found in the bridal chamber and a body in a bridal gown is found down a well. WHAT HAS HAPPENED?!?!?!?!!
Professional forger Bill Butters realizes one day that the police are closing in on him, and convinces his daughter Peggy to flee.
A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.
A bride who discovers during her wedding ceremony that her husband-to-be has fathered a child out of wedlock with another woman.
Victor Stowell, son of the deemster of the Isle of Man, is engaged to Fenella Stanley. He becomes involved in an intrigue with local girl Bessie Collister, becomes the deemster on his father's death, and is forced to try Bessie for killing her illegitimate child.
Two friends, Fritz and Theodor, make the acquaintance of Christine and Mizzi, who are also friends. Fritz is immediately captivated by Christine, who is bashful and modest as opposed to the eager, effervescent Mizzi. But even though the love between the two grows, Christine is not the only woman in Fritz’s life. His affair with a married woman will prove to have fatal consequences.
Henry and Marion have a lover's quarrel and part in anger. They do not reconcile, and ten years pass without contact. Marion becomes a society girl and spends her time at parties with her friends. Henry has become very ill and wishes to see Marion one more time. He writes asking her to visit. When she recieves the note, she laughs and tosses it on the floor, but, later, on a whim, decides to take all her drunken friends with her to visit him. When they arrive, Marion finds Henry dead, clutching her portrait in his hand. She sends her friends away and falls to her knees in remorse. Mary Pickford's debut!
A lesbian stripper lives with her lover, a novelist with writer's block who cheats on her with another woman.
Intent on seizing control of South East England's cocaine business, small-time crime boss Randall hires notorious hit-man Walker to take out his competition. When Randall betrays the hit-man, however, the tables are turned.
Joe Ryan, a veteran train engineer, is demoted to a flagman position after a disastrous crash-- one caused by his cowardly and opportunistic partner. Though Ryan's failing eyesight is named as the cause of the crash, he's undeterred as he designs an automatic braking invention.
Dan Merrick comes out from a shattering car accident with amnesia. He finds that he is married to Judith who is trying to help him start his life again. He keeps getting flashbacks about events and places that he can't remember. He meets pet shop owner and part time private detective Gus Klein who has supposedly done some work for him prior to the accident. Klein helps Merrick to find out more...
Over the course of a decade, editors of the San Francisco Chronicle entice themselves in the murders of the Zodiac Killer. However, as time runs its course, interest in the case dwindles in the eyes of the professionals. The Killer stops interacting with the public. However, believing he has the answers, an amateur cartoonist from the initial sightings races against time to prevent what he believes is another murder.
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.
After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.
In Hamburg's red light district Jule and his mob of macks battle Holleck's competing Viennese clan. When a sex worker is murdered both kingpins join forces to hunt the killer and keep the police from cracking down on their business.
The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.
One out of three silent adaptations of the novella "Les quatre diables" written by Danish author Herman Bang. The most famous one, although unfortunately lost, is without any doubt F.W. Murnau's "4 Devils". This German version, by Danish director A.W. Sandberg, was done eight years prior to Murnau's American one, and was a big success at the time.
A gangster falls for a blind violinist, only for his mobster rivals to kidnap her.
A film crew is shooting a movie about guns and robbers, when real robbers turn up. Having to go home in robbers costume, they are mistakingly accused of a robbery. One of the earliest films portraying bisexual characters.
An entire city has lost its voice. Mr. TV, the owner of the city's only television channel, is carrying out a sinister plan to control all of the city's inhabitants.