The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever
The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever features experts and enthusiasts and, well, their favorite films of every year ever. Host Tristan Ettleman sits down with a new guest every week to dive into the history and beauty of some of the best movies to ever come out of the cinematic medium.
1906 E2 - Carl Bennett
Carl Bennett, publisher and editor of silentera.com, has run the crucial resource covering the first decades of film since 1999. He selects five films reflecting the growing trend of narrativization of cinema, with one notable exception in his conclusion.
Carl’s site provides information about silent motion pictures, silent era people, the era’s theatres, documentation and reviews of home video editions of silent films, book reviews, and more.
Films and resources mentioned:
The Spring Fairy (1906) - Vincent Lorant-HeilbronnThe ? Motorist (1906) - Walter R. BoothDream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) - Edwin S. PorterThe Merry Frol...
1906 E1 - Firsts and Finance
From changes in distribution and exhibition to formal firsts (with caveats), 1906 carries just a few pieces of oft-cited film history. But this season, on a year that is still very much part of cinema's earliest growth spurts, illustrates the heterogenous landscape of global filmmaking at the time and the thrills it can still offer today.
Films mentioned:
The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) - Charles TaitHumorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) - J. Stuart Blackton
1905 E7 - The Experiments Continue
While the “nickelodeon boom” began in the United States and the global film industry was standardizing certain production elements, many of the conversations for this 1905 season turned to how wide the modes of moviemaking still were, resulting in strange yet beautiful experiments. As this year’s five guests have shown, cinema in even in an apparently obscure period such as the mid-1900s can still yield up riveting viewing experiences.
Films mentioned:
The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Without Pants at the Zandvoort Beach (1905) - Albert and Willy MullensConey Island at Night (1905) - Edwin S. Porter...
1905 E6 - Mary Mallory
Film historian and author Mary Mallory has written five books about cinematic yesteryear. With her research of past traditions and underappreciated figures in mind, Mary selects some films that reflect the intermediality of early film and its basis in stage tricks, poetry, and even postcards, while others demonstrate new cinematic inventions.
Mary’s most recent book is First Women of Hollywood: Female Pioneers in the Early Motion Picture Business. She is also a lecturer for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and blogger for the LA Daily Mirror.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own to...
1905 E5 - Chris O'Rourke
Chris O’Rourke, Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, explores the early history of film acting, stardom and fandom in Britain up to the end of the silent era in his book Acting for the Silent Screen: Film Actors and Aspiration between the Wars. While film acting wasn’t quite a specific discipline in 1905, that distinction would arise sooner than one might think, and in the meantime, Chris’ picks explore UK innovations in editing, pace, and length, French spectacle, and American actuality.
Chris also developed the website London's Silent Cinemas, which mapped early...
1905 E4 - Scott Curtis
Scott Curtis, associate professor of radio/film/television and communication at Northwestern University, has published extensively on the use of moving images in scientific and medical research, education, and communication. That particular interest certainly informs most of his picks, but the conversation also includes the spectacle of sound and fantasy.
Scott is the author of The Shape of Spectatorship: Art, Science, and Early Cinema in Germany. He is the former president of Domitor, the international society for the study of early cinema.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five of 1905!
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1905 E3 - Shawn Hall
Shawn Hall brings his love of silent films to new audiences through his Shawn Toks Silents TikTok account, where he is currently working his way through reviewing each movie on Silent Era’s Top 100 Silent Movies List. He stretches back a little bit further than most silent film enthusiasts, however, by exploring 1905 through films of “serious” topics and advancing forms of comedy and feel-good stories.
Shawn also writes his long-form thoughts on silent cinema and early Hollywood at his blog The Everyday Cinephile.
Films and resources mentioned:
The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Withou...
1905 E2 - Dan Willard
Dan Willard’s interest in film was fostered by a viewing of Eraserhead in 1977 and a number of UCLA film classes. In more recent years and reflecting the depths of his cinephilia, that has manifested in his extensive Films by the Year site and YouTube channel, which have been linked to many times in this very show’s notes (in this case, ranging from comedy and the féerie to “message films” and naturalism).
Dan is also a professional musician, composer, producer, and teacher and is currently working on an online History of Western Art Music.
Visit the...
1905 E1 - The Nickelodeon Boom
The year 1905 pops up early in many film histories to address the start of the "nickelodeon era." As past seasons have shown, the Harris brothers' Pittsburgh storefront wasn't truly the first space dedicated to showing movies, but it and others shifted the needle in forming the activity of moviegoing. This season and its guests address the unification of the global "trade" of filmmaking and the changing aesthetics that supported that.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1905!
1904 E7 - An Awkward Year
This season’s conversations about film in 1904 often turned to the “awkwardness” of finding standout titles and defining the most representative developments in the art, business, and reception of cinema. Nevertheless, this year’s five guests presented exciting threads of potential futures that, in many ways, were resolved into the narrative model one expects a few years later.
