The Good... of the 1920s
by Akira_Chimera | created - 07 Sep 2014 | updated - 23 Feb 2022 | PublicAfter creating my Best-Of-Lists for every decade I felt like some pretty good movies were still left out. To change that here is my The Good... of the 1920s list. Mind you, as the heading implies the movies on this list are not bad. I just do not feel that they belong on a Best-Of-List.
As ususal, don't hesitate to leave a comment if you feel up to it.
PS: The movies are sorted by year and not necessarily by my preference. This list is by no means complete as I will add new worthwhile films as I stumble across them.
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101. October (Ten Days that Shook the World) (1927)
95 min | Drama, History
A large-scale view on the events of 1917 in Russia, when the monarchy was overthrown.
Directors: Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Boris Livanov, Nikolay Popov, Vasili Nikandrov, Layaschenko
Votes: 8,451
102. College (1927)
Not Rated | 66 min | Comedy, Drama, Sport
Ronald's high-school valedictory address praises books and condemns sports. His girlfriend Mary condemns his attitude. Fearing to lose her to rival Jeff, he decides to go to college and pay more attentions to sports.
Directors: James W. Horne, Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Anne Cornwall, Flora Bramley, Harold Goodwin
Votes: 5,473
103. The Kid Brother (1927)
Passed | 82 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
A sheriff's milquetoast son has a chance to prove himself when a medicine show run by con artists comes into town.
Directors: Ted Wilde, Harold Lloyd, Lewis Milestone, J.A. Howe | Stars: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Walter James, Leo Willis
Votes: 4,824 | Gross: $1.55M
104. West of Zanzibar (1928)
TV-G | 65 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A magician seeks vengeance upon the man who paralyzed him and the illegitimate daughter he sired with the magician's wife.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore, Mary Nolan, Warner Baxter
Votes: 1,964 | Gross: $0.92M
105. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)
Unrated | 13 min | Short, Horror
An avant-garde take on Poe's classic story of a traveller taking shelter at a household under a mysterious curse.
Directors: James Sibley Watson, Melville Webber | Stars: Herbert Stern, Hildegarde Watson, Melville Webber, Friedrich Haak
Votes: 1,433
106. A Woman of Affairs (1928)
Passed | 98 min | Drama
When two childhood sweethearts are kept from marrying, misery ensues.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lewis Stone, Johnny Mack Brown
Votes: 1,695 | Gross: $0.85M
107. The Wedding March (1928)
Passed | 113 min | Drama
A young impoverished aristocrat falls in love with an inn-keepers daughter, but has to marry money.
Director: Erich von Stroheim | Stars: Erich von Stroheim, Fay Wray, Zasu Pitts, Matthew Betz
Votes: 1,899
108. Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
Not Rated | 85 min | Drama
A flapper who's secretly a good girl and a gold digging floozy masquerading as an ingénue both vie for the hand of a millionaire.
Director: Harry Beaumont | Stars: Joan Crawford, Johnny Mack Brown, Nils Asther, Dorothy Sebastian
Votes: 1,969 | Gross: $0.76M
109. A Lady of Chance (1928)
Passed | 78 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Seasoned grifter Dolly Crandall returns to the 'badger game' but has a change of heart when she falls in love with a young man she believes is a rich Southerner.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Norma Shearer, Lowell Sherman, Gwen Lee, Johnny Mack Brown
Votes: 540
110. Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
Passed | 73 min | Drama
A professional clown and a self-indulgent count learn to help each other with their problems, but then become romantic rivals.
Director: Herbert Brenon | Stars: Lon Chaney, Bernard Siegel, Loretta Young, Cissy Fitzgerald
Votes: 2,146
111. The Mysterious Lady (1928)
Passed | 96 min | Drama, Romance
An attractive Russian spy seduces an Austrian officer in order to get some important plans, but when she actually falls in love with him, both of them are placed in a dangerous situation.
Director: Fred Niblo | Stars: Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Albert Pollet
Votes: 1,460 | Gross: $0.54M
112. A Daughter of Destiny (1928)
108 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A scientist with an interest in genetics impregnates a sex worker with the seed of a hanged murderer. The sex worker gives birth to a child who has no concept of love, whom the scientist adopts.
Director: Henrik Galeen | Stars: Brigitte Helm, Paul Wegener, Iván Petrovich, Wolfgang Zilzer
Votes: 430
113. The Devious Path (1928)
107 min | Drama, Romance
Neglected by her husband, an ambitious lawyer, Irene seeks variety in Berlin's nightlife, drugs and flirtations included.
Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst | Stars: Gustav Diessl, Brigitte Helm, Hertha von Walther, Jack Trevor
Votes: 432
114. Sex in Chains (1928)
107 min | Drama
A young man is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to a term in prison. There he forms a close relationship with his cellmate and upon his release his wife is concerned as to how prison has changed the man she married.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: William Dieterle, Gunnar Tolnæs, Mary Johnson, Paul Henckels
Votes: 316
115. The Little Match Girl (1928)
40 min | Short, Drama, Fantasy
An impoverished girl tries to sell matches on NYE. Shivering with cold and unable to sell her wares, she sits in a sheltered nook. Striking a match to keep warm, she sees things in the flame.
