Your first steps into silent cinema

A projectionist dreams of becoming a detective, and the film lets him step into the world on the screen. Buster Keaton makes the boundary between an everyday problem and a cinematic fantasy wonderfully unstable. Start here if you want an introduction through movement and surprise: the story gives you a clear comic desire, while the visual tricks make editing itself part of the joke. Its compact size also makes revisiting a sequence easy.

Keep in mind: Slapstick peril, guns and fantasy danger. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival lists a 47-minute FPA Classics DCP; TMDB lists 45 minutes.

A department-store clerk wants to look successful and gets involved in a publicity stunt with an alarming vertical dimension. Harold Lloyd turns aspiration and embarrassment into a sequence of obstacles you can read almost instantly. This is a good first silent feature if you like suspense with your comedy: even when the broad shape of a gag is obvious, the timing of the next complication can still catch you by surprise.

Keep in mind: Sustained danger at great heights and physical comedy. Listed runtime is Criterion’s 73-minute restored edition.

A railway engineer pursues a stolen locomotive during the American Civil War. The chase turns tracks, obstacles and the moving train into a succession of practical problems, giving Keaton’s still-faced performance a large landscape to work against. Try it after Sherlock Jr. if the physical invention is what drew you in. The larger scale shows how a silent comedy can sustain action through clear geography and cause and effect.

Keep in mind: War, guns and dangerous stunts; the story takes the Confederate side. Listed runtime is Cohen Media’s 79-minute presentation; other editions may differ.

A country couple’s marriage is endangered by temptation, and a journey into the city gives their relationship a new setting. F. W. Murnau makes movement through spaces feel like movement through emotion, shifting between dread, wonder and intimacy. Choose this when you want to see what silent filmmaking can do beyond a comic stunt. The story’s dark beginning matters, so approach it as a troubled romantic drama with moments of delight.

Keep in mind: Attempted domestic murder and drowning peril. Listed runtime is MoMA’s 95-minute San Francisco Film Preserve restoration; TMDB lists 94 minutes. Includes synchronized music and effects, without spoken dialogue.

A showman presents a sleepwalker at a fair, and a series of strange events turns the spectacle into a mystery. The crooked streets and jagged painted spaces do much of the unsettling work before anything happens within them. Start here if horror is your familiar territory and you are curious about expressionist design. Watch how the environment steers your expectations, and avoid plot summaries that explain the framing of the story.

Keep in mind: Murder, abduction, menace and psychiatric-institution imagery. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival lists a 75-minute Kino Lorber DCP; TMDB lists 77 minutes.

Joan faces questioning by church authorities in the hours before her execution. Carl Theodor Dreyer narrows the attention to faces, glances and the pressure of the interrogation, with Renée Falconetti at its center. Save this for when you have the attention and emotional space for something severe. It is the final step in this route because its intensity shows a different possibility of silent cinema: a close-up can carry as much force as a chase.

Keep in mind: Religious persecution, coercion and execution. Listed runtime is Criterion’s 81-minute restoration at 24 frames per second; its alternate 20-frame presentation runs longer.