Films mentioned:
Court Ladies Bathing (1904) - unknownHow a French Nobleman Got a Wife through the New York Herald Personal Column (1904) - Edwin S. PorterA Butterfly’s Metamorphosis (1904) - Gaston VelleDog Factory (1904) - Edwin S. PorterThe Impossible Voyage (1904) - Georges...
1904 E6 - CĂ©line Ruivo
Film preservationist CĂ©line Ruivo brings an eye for color and pre-cinema to her five early cinema picks for 1904. From scientific intent to fantasy, and industrialism and modernity in between, she demonstrates how an apparently unmemorable year like 1904 can still provide great insight into the art and technology of cinema at the time.
Céline holds a doctorate in cinema and teaches film preservation at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She is currently in charge of film restoration projects with two European cinémathèques and also directed the documentary Cinégraphies, les femmes de la tempête (202...
1904 E5 - Martin L Johnson
Martin L. Johnson, film historian and Associate Professor in English and Comparative Literature at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has literally written the book on local films in the United States. While most of his picks fit into that definition, he also brings comic chases and early filmic nudity into the conversation.
Martin is also co-president of Domitor, the international society for the study of early cinema. He is currently completing a monograph on the history of the advertising film and co-editing, with Liz Clarke, a forthcoming collection on silent cinema that features films that expand...
1904 E4 - Dimitrios Latsis
Dimitrios Latsis, Associate Professor in Digital and Audiovisual Preservation at the University of Alabama, has worked extensively in the fields of American visual culture, early cinema, archival studies, and digital humanities. These interests are brought into the conversation about his five eclectic picks, in addition to some “runner-ups” that paint a fuller picture of cinema in 1904.
Dimitrios is the author of How the Movies Got a Past: A Historiography of American Cinema, 1894-1930. He has also co-edited a special issue of The Moving Image, the journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists on the topic of Digital Huma...
1904 E3 - George Willeman
George Willeman has been the Nitrate Film Vault Leader at the Library of Congress for 41 years. Having been in love with movies as far back as he can remember, George is still constantly amazed at the discoveries found within the Library’s nitrate film collection, and his picks reflect the enthusiasm and intrigue that occur at least weekly in his role.
At a young age, George got hooked on 8mm releases from the renowned Blackhawk Films company. He brought this lifelong passion to his degree in film production and began his time at the Library with a part-time jo...
1904 E2 - Steve Massa
Film historian Steve Massa is a particular expert on silent film comedy. His five choices for 1904 certainly reflect that interest, as they feature premises and gags that can still rouse surprise, chuckles, and laughs today.
Steve is the author of Lames Brains and Lunatics: The Good, the Bad, and the Forgotten of Silent Comedy and its sequel as well as many other books. He also co-hosts Silent Comedy Watch Party with Ben Model, has curated comedy film programs for institutions and festivals, and has provided essays and commentary tracks for DVDs and Blu-rays.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever...
1904 E1 - The Story of Narrative Continues
While 1904 doesn't have an iconic film like the past two seasons have each featured, that doesn't mean it doesn't have its share of worthwhile films and intriguing aspects of film history to explore. From the eve of the nickelodeon boom to expanding narrative ambitions, this season will explore both returning and new threads of the cinematic discourse of the early cinema period, from its time to now.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own picks for 1904!
Films mentioned:
A Trip to the Moon (1902) - Georges MélièsThe Great Train Robbery (1903...
1903 E7 - Editing and Otherwise
While one particular film was explored in-depth this season, every guest (whether they selected The Great Train Robbery or not) explored lesser known or at least lesser appreciated arenas of cinema in 1903. The myth busting, amateur spotlighting, and spectacle showcasing elements of this season's conversations make the case for the expansion of the art form in this calendar year, which may indeed deserve its special attention.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to view the full list of films submitted for 1903 (and beyond)!
Films mentioned:
The Enchanted Well (1903) - Georges MélièsAlice in Wo...
1903 E6 - Colin Williamson
Colin Williamson, Assistant Professor in Cinema Studies at University of Oregon, has wide-ranging interests, including animation, special effects, and media archaeology. With these angles and more in mind, he brings a unique perspective and some myth busting to his standout films of 1903.
Colin is the author of Hidden in Plain Sight: An Archaeology of Magic and the Cinema and the forthcoming Drawn to Nature: American Animation in the Age of Science. He is also currently Associate Editor at Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
Films and resources mentioned:
Electrocuting an Elephant (1903) - Edwin S. PorterThe...
1903 E5 - Rob Stone
Film archivist and historian Rob Stone has always been interested in silent film. With his five picks, he charts evolving storytelling capabilities in the medium’s earliest days and the darker side of the fading actuality, mostly as represented by one filmmaker!
