The Wind (1928) ****

In a remote desert outpost in the Far West, a young girl (Lilian Gish) kills a man who tried to rape her.

Four Sons (1928) ***

Lights Of New York (1928) ***

The first full "talkie", a fine gangster film, slightly dated, but very interesting.

La Chute de la maison d'Usher (1928) ***

Visually impressive French avant-garde film directed by Jean Epstein

The Cameraman (1928) ***

Typical Buster Keaton comedy with many funny gags.

The First Born (1928) ***

White Shadows In The South Seas (1928) ***

The Circus (1928) ***

Little tramp Charlie finds a job in a circus and falls in love with an acrobat girl. There is a memorable sequence in a house of mirrors.

Sozenji Baba (1928) ***

Silent "chambara jidai-geki" full of samurai fighting. Directed by Masahiro Makino.

Glorious Betsy (1928) ***

The Docks Of New York (1928) ***

Silent melodrama directed by Joseph Von Sternberg.

October (1928) ***

Sergei Eisenstein's least memorable film, but an excellent showcase of his theories about montage. A failure from a narrative point of view, but stylistically - quite interesting.

Samurai Town: Story 1 (1928) ***

Only an 8 min fragment survives from this silent "chambara jidai-geki" (samurai period movie) directed by Masahiro Makino. It's a fast-paced swashbuckling romp closer in spirit to Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops than to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and it looks like it was edited by Edward Scissorhands after drinking too much sake, but it's definitely very entertaining.

Tajemnica starego rodu (1928) ***

Silent Polish melodrama about a secret of an aristocratic family. The beginning is weak, but it's worth to stick with it, because in the second half it becomes very interesting.

The Mysterious Lady (1928) ***

Classic MGM spy melodrama starring Greta Garbo as a Russian secret agent seducing an Austrian officer.

Sadie Thompson (1928) ***

Gloria Swanson gives a fabulous, Oscar-nominated performance in this otherwise old-fashioned, slightly dated melodrama.

Our Dancing Daughters (1928) ***

An icon of the Jazz Age, starring Joan Crawford as a wild party girl who falls in love with a rich bachelor.

Show People (1928) ****

Excellent show biz comedy starring Marion Davies as a young Hollywood actress who has to choose between slapstick comedy and serious drama.

West Of Zanzibar (1928) ***

Impressive horror movie starring Lon Chaney and set in Congo.

The Singing Fool (1928) ***

Al Jolson sings again. The biggest box-office hit between "The Birth Of A Nation" (1915) and "Gone With The Wind" (1939). Musical numbers include:

"It All Depends On You"  **
"I'M Sitting On Top Of The World"  ***
"Sonny Boy" **

The 47 Ronin (1928) ***

Directed by Shozo Makino, it's an impressive version of the famous story. But it pales in comparison with the fabulous Kenji Mizoguchi's versions from 1941 and 1942.

The Last Command (1928) ***

Emil Jannings won the very first (and well-deserved) Academy Award for Best Actor as a Russian general forced to emigrate after the revolution, who becomes a Hollywood extra.

Skyscraper (1928) ***

Ayn Rand was originally hired to write the story, but she wanted to make it about two rival architects instead of rival construction workers, so her work was rejected. She took her idea and eventually turned it into her novel The Fountainhead.

A Ship Comes In (1928) ***

Fine silent drama about an immigrant family in United States.

Beggars Of Life (1928) ***

Wallace Beery and Louise Brooks star in this exciting silent film about a fugitive from justice hiding among tramps travelling by merchandise trains.

Pan Tadeusz (1928) ***

Impressive adaptation of Adam Mickiewicz's famous poem.

Speedy (1928) ***

Harold fights with gangsters to save the last horse-drawn trolley in New York.

Spione (1928) ***

A typical Fritz Lang's spy movie.

Kif Tebbi (1928) ***

Moulin Rouge (1928) ***

The Racket (1928) ***

A silent gangster film. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture.

City Girl (1928) **

A city girl marries a farmer. An interesting film directed by F.W.Murnau, thematically similar to his earlier masterwork, "Sunrise".

Champagne (1928) **

A rich heiress thinks that her father has lost all his fortune in this silent English drama directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

The Matinee Idol (1928) **

Bessie Love is delightful in this Frank Capra comedy about provincial actors performing their tragic Civil War play on Broadway and seeing audiences applauding it as a campy farce comedy.

The Secret Courier (1928) ***

A Woman Of Affairs (1928) **

Greta Garbo plays a rich woman who cannot marry the man she loves.

Maldone (1928) **

Riley The Cop (1928) **

A New York cop goes to Germany. Pleasant, but minor work.

Easy Virtue (1928) **

Alfred Hitchcock's silent melodrama about a woman with a scandalous past marrying into a respectable family.

Yacht Of The Seven Sins (1928) *

Boring German drama.

Storm Over Asia (1928) *

Epic drama about a Mongol hunter mistaken for the heir of Genghis Khan. A Soviet film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin.

Tire au flanc (1928) *

Jean Renoir's silent satire on army life.

L'Argent (1928) *

French silent drama by Marcel L'Herbier, based on a novel by Emile Zola.

Street Angel (1928) *

Hopelessly dated melodrama about a pure and innocent girl (Janet Gaynor) falsely convicted of prostitution, which ruins her relationship with a painter (Charles Farrell). Gaynor won the first Oscar as Best Actress for this and two other, far superior films, "Sunrise" and "Seventh Heaven". Curiously enough, the film was also nominated the following year for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction - the only American film nominated for Oscars in two different years (something that usually only happens to foreign films since Best Foreign Language Film has a different admission criteria from other categories).

The Chaser (1928) *

Harry Langdon becomes a househusband. Dated comedy with few laughs.

