greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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"The Black Pirate" is a 1926 adventure film which tells the story of a young nobleman who infiltrates a ship full of pirates to avenge his father's death. In one long, dramatic scene, Fairbanks acting alone seizes a merchant ship.

In another famous scene, he sticks his dagger into the mainsail and rides it all the way down from top to bottom, cutting the sail in half as he goes. The film features many special effects, including some spectacular models of sailing ships

Based on the story of The Man In The Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas, where the man in the mask is the twin brother of Louis XIV, this was Douglas Fairbanks last silent film, although subsequent reissues have featured narration by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

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Like a brand, the letter M has made it's mark on film history; it's disturbing theme having lost none of its impact or relevance. Sinister, dark and foreboding, M tells the story of Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) - child molester and murderer. Tension builds - a child late home - another child missing.

Posters reveal the fate of earlier victims, and the Police seem to have few clues as to the perpetrator of the crimes. Gangsters, beggars and petty criminals, incensed by both the crimes and the Police crackdown, track the killer themselves. Cornered, caught and dragged off to face an equally barbaric form of justice, Beckert endures his own personal torment.

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F. W. Murnau made this film adaptation of Moliere's satire for UFA in 1925 and it was released in 1926, prior to Faust.

By presenting the play as a film-within-a-film, Murnau takes the opportunity to place the material in a contemporary setting, sandwiched inside a morality lesson about greed and hypocrisy. A devious housekeeper convinces her master to cut his worthy grandson out of his will and to leave the riches to her instead. The grandson, disguised as the projectionist of a travelling cinema show, flatters his way into the home to project a film of Tartuffe in an attempt to open his grandfather's eyes. Emil Jannings plays Tartuffe with creepy panache in a tour-de-force turn alongside Lil Dagover and Werner Krauss. Unjustly neglected for decades, perhaps because of its low-key nature compared with Murnau's more grand masterpieces, this delightful curiosity is more than a mere trifle. Tartuffe affirms Murnau as a master of multifarious cinematic disciplines: from the set-based dreams of Faust and Sunrise, to the naturalist landscapes of Nosferatu, City Girl, and Tabu. In Tartuffe we find an intimate Murnau, relying on close-ups and the performances of his actors to create magic. Tartuffe was first released in the UK in 1928.

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It's Christmas 1940 and the people of Everytown, unprepared and ill-equipped, find themselves at war against an enemy who has been planning such a conflict for years.

The land is devastated by the horrors of aerial bombardment as the war drags on for thirty years, causing a period of despair, with feudal tyrants ruling a downtrodden populace suffering famine and pestilence. Can the human race rise above its desperate circumstances and build a scientific utopia?

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A thief and killer stalks the streets of Paris, leaving a calling card from "Monsieur Durand" at the scene of each crime.

But after a cache of these macabre identifications is discovered by a tradesman in the boarding house at 21 avenue Junot, Inspector Wens (Pierre Fresnay) takes lodging at the infamous address in an undercover bid to solve the crime, with unexpected help from his struggling-actress girlfriend Mila Malou (Suzy Delair).

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Academy Award-winners Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn star as a team of Allied military specialists recruited for a dangerous but imperative mission: to infiltrate a Nazi-occupied fortress and disable two long-range field guns so that 2,000 trapped British soldiers may be rescued.

Faced with an unforgiving sea voyage, hazardous terrain, and the possibility of a traitor among them, the team must overcome the impossible without losing their own lives.

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Fascinated by the mysteries of the East and shunned by the establishment of Thirteen Century England, Walter of Gurnie (Power) embarks on a journey to the exotic Land of Cathay. Soon he joins the caravan of Bayan (Wells), a notorious warrior transporting gifts to Kubla Kahn in Mongolia.

Walter slowly earns Bayan's respect, but then risks everything - including his life - when a beautiful woman, the Black Rose, enlists him in a perilous mission: to save her from becoming Kubla Khan's concubine and return her to her native England.

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F. W. Murnau, Germany's finest director, was imported to Hollywood in July 1926. William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation promised and gave him complete artistic freedom. Fox told Murnau to take his time, spend whatever he had to, and make any film he wished to make.

The film that resulted was Sunrise, made entirely without studio interference. Sunrise, a psychological thriller from the silent movie era, begins when the pleasant and peaceful life of a naive country Man (George O'Brien) is turned upside down when he falls for a cold-blooded yet seductive Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston). She persuades him to drown his virtuous Wife (Janet Gaynor) in order to be with her. This is one of the most moving stories ever told on screen - a tale of temptation, reconciliation, reconsecration, and redemption, told with a lyrical simplicity that gives it the timeless universality of a fable.

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This swashbuckling classic tells a story of romance and adventure on the high seas! After receiving a pardon from the King, former pirate Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar) is made the governor of Jamaica, tasked with ridding the Caribbean of buccaneers.

Morgan's hot-tempered first mate, James Waring (Tyrone Power), is disgusted by the defection and is set to join impetuous rogue Captain Billy Leech (George Sanders) and his fighting ship 'The Black Swan' - until he meets Margaret Denby (O'Hara), the gorgeous daughter of the former Jamaican governor...

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Don Ameche and Alice Faye pair up as husband and wife, Baron and Baroness Duarte, and head to South America in this musical classic. In order to avoid some financial problems, the Baron switches places with impersonator Larry Martin "Direto da Broadway" (also Ameche).

When Martin's affections for the Baroness are too kind and romantic, both the Baroness and Martin's sirlfriend Carmen (Carmen Miranda) realize their men are up to something. Filmed in brilliant Technicolor, 'That Night in Rio' is a delightful comedy filled with rousing musical numbers including Faye's passionate and romantic, "They Met in Rio".

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Buster Keaton (1895-1966) is one of the greatest artists in cinema history. After a very early start in vaudeville with his parents (as The Human Mop), Keaton was as old as the cinema when he began his career in film at the age of twenty-one with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

Burlesque yet sensitive, Keaton inspired European surrealists and created the funniest and most astonishing character of the silent era. His short films were whirlwinds of precisely choreographed humour and nonsense, and have been rarely screened in recent years. A new generation are now able to rediscover the timeless appeal of Keaton's comic marvels with this complete collection of short films from 1917-1923.

A series of mysterious drownings in the Thames set Scotland Yard on the ghoulish trail of one of London's most sinister murderers!

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"One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" is a dramatic and suspenseful story based on the actual methods by which the Dutch smuggled "crashed" British airmen back to England.

Six such airmen parachute from their crippled plane into a wood and are discovered by children who take them to a farm where the Dutch question them at length before offering to help. They endure many narrow escapes from the Nazis before they reach a sea port. Their attempted journey across the Channel is fraught with many dangers and an unexpected turn of events.

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Humphrey Bogart stars as Dixon Steele, a screenwriter who is faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy best-seller. He enlists hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson to tell him the story in her own words.

Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humour implicate him. Fortunately, lovely neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed. and their friendship ripens into love. m Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them?