Rob’s publishing company Split Reel specializes in books and other media highlighting lesser-known aspects of the entertainment industry, especially the silent era. He was also Moving Image Curator at the Library of Congress for over 15 years.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1903!
Films and reso...
1903 E4 - Jay Weissberg
Pordenone Silent Film Festival director Jay Weissberg has facilitated an array of programs that expand the canonical ideas about what was made in the silent era and what can be appreciated now. With his picks (which he stretches a bit past five with two more must-sees), he showcases international, amateur, and aesthetic ambitions in 1903.
Jay also worked as a film critic for 18 years with Variety and contributes essays for a host of festivals, retrospective catalogues, and international publications with a particular focus on contemporary Arab cinema. Among his published works as a film historian are essays on the...
1903 E3 - Bruce Calvert
Silent film historian Bruce Calvert has been collecting silent film memorabilia for 30 years, showcased on his site The Silent Film Still Archive. He shares his story of how he came to develop this interest and addresses how supporting materials can help us understand how incomplete, missing, and even fully surviving movies were made, seen, and received.
Bruce is also a moderator of the classic film discussion site NitrateVille.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1903!
Films and resources mentioned:
The Melomaniac (1903) - Georges MélièsEccentric Walt...
1903 E2 - Neil Brand
Neil Brand has been a silent film accompanist for nearly 40 years. He shares his musical expertise, which also includes composing new scores for silent film re-releases, while exploring exciting threads of fantasy, comedy, and violence in his five picks.
Neil regularly plays at the Barbican and BFI National Film Theatres in London and film festivals around the world. His scores include Blackmail (1929), Underground (1928), Easy Street (1917), Robin Hood (1922), and The Lodger (1927) and he is also a prolific writer, television presenter, and Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your...
1903 E1 - The Great Film Robberies
The law (at least in America) had a significant effect on the development of film genres, aesthetics, production, and viewing practices from 1903 on. The world over, tightly run studios were becoming more and more prevalent, shifting story films further and further into the spotlight, and dedicated filmviewing spaces were cropping up. It's difficult to define any one calendar year as fundamentally shifting the development of cinema, but as guests will demonstrate, new techniques, technologies, and industrialization make the case for an exciting year.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1903!
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1902 E7 - From the Streets to the Studio
It's not like the established actuality suddenly evaporated in 1902, but as guests have pointed out throughout this season, a diversification of film topics, aesthetics, and technology fostered new genres and production styles. In this season finale, Tristan briefly summarizes the common threads of his conversations and puts together the most selected 1902 films.
Films mentioned:
The Treasures of Satan (1902) - Georges MélièsThe Spring Fairy (1902) - Ferdinand ZeccaGulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants (1902) - Georges MélièsJack and the Beanstalk (1902) - Edwin S. PorterA Trip to the Moon (1902) - Georges MélièsMiss...
1902 E6 - Tamara Shvediuk and Federico Striuli
Tristan welcomes two guests to one episode for the first time: the husband-and-wife film historian, archivist, and curator duo of Tamara Shvediuk and Federico Striuli. The pair showcase spectacle with their five picks, from the féerie to chronicles of a significant political change.
Tamara has curated film programs for several events, including the Moscow International Festival of Archival Films and the Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna. She also has collaborated with archives such as the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique, the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and the Cineteca di Bologna.
Federico holds a Ph.D...
1902 E5 - Vanessa Toulmin
Vanessa Toulmin, Chair in Early Film and Popular Entertainment at the University of Sheffield, is an expert on variety theater, circus, travelling exhibitions, fairgrounds, and other aspects of the history of show business. She brings this expertise to her five picks from 1902, ranging from her vast experience with the Mitchell & Kenyon films to an intriguing connection between A Trip to the Moon and an early amusement park ride.
Vanessa has published 11 books including Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell and Kenyon and four books on Blackpool's entertainment heritage and was the curator of the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection for...
1902 E4 - Lea Stans
Lea Stans has been writing about the silent era on her blog Silent-ology since 2014, informed by her college interests and even younger fascinations with the obscure. Her 1902 picks reflect the increasing diversity of the worldwide filmic output of the year, from the French féerie genre to actuality chronicles of downtown Indianapolis and northern England.
Lea is also a columnist for Classic Movie Hub and has written for The Keaton Chronicle and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1902!
Films mentioned:
1902 E3 - Karl Wratschko
Karl Wratschko, curator, filmmaker, and artist, has been working as a film curator for the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna since 2016. He brings his experience of programming screenings based in specific years, not unlike this very show (he’s even done 1902 for the festival!), to craft an abridged program you might have seen in that year.
Karl’s artistic work includes film, photography, installation, radio art, and public art. He was co-responsible for several retrospectives of early Austrian film at the Viennale and a member of the Austrian team of the EU-funded research and development project European Film...
