The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever

Marsha Gordon, Professor of Film Studies at North Carolina State University, mostly highlights two directors credited with advancing film narrative with four picks. But she also sings the praises of a certain work of stop-motion animation, one taking this season by storm for both guests’ and listeners’ submissions.Marsha is the author of Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott, Film, Form & Culture (with Robert Kolker), and Film is Like a Battleground: Sam Fuller’s War Films. She is currently writing a biography of the pioneering Hollywood director Dorothy Arzner.Films mentio...

As Founding Director of HippFest, Scotland’s first and only silent film festival, Alison Strauss is especially knowledgeable about the history of Scottish filmmaking and -going, as represented by three of her picks. But the conversation, which concludes with outlandish animation, also addresses the preponderance of short films in an era of increasingly long ones.Alison works as Falkirk Council’s Arts Development Officer (Film and Media), programming the Hippodrome year-round. Alison is the ‘face of the Festival’ and leads on the artistic programme, commissioning, funding, research and development, and touring.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submi...

Tanya Goldman, Assistant Professor of Film at Missouri State University, has a strong interest in what could variably be called “nontheatrical movies,” “minor cinema,” “useful films,” and other such phrases, reflected by her two concluding picks dealing with sponsored films, whether by social progress groups or farm equipment manufacturers. But much of the conversation concerns morbid humor, whether in live action or animation, and all of the shorts demonstrate the offbeat character of 1912.https://www.tanyagoldmanphd.com/ focuses on media access, considering how the distribution of documentary + nonfiction film is a political and cultural taste-making practice. She is currently co...

1912 seems to offer more threads of industrial, technological, and social changes in the global film industry than the previous few years, but maybe just because a few still recognizable names can essentially “headline” this season. The threads introduced in this intro, and many more, will be picked up by five guests to explore just how exciting the period is becoming.Films mentioned:Queen Elizabeth (1912) - Louis Mercanton and Henri DesfontainesOliver Twist (1912) - unknownOliver Twist (1912) - Thomas BentleyRichard III (1912) - André Calmettes and James KeaneCleopatra (1912) - Charles L. GaskillLorna Doone (1912) - Wilfred NoyWhat Happened to Mary (1912) - Ash...

The introduction to this 1911 season made a big point (or did it?) that the features have begun, and although the majority of the five most selected films from guests and listeners indeed operate in that mode, the vast majority of selections in general still conform to the time’s global film industry norm of one or two reelers. They reflect, or foreshadow, how quickly the cinematic form was evolving throughout the early and middle years of the 1910s decade.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to see the most selected films and the list of every one submitted!<br...

Casper Tybjerg, Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Copenhagen, selects five films that reflect the advancement of narrative cinematic drama. Whether they offer visual and emotional spectacle or crusading social messages, his picks demonstrate the international refinement of the cinematic medium.A scholar of Danish and international silent film, Casper is the co-editor of the anthology Danish and German Silent Cinema: Towards a Common Film Culture. He was awarded the Dr. Phil. (Habilitation) degree for his forthcoming book, The Historiography of Filmmaking – through the Lens of Carl Th. Dreyer.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/lis...

Eva Hielscher, head of film-related collections at Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, selects a wholly international survey of 1911 films, jumping from country to country and genre to genre. This heterogeneous view of the year ranges from French comedy and animation experiment shorts to an Italian epic and German feature…and a document of a historic expedition!Eva is also co-artistic director of the Bonn International Silent Film Festival. She is co-editor of The City Symphony Phenomenon: Cinema, Art, and Urban Modernity between the Wars and Color Mania – The Material of Color in Photography and Film.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com...

Thomas Christensen is Curator at the Danish Film Institute, so it stands to reason that all of his selections hail from Denmark. All but one of them come in at “feature length” (and from the same director) as well, reflecting the country’s place in advancing film grammar, subjects, and character psychology at a crucial transitional time.Thomas also serves on the Executive Committee of the European Cinematheque Association and served on the FIAF Technical Commission from 2003 to 2015. He has recently been involved in a project digitizing all surviving Danish silent films from 1896 to 1929.Visit the5bestfi...

Patrick Friel, educator and programmer, is very interested in non-narrative and experimental film. Therefore, his five selections totally fit into those designations (well, with one semi-exception), but each of them offer totally different visual experiences and intentions.Patrick is currently an Adjunct Professor of Instruction at Columbia College Chicago and has previously taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was also the former Program Director at Chicago Filmmakers and the Festival Director and Programmer of the Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your top...

Kathy Feeley, professor of history at the University of Redlands, wrote Mary Pickford: Hollywood and the New Woman, so it makes sense that two of her picks center the film icon and pioneer, still in the early years of her career. But the rest of Kathy’s selections also paint a picture of women’s contributions before and behind the camera in an era before mass corporatization and the sidelining of women in various roles across the film industry.Kathy co-edited, with Jennifer Frost, When Private Talk Goes Public: Gossip in American History. She is also, again with Jenn...

