Skip to content

Films Collections Reading Room About

/

Loading

The films of early cinema, 1895 to the 1940s, in the best public prints we can find.

Watch

Films
Collections
Search

Read

Reading Room
About

You

My List
Favourites
Lists
Profile

Every film here is in the public domain or openly licensed. Each film page credits its source.

Film data from TMDB
RSS
Contact

Home
Films
Collections
Reading
You

Reading Room — Kino-polis

Reading Room

Essays, interviews, lectures and archives on the films of the silent and early sound eras. Read about a film, then watch it.

All reading

979 entries

Search the Reading Room

Published–

Topics

Essay
Restoring Hitchcock #1: how a film restoration begins (opens in a new tab)
Bryony DixonBFI2012
Essay
Amazing Tales from the Archives 2008 (opens in a new tab)
Robert ByrneSan Francisco Silent Film Festival2008
Essay
Chaplin, Charles (opens in a new tab)
Senses of Cinema2008
Essay
Amazing Tales from the Archives 2007 (opens in a new tab)
Shari KizirianSan Francisco Silent Film Festival2007
Essay
Erich von Stroheim's Damned Queen: Queen Kelly (opens in a new tab)
Senses of Cinema2007
Essay
Amazing Tales from the Archives 2006 (opens in a new tab)
Stacey Wisnia and Stephen SalmonsSan Francisco Silent Film Festival2006
Essay
Griffith, D.W. (opens in a new tab)
Senses of Cinema2006
Essay
More Sinned Against than Sinning: The Fabrications of "Pre-Code Cinema" (opens in a new tab)
Senses of Cinema2003
Video
The restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s silent films (opens in a new tab)
BFI
Video
American Artifacts Preview: Early Motion Pictures - Library of Congress "Paper Prints" (opens in a new tab)
C-SPANC-SPAN / Library of Congress
Video
The Wonderful World of Early Colour | BFI National Archive (opens in a new tab)
BFIBFI
Essay
A Long-Lost Film, Finally Found (opens in a new tab)
Library of Congress Magazine
Essay
Restoring Hitchcock #2: reconstructing intertitles (opens in a new tab)
BFI
Essay
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (SFFP restoration) (opens in a new tab)
San Francisco Film Preserve
Essay
Restoring Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives (opens in a new tab)
BFI
Video
Alice in Wonderland (1903) – BFI National Archive (opens in a new tab)
BFI National Archive
Essay
F.W. Murnau's Classic Sunrise Opens Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival (opens in a new tab)
Variety
Essay
Alice Guy Blaché: The Trailblazing Woman Filmmaker Who Understood the Future of Storytelling (opens in a new tab)
MoMA Magazine
Essay
Buster by the Bay (opens in a new tab)
Criterion Current
Video
Looking For Lulu - Documentary on Louise Brooks (opens in a new tab)
Hugh Munro Neely
On Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl
Website
Movies Silently Review (opens in a new tab)
On That Certain Thing
Website
The 1930s chiller White Zombie is an experimental-horror masterpiece - Chicago Reader (opens in a new tab)
On White Zombie
Archive
Danish Silent Film: His Innocent Dupe (opens in a new tab)
On His Innocent Dupe
Archive
Danish Silent Film: A Daughter of Brahma (opens in a new tab)
On A Daughter of Brahma

Page 20 of 41