8 Silent Films Every Sci-Fi and Horror Fan Should See

Genre film have been around essentially as long as cinema itself — which means audiences have been shriek at monster and marveling at infinite escapade for over 100 years . Technology may have change rather dramatically , but a lot of the core stories are still remarkably similar .

Most of these films are in the public domain , which means you may easily feel them on YouTube and other streaming website . But if you’re able to — and this ’ll be well-situated for certain titles , like Nosferatu , which tends to pop out of its casket around Halloween — hear and catch them on the big screen , accompanied by a live or otherwise creatively curated musical score .

1) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Dr. Caligari , a fiendish hypnotist , rip the strings and manipulates a sleepwalker into murder — an eerie tale made even more hair-raising by magnified , strikingly angular rigid design that would assist define ( along with a few other entries on this list ) the German Expressionist moving picture motility . In the last human action , there ’s a big reveal that makes the conclusion of Robert Wiene ’s horror Greco-Roman even more hair-raising , predating anything M. Night Shyamalan ever plottedby almost eight decades .

The actor who play the noctambulist , Conrad Veidt , fled Germany with his Jewish wife after the Nazis came to mogul ; ironically , one of his best - known Hollywood roles was play Major Strasser , the Nazi who harasses Humphrey Bogart and company in Casablanca .

2) Metropolis (1927)

Fritz Lang ’s fabled , influential sci - fi epic was plain going to make this leaning . It ’s the tale of a flush industrialist ’s Logos who falls in lovemaking with Maria , a woman who barrack the legions of factory worker in the nominal metropolis — and the loaded industrialist himself , who conspires with an discoverer to build up a automaton Maria to put off everyone and ( unsuccessfully ) forestall any pesky rebellions from breaking out .

Though it ’s a visual delectation , mixing German expressionism , Art Deco , and a 1920s view of a mechanized future , Metropolis is n’t on the dot a fast - paced rush drive — but its generous run time ( around two and a half hour ) is kind of a miracle , view a skillful chunk of the film was thought to be lost untilprints were chance upon in the mid-2000s , lead in a 2010 return that punch ten ’ worth of nagging plot holes .

3) Nosferatu (1922)

The next German Expressionist film on this list is F.W. Murnau ’s flighty thriller , starring the long - fingernailed grandaddy of our still - thriving obsession withvampires . ( The famous shot where Count Orlok rises stiffly from his coffin recently get a comedic shout - out onFX ’s What We Do in the Shadows . )

The names are exchange from Bram Stoker’sDracula — but not much else is , which make some legal dramatic play with Stoker ’s successor after the film was give up . Max Schreck ’s turn as the ancient creature is so eery it revolutionize an entire motion picture suggesting the player in reality is a vampire ( as played by Willem Dafoe in 2000 ’s Shadow of the Vampire ) , but the execution is really just the creepiest component in a movie that dribble shadowy dread from every frame . Murnau make good use of other special effects to help boost the atmospheric static ( like when he speeds up Orlok ’s supernaturally - enhanced equipage ) , as well as stylistic techniques that were groundbreaking at the time , such as crisscross - cutting between montages .

4) The Lost World (1925)

Harry O. Hoyt directs this adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle risky venture , but the real glory of The Lost World goes to Willis O’Brien ’s halt motion special effects , which were cutting edge at the time and are still pretty bewitching to lay eyes on .

An hostile expedition to find oneself a lose explorer lose in the South American hobo camp discover up - close up - and - personal cogent evidence that dinosaurs ( including a Triceratops , a Stegosaurus , and the ever - popular thyroxine - rex ) are far from extinct ; there ’s also a love triangle , a trained monkey , and a blustery performance by Wallace Beery as Conan Doyle ’s fall back graphic symbol Professor Challenger . O’Brien die on to create the special effects for 1933 ’s King Kong and 1949 ’s Mighty Joe Young ; he was also the mentor ofRay Harryhausen , who continue to innovate on the break off - motion art configuration in movie like 1963 ’s Jason and the Argonauts .

5) Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYTv7mIBfdY

This Danish oddity from director Benjamin Christensen is not actually a tale film ; instead , it ’s a series of freaky but darkly laughable chapters purporting to study and recreate , as the subtitle suggests , witchcraftthrough the ages , from mediaeval times up through the 1920s . The macabre imaging ( a spit - waggling Satan , enchantment - casting , ghostly witches flying through the sky , possessed nuns , torture , desecration ) meant the moving-picture show did n’t get a proper U.S. freeing until the 1960s , but it ’s since become a cult classic for obvious reasons .

6) Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)

The first Soviet sci - fi filmis , befittingly enough , based on a novel by Aleksey Tolstoy , one of the first Russian - language authors to serve popularize the genre . Prolific director Yakov Protazanov helmed this adaptation , which suffer as one of the first movies to show characters engaging in space flight and traveling to alien worlds .

An technologist want to escape his increasingly messy sprightliness on Earth , so he blasts off with a friend ( and a stowaway ) to Mars — where the in an elaborate way costumed inhabitants have been cheep on Earth through a telescope for some clock time . There , he meets the comely Queen Aelita and help spark a Martian revolution . Not unlike The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , there ’s a wrench in the last human action , though this clock time it do for a bit more of a well-chosen finish .

7) A Trip to the Moon (1902)

Of naturally , Aelita is n’t the earliest sci - fi film to show things like space exploration . You ’re probably already familiar with the most iconic image from French film producer Georges Méliès ’ galactic adventure : the Man in the Moon with a spaceship lodged in one of his eyes . A Trip to the Moon take to the woods under 20 minute of arc and that moment midway through ; Méliès himself plays one of the whiskery spaceman who encounter a fantastical lunar landscape painting and some unfriendly fauna on their journey .

The motion picture was created in Méliès ’ specially - contrive studio , which resembled a nursery , and is packed with instance of the director ’s fondness for television camera wile , like the “ trailing stroke ” ( before there was such a thing ) as the rocket close in on the Moon .

8) The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Just 15 years after the source novel was released , and several decade before Michael Crawford first croon “ The Music of the Night , ” silent - film genius Lon Chaney headlined what ’s still one of the well - acknowledge adaptations of the story .

Universal Studios work up a replica of the Paris Opera House for the production , but the most memorable visual is , of course , the expose of the Phantom ’s ghoulishly terrific countenance — one of the most far-famed conception daydream up by “ the Man With a Thousand Faces . ” As the above prevue makes clear , 1925 audiences were shielded from seeing any publicity photos of Chaney in full make - up , in order of magnitude to make the moment his entire face is seen onscreen all the more gasp - inducing . Honestly , even if you ’ve seen what ’s by now a very well - recognize horror - pic character , it ’s still an unsettling reveal .

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The Man in the Moon takes one for the team in Georges Méliès’ 1902 space adventure A Trip to the Moon.