One of the classic masterpieces of Russian cinema. Earth deals with the peasants' struggle against the oppressive land-owners, their attempts to collectivise the land and their endless battle with nature. Dovzhenko unfolds his tale with lavish pictorial representations. A late silent film. find out more...

Pudovkin's account of the 1917 Revolution was commissioned as part of the celebrations to mark its 10th anniversary and this silent epic stands as an example of the grandiose nature of early Russian film-making. The spirit of the masses is represented by a single, proto-typical worker-hero, and his view of the revolution. find out more...

In the Shadow of the Guillotine (54 minutes), Juve versus Fantomas (59 minutes), The Murderous Corpse (90 minutes), Fantomas versus Fantomas (59 minutes), The False Magistrate (70 minutes). find out more...

Murnau's version of the story of the man who sold his soul to the Devil in return for youth is visually extraordinary but uneven in terms of dramatic effect. Certainly, its opening scenes (the prologue between an Angel and Satan, and the temptation of Faust, after which Mephistopheles takes him on an astonishing, beautiful journey through the skies) easily hold the attention, but a long central section, portraying Faust's courtship of Marguerite, sits awkwardly with what has preceded it. The fin find out more...

Harold Lloyd will always be remembered for the incredible virtuosity of his silent-screen stunts, but he made some great talkies too, and this is one of his finest. He plays a shop-assistant in Honolulu and inevitably gets into terrible trouble. Visual gags and stunts are as special as ever. find out more...

In this, Lang's final silent epic newly restored to its near original length, the legendary filmmaker spins a tale involving a wicked cartel of spies who co-opt an experimental mission to the moon in the hope of plundering its vast stores of gold. When the crew finally reach their destination, they find themselves stranded in a lunar labyrinth without walls where emotions run scattershot, and the new goal becomes survival. A modern Daedalus, Frau im Mond is as much a warning-sign against human h find out more...

Sumptuously hypnotic documentary, compiled from the archives of pioneering Italian filmmaker Luca Comerio (1874-1940), Covering Arctic whalers, Tibetan monks, Cossack horsemen and much more. The silent black & white footage has been tinted and set to the music of Keith Ullrich and Charles Anderson. find out more...

A disturbing Danish film, reanacting witchcraft trials from the 15th and 16th on till the early 20th Century. Mixing scenes of reanactment, animation and illustrated slideshows to depict events of alleged real-life events and possessions, we are shown images of extreme cruelty which smack of the experimental edges of medical research. This must have been tantamount to the work of the devil when it first came out. Sick-minds they had back in 1922! The DVD has a choice of soundtracks, the best of find out more...

An immensely influential silent film that intercuts 4 short stories from history. Intolerance and its terrible effects are examined in four historical eras; in ancient Babylon, a mountain girl is caught up in the religious rivalry that leads to the city's downfall. In Judea, the hypocritical Pharisees condemn Jesus Christ. In 1572 Paris, unaware of the impending St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, two young Huguenots prepare for marriage. Finally, in modern America, social reformers destroy the lives find out more...

The man's a genius. Watch his films. That is an order. On this disc are: find out more...

The Castle of Otranto (1979); The Fall of the House of Usher (1980); Dimensions of Dialogue (1982); Down to the Cellar (1983); The Pendulum, The Pit and Hope (1983); Virile Games (1988); Another Kind of Love (1988); Meat Love (1988); Darkness-Light-Darkness (1989); Flora (1989); The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (1990); Food (1992). find out more...

A beautiful and evocative film using time-lapse and slow motion photography, choreographed to the eerie music of Philip Glass, to make comparisons between different types of physical motion. The film progresses from purely natural environments to nature as affected by man and, finally, to man's selfmade environment; devoid of nature, in chaos and disarray, but still following the patterns of natural flow as depicted earlier in the film. Through this the film conveys its key message, which is Koy find out more...

Set in a surrealistic, snow covered South American city where the voiceless people communicate through floating speech bubbles, we observe the dark machinations of the sinister Mr TV, owner of the only TV channel, and a man who controls the will of the city's inhabitants, but enough of the plot, the meat of the movie being its rich, visually striking black and white imagery, an allegory about the power of media and television, constructed by a director with roots in photography and influenced b find out more...

An old shepherd lives his last days in a near deserted medieval village perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of Italy. He herds goats under skies that most villagers have deserted long ago. He is sick, and collects the dust from the church floor, mixing it with water and drinking it as his medicine. A beautiful and poetic metaphor of a soul moving through the four successive states of being.

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It wasn't until the crushing end of the Soviet regime that Bauer's work was rediscovered and celebrated. Although he made 80 films before his untimely death in 1917 only 20 or so have survived and this tape showcases three. His masterful use of deep-focus photography is demonstrated in Twilight of Woman's Soul (1913). After Death (1915) is an adaptation of Turgenev and displays the psychological hold that the dead have over the living (apparently one of Bauer's favorite themes). The final instal find out more...

A seminal piece of movie-making, a montage of Moscow life in 1929, using all sorts of new techniques, dissolves, split screens, slow motion and split screens. Vertov's exploration of the relationship between camera, actuality and history opened up issues that have been explored ever since by the likes of Godard in particular. This tape includes two versions of the film, the first with music from the Alloy Orchestra and the second with a commentary by leading cinema historian Yuri Tsivan. A radic find out more...

A truly excellent documentary regarding the groundbreaking work of Georges Melies who (along with the Lumiere Brothers) provided early cinema with some of its most memorable images. Hollywood contempories like Spielberg and that arse George Lucas are on hand to throw in their two cents, but the film is really about the obsessive nature of a director who played the parts of writer, special effects creator, hand-tinter, backdrop artist, costumier and probably caterer too. A true visionary. The DVD find out more...

A genuine classic of cinema. One of the first sci-fi films ever made and still one of the most fascinating. Echoes of Lang's vision can be seen in almost every apocalyptic sci-fi film made since, especially the struggle of man to overcome the impersonality of machines. find out more...

A genuine classic of cinema. One of the first sci-fi films ever made and still one of the most fascinating. Echoes of Lang's vision can be seen in almost every apocalyptic sci-fi film made since, especially the struggle of man to overcome the impersonality of machines. Superior to the colour remake, though the new soundtrack falls short of the mark. Turn the sound down and watch it like they did on its first release!

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Metropolis is among the most famous of all German films and the mother of sci-fi cinema (an influence on Blade Runner and Star Wars, among countless other films). Its jaw-dropping production values, iconic imagery, and modernist grandeur was described by Luis Bunuel as 'a captivating symphony of movement'.
The film depicts a dystopian future in which society is divided in two: while anonymous workers conduct their endless drudgery below ground their rulers enjoy a decadent life of leisure find out more...