Directors: Jean Renoir, Jean Tédesco | Stars: Catherine Hessling, Eric Barclay, Jean Storm, Manuel Raaby
Votes: 1,570
116. Lonesome (1928)
Passed | 69 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two lonely people in the big city meet and enjoy the thrills of an amusement park, only to lose each other in the crowd after spending a great day together. Will they ever see each other again?
Director: Pál Fejös | Stars: Barbara Kent, Glenn Tryon, Fay Holderness, Gusztáv Pártos
Votes: 2,602
117. White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Romance
An alcoholic doctor on a Polynesian island, disgusted by white exploitation of the natives, finds himself marooned on a pristinely beautiful island.
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Robert J. Flaherty | Stars: Monte Blue, Raquel Torres, Robert Anderson, Renee Bush
Votes: 964
118. Tempest (1928)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Romance
In Czarist Russia, a peasant officer, resented by the aristocrats, falls in love with a princess.
Directors: Sam Taylor, Lewis Milestone, Viktor Tourjansky | Stars: John Barrymore, Camilla Horn, Louis Wolheim, Boris de Fast
Votes: 522
119. Four Sons (1928)
Passed | 100 min | Drama, War
A family saga in which three sons of a Bavarian widow go to war for Germany and the fourth goes to America, Germany's eventual opponent.
Director: John Ford | Stars: James Hall, Margaret Mann, Charles Morton, Francis X. Bushman Jr.
Votes: 920
120. The Patsy (1928)
Not Rated | 78 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An awkward teenager hopelessly in love with her older sister's boyfriend tries to make him notice her.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Marion Davies, Orville Caldwell, Marie Dressler, Lawrence Gray
Votes: 2,776
121. The River (1928)
84 min | Drama, Romance
A naïve young man is working on a logging camp beside a turbulent river. When it closes for winter, he opts to stay for the experience. He meets a woman who was the girlfriend of the ... See full summary »
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan, Ivan Linow, Margaret Mann
Votes: 662
122. The Telltale Heart (1928)
24 min | Short, Drama, Horror
An expressionistic film based on Poe's story, about a murderer and his mental breakdown.
Directors: Charles Klein, Leon Shamroy | Stars: Otto Matieson, William Herford, Hans Fuerberg, Charles Darvas
Votes: 368
123. Speedy (1928)
Passed | 85 min | Action, Comedy, Family
Harold "Speedy" Swift, a fan of Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees, saves from extinction the city's last horse-drawn trolley, operated by his girlfriend's grandfather.
Director: Ted Wilde | Stars: Harold Lloyd, Ann Christy, Bert Woodruff, Babe Ruth
Votes: 4,271
124. The Trespasser (1929)
90 min | Drama, Romance
The trial and tribulations of a strong-willed woman who elopes and gives birth out of wedlock without telling her ex-husband.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Gloria Swanson, Robert Ames, Purnell Pratt, Henry B. Walthall
Votes: 1,442
125. The Four Feathers (1929)
81 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
When British officer Harry resigns from his regiment, he is labeled a coward by his family and friends. Harry receives four white feathers as a mark of a coward. In order to redeem himself ... See full summary »
Directors: Merian C. Cooper, Lothar Mendes, Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Richard Arlen, Fay Wray, Clive Brook, William Powell
Votes: 343
126. Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)
Passed | 60 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A young man of society wants to make an expedition to Africa, but his fiancée asks him for help with one of her father's guests shortly before his planned departure. Her suspicions about ... See full summary »
Director: Benjamin Christensen | Stars: Thelma Todd, Creighton Hale, Sheldon Lewis, William V. Mong
Votes: 481
127. Piccadilly (1929)
Passed | 92 min | Crime, Drama
A young Chinese woman working in the kitchen at a London dance club is given the chance to become the club's main act, which leads to a plot of betrayal, forbidden love, and murder.
Director: Ewald André Dupont | Stars: Gilda Gray, Anna May Wong, Jameson Thomas, Charles Laughton
Votes: 1,841
128. Bulldog Drummond (1929)
Passed | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A bored WWI veteran helps out a young woman whose uncle is being held hostage by embezzlers.
Director: F. Richard Jones | Stars: Ronald Colman, Claud Allister, Lawrence Grant, Montagu Love
Votes: 1,327
129. The Mysterious Island (1929)
Passed | 95 min | Adventure, Romance, Sci-Fi
On a volcanic island near the kingdom of Hetvia rules Count Dakkar, a benevolent leader and scientist who has eliminated class distinction among the island's inhabitants. Dakkar, his ... See full summary »
Directors: Lucien Hubbard, Benjamin Christensen, Maurice Tourneur | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Jacqueline Gadsdon, Lloyd Hughes, Montagu Love
Votes: 847 | Gross: $0.06M
130. The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929)
75 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A man climbs a 12,000-foot mountain to search for his wife, who was lost on their honeymoon. Another couple makes the dangerous climb with him.
