Be Silent, My Sorrow, Be Silent(1918)

He Who Gets Slapped(en)

After a baron steals his scientific discoveries, runs away with his wife, and slaps him in public, a man joins a Parisian circus sideshow as a clown whose act consists of being slapped repeatedly and becomes infatuated with a showgirl colleague whose father intends to marry her off to the baron.

Water for Elephants(en)

In this captivating Depression-era melodrama, impetuous veterinary student Jacob Jankowski joins a celebrated circus as an animal caretaker but faces a wrenching dilemma when he's transfixed by angelic married performer Marlena.

The Greatest Show on Earth(en)

To ensure a full profitable season, circus manager Brad Braden engages The Great Sebastian, though this moves his girlfriend Holly from her hard-won center trapeze spot. Holly and Sebastian begin a dangerous one-upmanship duel in the ring, while he pursues her on the ground.

Flamingo Road(en)

A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.

The Man Who Laughs(en)

When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured.

Two Moon Junction(en)

A young Southern débutante temporarily abandons her posh lifestyle and upcoming, semi-arranged marriage to have a lustful and erotic fling with a rugged drifter who works at a local carnival.

The Unknown(en)

On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder – a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster's daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo's desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.

The Circus(en)

Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.

Maria's Lovers(en)

A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away(en)

An original story featuring performances by Cirque du Soleil. A young woman is entranced by an Aerialist. When they fall into the dreamlike world of Cirque du Soleil and are separated, they travel through the different tent worlds trying to find each other.

The Sheik(en)

Sheik Ahmed desperately desires feisty British socialite Diana, so he abducts her and carries her off to his luxurious tent-palace in the desert. The free-spirited Diana recoils from his passionate embraces and yearns to be released. Later, allowed to go into the desert, she escapes and makes her way across the sands...

Amblin'(en)

Two wanderers, a young man and a young woman, meet in the desert and decide to travel on together. The two travellers walk and hitch-hike their way down the road to their destination, the beach, becoming friends and lovers.

The Butterfly Circus(en)

At the height of the Great Depression, the showman of a renowned circus leads his troupe through the devastated American landscape, lifting the spirits of audiences along the way. During their travels, they discover a man without limbs at a carnival sideshow. However, after an intriguing encounter with the showman, he becomes driven to hope against everything he has ever believed.

The Right Kind of Wrong(en)

A stubborn idealist spies a bride on her way to her wedding and immediately falls in love with her.

The Best of Me(en)

A pair of former high school sweethearts reunite after many years when they return to visit their small hometown.

Not Easily Broken(en)

A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.

Blind(en)

A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.

Brand Upon the Brain!(en)

After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.

Sunnyside(en)

An overworked farmhand who works also at the adjacent hotel dreams of marrying the village belle.

Lili(en)

Members of a circus troupe "adopt" Lili Daurier when she finds herself stranded in a strange town. The magician who first comes to her rescue already has romantic entanglements and thinks of her as a little girl. Who can she turn to but the puppets, singing to them her troubles, forgetting that there are puppeteers? A crowd gathers around Lili as she sings. The circus has a new act. She now has a job. Will she get her heart's desire?

Metropolis(de)

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.

Wanted- A Home(en)

Mina Rogers (Mary MacLaren) is unfairly cast out into the cruel, cruel world by her crotchety old uncle. She searches for a new home, resorting to deception so that she will be taken in. Along the way she meets a doctor, certain mysteries surrounding her are solved, and the doctor asks her to marry him.

A Son of the Immortals(en)

A general ousts the king of Kosnovia, and makes the king's idle son ruler. Unexpectedly, the new ruler begins instituting democratic reforms, angering the General.

The Tiger's Trail(en)

A cult of Hindu tiger worshippers and a gang of Western outlaws try to cheat a young woman out of rich mines that belong to her.

The Passion of Joan of Arc(fr)

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.

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl(en)

The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.

The General(en)

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.

Pandora's Box(de)

The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.

The Gold Rush(en)

A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.

Paths of Glory(en)

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

Doctor Zhivago(en)

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

Behind the Door(en)

Oscar Krug is looked upon with suspicion by his neighbors because of his German name. When the US is drawn into the war with Germany, he enlists and travels the seas with his wife, Alice Morse. During a submarine attack Alice is snatched from Krug's side by a German officer. Krug now lives to have his revenge, and when the opportunity presents itself, he will have it.

Trilby and Little Billee(en)

Trilby lounges on a table with her shoes off, smoking, laughing, enjoying a piece of cake, and kissing her friend in a scene from the popular eponymous novel and stage play. Now lost, it is considered the first book-to-film adaptation.

The Last Laugh(de)

An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel, is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.

A Beautiful Rush(en)

Like a ticking time-bomb, Ronnie tries to hold his personal relationships and artistic career together while struggling with a debilitating writers block. "A Beautiful Rush" is a silent film that explores what it means to be selfish and lose sight of the blessings life has graced us with.

Tortured Souls(ru)

L'Âge d'or(fr)

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.

The Bright Shawl(en)

Charles Abbott is implicated in the death of his friend Escobar, brother to the woman he loves.

Bookkeeper Kremke(de)

In this realistic, unsentimental portrait of Germany’s dire economic situation, a middle-aged payroll clerk loses his job due to technological advances and, unable to find another, descends into despair. The film’s director, Marie Harder, was one of only a few women directors of the time and was also the head of the German Social Democratic Film Office. She made only two known films before her accidental death in exile in Mexico in 1936.

The Unattainable(en)

An actress falls in love with a shepherd, to the dismay of a wealthy suitor. One reel survives at the National Archives Of Canada and the Library of Congress.