Join me on a year-by-year journey through film history, starting right from the very beginning. Sources of inspiration for film choices include the History of American Cinema series, the Screen Decades series, the Oxford History of World Cinema, and the like. But at the bottom of this page, you’ll also find the online resources I’ve relied on to guide me.

The 1800s

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The 1900s

1900

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Additional Resources

• THE 5 BEST FILMS OF EVERY YEAR EVER – A useful (and focused) MUBI list.
• Centuries of Sound – Includes a selection of films from each year, usually embedded from YouTube.
• Century Film Project – A site that discusses and reviews films that are at least 100 years old, and includes links to online sources where available. Includes an archive of titles that is searchable by year.
• A Cinema History – Film history site that includes discussions of a curated list of films from each year, with links to watch each film.
• The Complete Criterion Collection – An up-to-date Letterboxd list of the nearly 6000 films in the Criterion Collection.
• THE EARLY SILENT ERA 1895-1915 – Incredible resource by a Berlin film historian. Posts covering a huge variety of films and sources. Can be quite difficult to search (for my purposes).
• Every Year In Film – Site of essays devoted to every year in film history. Each essay centers around one selected film, but often discusses several others.
• Films by the Year – YouTube channel with a large and constantly-growing collection of films that, importantly, always include the film year in the video title.
• FilmSite’s Greatest Films by Year – A year-by-year list of significant films from one of the oldest still-operating film sites on the internet.
• IRA GALLEN’s Videos – Vimeo channel of a well-known film and television historian. Channel is searchable.
• The Library of Congress – Includes an archive of historical films made available online for free, easily searchable with carefully-defined parameters.
• Movies Silently – Site with reviews and discussions of silent films. Includes a searchable index and ranked list.
• NFR List of Films by Year (The Horse’s Head) – A chronological list of every film on the National Film Registry, with reviews, discussions, and links.
• One Week, One Year – A very informative and useful podcast that reviews and discusses a selection of films from each year beginning in 1895 (with included playlist).
• The Oxford History of World Cinema, Letterboxd Version – A Letterboxd list of all 5000+ films referenced in this indispensable work.
• PUNQ’s lists – A year-by-year series of curated Letterboxd lists by a Norwegian cinephile who has watched every movie he can find through 1950.
• Silent Hall of Fame Free Movies – A selection of films made available by an organization of silent film enthusiasts.
• Stumfilm – An incredible archive of Danish silent films in pristine condition.