Directors: Arnold Fanck, Georg Wilhelm Pabst | Stars: Gustav Diessl, Leni Riefenstahl, Ernst Petersen, Ernst Udet
Votes: 1,109
131. Where East Is East (1929)
Passed | 65 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
When an animal trapper in Indo-China finds that his daughter's fiancé is being successfully seduced by her estranged mother, he takes appropriate action.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lon Chaney, Lupe Velez, Estelle Taylor, Lloyd Hughes
Votes: 724
132. Queen Kelly (1932)
Passed | 101 min | Drama
A convent girl is abducted and seduced by a prince before being sent off to a brothel in East Africa.
Directors: Erich von Stroheim, Richard Boleslawski | Stars: Gloria Swanson, Walter Byron, Seena Owen, Sylvia Ashton
Votes: 3,365
133. Thunderbolt (1929)
Passed | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl. ... See full summary »
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: George Bancroft, Fay Wray, Richard Arlen, Eugenie Besserer
Votes: 885
134. Desert Nights (1929)
Passed | 62 min | Drama
A con man and his beautiful accomplice kidnap a manager and steal $500,000 worth of diamonds, but end up stranded in the desert without water.
Director: William Nigh | Stars: John Gilbert, Ernest Torrence, Mary Nolan, Claude King
Votes: 1,244
135. The Last Warning (1928)
89 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A producer decides to reopen a theater, that had been closed five years previously when one of the actors was murdered during a performance, by staging a production of the same play with the remaining members of the original cast.
Director: Paul Leni | Stars: Laura La Plante, Montagu Love, Roy D'Arcy, Margaret Livingston
Votes: 809
136. Hell's Heroes (1929)
Passed | 68 min | Western
Three bank robbers on the run happen across a woman about to give birth in an abandoned covered wagon. Before she dies, she names the three bandits as her newborn son's godfathers.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Charles Bickford, Raymond Hatton, Fred Kohler, Fritzi Ridgeway
Votes: 967
137. The Godless Girl (1928)
Passed | 113 min | Drama, Romance
Two teenagers, one an atheist and the other a Christian, fall in love at a brutal reform school.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Lina Basquette, Marie Prevost, Tom Keene, Noah Beery
Votes: 811
138. Seven Keys to Baldpate (1929)
72 min | Comedy, Mystery, Thriller
A writer, looking for some peace and quiet in order to finish a novel, takes a room at the Baldpate Inn. Peace and quiet are last things he gets, though, as there are some very strange things going on at the establishment.
Director: Reginald Barker | Stars: Richard Dix, Miriam Seegar, Margaret Livingston, Lucien Littlefield
Votes: 437
139. The Taming of the Shrew (1929)
Passed | 63 min | Comedy, Romance
In sixteenth century Padua, Hortensio loves Bianca, the youngest daughter of Baptista. But Baptista will not allow the two to get married until his eldest daughter, the extremely headstrong... See full summary »
Director: Sam Taylor | Stars: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Edwin Maxwell, Joseph Cawthorn
Votes: 646 | Gross: $2.40M
140. Applause (1929)
Passed | 80 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A burlesque star seeks to keep her convent-raised daughter away from her low-down life and abusive lover/stage manager.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Helen Morgan, Joan Peers, Fuller Mellish Jr., Jack Cameron
Votes: 1,503
141. Asphalt (1929)
Not Rated | 94 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Joe May's sensual drama of life in the Berlin underworld is in many ways the perfect summation of German filmmaking in the silent era: a dazzling visual style, a psychological approach to ... See full summary »
Director: Joe May | Stars: Albert Steinrück, Else Heller, Gustav Fröhlich, Betty Amann
Votes: 1,687
142. The Ship of Lost Men (1929)
121 min | Drama, Thriller
Vela, cynical captain of a slow, decrepit sailing ship, sells passage out of Germany to fugitives. His crew are no angels either. Cheyne, a young American doctor visiting the ship, is ... See full summary »
Director: Maurice Tourneur | Stars: Fritz Kortner, Marlene Dietrich, Robin Irvine, Vladimir Sokoloff
Votes: 135
143. Escape from Dartmoor (1930)
88 min | Crime, Drama
A former barber escapes from a high security prison. Flashback story of an escape from the lonely, high-security Dartmoor Prison.
Director: Anthony Asquith | Stars: Hans Adalbert Schlettow, Uno Henning, Norah Baring, Anthony Asquith
Votes: 1,235
144. The Cocoanuts (1929)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
During the Florida land boom, The Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land, thwart a jewel robbery, and generally act like themselves.
Directors: Robert Florey, Joseph Santley | Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx
Votes: 8,198 | Gross: $3.92M
145. Lucky Star (1929)
100 min | Drama, Romance
Mary, a poor farm girl, meets Tim just as word comes that war has been declared.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, Paul Fix
Votes: 1,518
146. Spite Marriage (1929)
Passed | 76 min | Comedy
An unimpressive but well intending man is given the chance to marry a popular actress, of whom he has been a hopeless fan. But what he doesn't realize is that he is being used to make the actress' old flame jealous.
Directors: Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Dorothy Sebastian, Edward Earle, Leila Hyams
Votes: 2,502
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