1911 really feels like the beginning of the feature film. Oh sure, it didn’t suddenly define the output of the global film industry, but ambitious experiments from Italy, Denmark, Russia, and only very tentatively, America, sat alongside narrative, as well as plenty of non-narrative, successes and intriguing failures in the short form.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your top five for 1911!Films mentioned:L’Inferno (1911) - Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, and Giuseppe De LiguoroL’Odissea (1911) - Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, and Giuseppe De LiguoroThe Black Dream (1911) - Urban GadThe Girl Behind the Co...

Hopefully you’re not too tired of hearing about how 1910 and its surrounding years are part of a transitional era, but this season’s conversations also revealed how diverse the global medium was at the turn of a new decade with offbeat modes, genres, and subjects. With a record slate of submissions from listeners, in addition to the guests’ selections, 1910’s collective list paints a broad picture of the year’s releases.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to see every film submitted by guests and listeners!Films mentioned:Jeffries-Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Conte...

As Executive Director of San Francisco Film Preserve, Kathy Rose O’Regan works hard to highlight our shared film heritage. Her five picks certainly paint a picture of the international nuances of 1910 filmmaking, with each hailing from a different country and operating in a different narrative mode (or lack thereof).Kathy also served as the Senior Film Restorer for San Francisco Silent Film Festival, overseeing all operations of the preservation department and managing the restoration of dozens of silent era titles. Previously, she managed the preservation department of the Bay Area Video Coalition.Films and re...

Kynan Dias, Assistant Professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is no stranger to podcasting as co-host, with Lester Ryan Clark, of a series of film history podcasts on the TruStory.FM network. His picks reflect some of the conversation surrounding this 1910 season regarding literary adaptations and real-world impact, but the discussion finds new angles to explore, including a landmark work of Native American filmmaking.Kynan earned a B.A. in film from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he pursued acting, screenwriting, and directing. Later, Kynan earned his MFA in screenwriting from the University of California...

Laura Horak, Professor of Film Studies at Carleton University, is the author of Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressing Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema. Therefore, most of the conversation addresses the transgression, or lack thereof, of films that depicted such changes in dress, a rich topic represented by four of her five picks.Laura is also the director of the Transgender Media Lab and Transgender Media Portal. She is co-curator of the 99-film Bluray set Cinema’s First Nasty Women and co-editor of Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space and Unwatchable.Films and resources mentioned:...

David Morton, Lecturer at the University of Central Florida, is the author of Motion Picture Paradise: A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry. With this expertise in mind, the opening of the conversation covers the American film industry’s halting migration to the southern state, but moves on to American migrations to other locations and censored films.David received his Ph.D. in Texts and Technology in 2019 from University of Central Florida in 2019. He was a 2017-18 recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship and served as a visiting scholar at the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies at G...

Ned Thanhouser is president of Thanhouser Company Film Preservation and grandson of film pioneers Gertrude and Edwin Thanhouser. It makes sense, then, that he and Tristan discuss the founding of his family’s studio, which released its first film in 1910, but they also move on to Ned’s picks of classic literature adaptations and controversy.Ned directed the 2014 documentary The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema. He has been active in film preservation since 1986, produced 17 DVDs containing over 120 surviving Thanhouser films, and published Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History by Q. David Bowers.Visit the5...

The start of the 1910s doesn’t quite immediately usher in the cinematic measurement that would come to rule the decade: the feature film. But proto-forms of what would become the narrative standard arise in 1910, and otherwise, exciting images, narrative experiences, and affecting displays of historical milieu can be found in the productions of the year.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your top five picks for 1910!Films mentioned:The Broken Oath (1910) - Harry SolterThe Railroad Porter (1912) - William D. FosterThe Birth of a Race (1918) - John W. NobleThe Birth of a Na...

One of the most diverse lists of films selected for any season so far defines this brief conclusion to 1909. The unique array of selections does ultimately lead into a universal appreciation for comedy, rising above some of the efforts to “legitimize” the cinematic medium as has been discussed at the tail end of the first decade of the 20th century.Films mentioned:The Mill (1909) - Alfred MachinMr. Flip (1909) - Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” AndersonWhy Girls Leave Home (1909) - unknownFirst International Competition for Airplanes in Brescia (1909) - unknownThe Man in the Moon (1909) -  Étienne Arnaud and Émile...

Paul Flaig, Lecturer in Film Studies at University of St Andrews, wrote a stellar synthesis of disciplines with his new book Weimar Slapstick and Hollywood Comedy Transformed. While it clearly deals with a later period than 1909, he still works German and American (and French!) comedy into his picks, in addition to a sound novelty and an actuality with a connection to Franz Kafka.Paul is also the co-editor, with Katherine Groo, of New Silent Cinema and co-director, with Dora Osborne, of the German Screen Studies Network (GSSN). His writing has appeared in many journals and edited collections, including...