Laugh Clown Laugh (1928) *

Dated melodrama starring Lon Chaney as a circus clown who falls in love with a young orphan girl (Loretta Young).

The Red Dance (1928) *

Kitchy melodrama about a Bolchevik girl (Dolores Del Rio) falling in love with a handsome Russian prince. Anti-Tsarist in the first half and anti-Communist in the second half, the film tries to be everything to everybody, and ends up utterly insignificant.

Lilac Time (1928) *

A French girl (Colleen Moore) falls in love with an English pilot (Gary Cooper) during World War I. Dated melodrama.

Drums Of Love (1928) *

One of D.W. Griffith's worst films.

Two Tars (1928) *****

Two sailors (Stan and Ollie) pick two cute girls by helping them get some candies. Later, stuck in a huge traffic jam, they proceed to dismantle every car in sight.

Impatience (1928) ****

Limousine Love (1928) ****

Directed by Fred Guiol. On his way to the wedding, Charley discovers a nude girl in his car. Charley Chase's masterpiece starts with a simple premise, then follows it to its logical (and hilariously absurd) conclusion. Excerpted in "Four Clowns" (1969).

The Bridge (1928) ****

Nice documentary about a steel bridge. Directed by Joris Ivens. Length: 16 minutes.

La Coquille et le clergyman (1928) ****

You're Darn Tootin' (1928) ****

Stan and Ollie are street musicians who engage in a veritable orgy of pants-ripping. The film was supervised by Leo McCarey.

The Finishing Touch (1928) ***

Ollie swallows tons of nails while working with Stan on a construction site. Excerpted in "Laurel And Hardy's Laughing Twenties" (1965).

Leave 'Em Laughing (1928) ***

Classic Laurel & Hardy farce about aching teeth, dentists, laughing gas and traffic cops.

Habeas Corpus (1928) ***

Slapstick farce with Stan and Ollie as grave robbers.

Le Pompier de Folies Bergères (1928) ***

Jazz Babies (1928) ***

Desert Nymphs (1928) ***

Early To Bed (1928) ***

A curiosity among Laurel & Hardy films, and much disliked by their hardcore fans, because Ollie plays such a sadistic and unpleasant character. Unlike the team's usual formula, where Ollie suffers because of Stan's ineptness, here it's Stan who suffers because of Ollie's meanness. Still, the film is quite funny as a black comedy of sorts.

From Soup To Nuts (1928) ***

Stan and Ollie are two waiters serving a salad, undressed. Excerpted in "Laurel And Hardy's Laughing Twenties" (1965). Directed by Edgar Kennedy.

Betty's Bath (1928) ***

We Faw Down (1928) ***

Stan and Ollie are henpecked husbands who fool around with other women. The memorable final scene with lovers jumping from windows was reprised in "Block-Heads" (1938). Excerpted in "The Golden Age Of Comedy" (1957).

Their Purple Moment (1928) ***

Laurel and Hardy hide some money from their wives and spend an evening in a nightclub. This typical comedy was supervised by Leo McCarey. Excerpted in "Four Clowns" (1969).

Campus Carmen (1928) **

The Beach Club (1928) **

A Bathing Beauties Mack Sennett comedy.

Life And Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1928) **

Imaginative, but confusing film about dreams of success in Hollywood. Visually impressive, but narratively incoherent. Codirected by Slavko Vorkapich and Robert Florey.

Run Girl Run (1928) **

Carole Lombard plays a promiscuous runner in this rather lame college comedy. Directed by Alf Goulding and produced by Mack Sennett.

The Eyes Have It (1928) **

A moderately amusing comedy with Ben Turpin hiding from his jealous wife and suspicious mother-in-law. Best gags involve Ben's long fishing rod. Directed by L.Goodwins and produced by Weiss/Artclass.

The Best Man (1928) **

A bride and groom are all set to get married, but they can't until the best man shows up. When the best man eventually does show up, he causes a few problems since he ran through some tar just before entering the church. The groom doesn't seem to mind too much, just as long as the best man brought the ring, which he did. But as the wedding proceeds, that sticky tar just can't help but get the best man into one disastrous incident after another, including with the ring. That havoc, which leads into the reception, the wedding night and the honeymoon send off, may end the marriage even before it begins... or at least the couple's friendship with their best man.

La Petite marchande d'allumettes (1928) *

An unsuccessful adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's short story by Jean Renoir.

Should Married Men Go Home? (1928) *

Golf and mud. One of Laurel & Hardy's weaker films. Its best gags would be reprised in later, "talkie" shorts like "Come Clean" and "Men o'War".

Plane Crazy (1928) *****

Woos Whoopee (1928) *****

This surrealistic masterpiece is Felix the Cat's finest film and a superb example of the "American Graphic" style of design. Party animal Felix, returning drunk from the Whoopee Club, imagines every object as a blood-thirsty wild beast.

Steamboat Willie (1928) *****

A milestone in the history of animation, "Steamboat Willie" was the first sound cartoon and the first vehicle for a certain mischievious rodent named Mickey Mouse. Its success (comparable to 1927's "The Jazz Singer") paved the way for the complete sonorization of all American cartoons. Mickey is a sailor on a cargo ship transporting livestock. Playing hookey with his girlfriend Minnie, he organizes a concert, using the animals as musical instruments: cow's teeth are transformed into a xylophone, while a cat's tail turns into a stringed instrument. It's a marvelously inventive sequence, well representative of Disney's ability to create a surrealistic fantasy universe, where living creatures are turned into objects and vice versa.

Koko's Earth Control (1928) *****

Koko and Fitz provoke a series of natural disasters (earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, exploding planets), which cause the end of the world. One of the most inventive and original cartoons ever made.