1902 E2 - Clara Auclair
Film scholar and preservationist Clara Auclair and Tristan talk quite a bit about comedy and tricks, those originating from the stage and those that could only come from the magic of filmic technology. That conversation leads into discussing the phenomenon of early recreations of real events…or are they “fakes!?”
Clara teaches media studies at DIS Stockholm and works as a consultant for film archives. She is a DAFIV research fellow and co-secretary of Domitor, the International Association for the Study of Early Cinema, and is currently working on an edited collection of essays dedicated to the films of Ali...
1902 E1 - A Trip to the "Industry?"
A Trip to the Moon looms large in looking at the picture of 1902 in film. Georges Méliès' masterpiece is inarguably the most famous film of the early cinema period. But as will be explored by this season's guests, its part in reshaping the aesthetics, genres, and industrialization of the global film community exists alongside another version of film history.
Films mentioned:
A Trip to the Moon (1902) - Georges Méliès
1901 E7 - Truth and Tricks
Propaganda, comedy, tricks; these approaches may seem to obscure truths. That is certainly their potential in film, but in this 1901 season finale, Tristan reflects on the through lines of his guests' picks and the conversations that stemmed from them.
Also, he shares his personal five selections for 1901 and puts together the collective list of guest and listener submissions. That list, including all films submitted for the season, can be found at the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list.
The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever: 1902 coming soon!
Thank you to the guests of the third season:<...
1901 E6 - Lawrence Napper
All but one of the picks from Lawrence Napper, senior lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London, come from the huge trove of discovered Mitchell & Kenyon films. These fascinating records of everyday life in Victorian and Edwardian England and the United Kingdom lead to an array of exciting tangents, while Lawrence also uses his one fictional choice to make a resonant comparison between repeat film viewing and traditional religious ceremonies.
Lawrence’s publications include The Great War in Popular British Cinema: Before Journey’s End (2015) and Silent Cinema: Before the Pictures Got Small (2017). He is a regula...
1901 E5 - Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi
Tristan has been the grateful viewer of many an eye-popping restoration from Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam on YouTube. He expresses his thanks to Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, Curator of Silent Film at Eye, before the two mostly discuss comedy films, with the broad genre nevertheless inspiring many different tangents from sexuality to the beginning of the film industry’s self-parody.
Elif has worked on the discovery, restoration, and presentation of presumed lost films starring forgotten or neglected actresses such as Rosa Porten, Little Chrysia, Valeria Creti, and Constance Talmadge. She is directly involved with the programs of international archival fes...
1901 E4 - Grazia Ingravalle
Grazia Ingravalle, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Film at Queen Mary University of London, focuses her 1901 picks in relation to colonialism. She creatively tackles the premise of this show by talking not of the “best films” of the year, but “quite the opposite,” in her own words, to illustrate the effect of the medium at this time and beyond.
Grazia has published about film archives, digitization, archival remix, colonial histories, and decolonization in several edited volumes and in The Moving Image, Screen, and the JCMS. Her monograph, Archival Film Curatorship: Early and Silent Cinema from Analog to Digital (also ver...
1901 E3 - Pamela Hutchinson
Pamela Hutchinson's Silent London has been a great resource for Tristan since even before he started the written essay series that gives this podcast its name about seven years ago. Now, she joins the show to provide some context yet again, especially for how 1901 filmmakers weren't marching neatly toward narrative (they were tiptoeing toward it, dancing around it) and how some were specifically deconstructing the still-fledgling medium, through the lens of her five picks.
Pamela is a freelance writer, critic, curator, and film historian. Among her publications are two installments in the BFI Film Classics series:Â Pandora's Box a...
1901 E2 - Ian Christie
Film historian Ian Christie rewires Tristan’s brain a bit in this episode, as Ian draws parallels between the early film “adaptation” and the tableaux painting, both of which benefit from contemporary shared pathos. During the discussion of his five picks, among other things, he also provides insight into the Anglo-Boer War and the actuality genre’s dominance in 1901 even as trick films still draw our contemporary eyes.
Ian is an author and Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London. Among his many works are the book Robert Paul and the Origins of British Cinema (2...
1901 E1 - Entertainment as Propaganda
About five years into film's existence as a publicly available invention and art form, 1901 offers up a number of exciting threads for where the medium did and did not go. Some aspects may appear familiar: a form of a "close-up," attempts at adapting "narrative," and the use of the movies as a propaganda tool.
But as guests will point out, the intent and reception of such things may be alien to our modern eyes, from the idea of a moving picture "tableaux" to colonizing forces. Join host Tristan Ettleman for an exploration of 1901 with The 5 Best Films of...
1900 E7 - Sound, Color, Trickery, Oh My!
Although this season has emphasized that the sudden transition into the 20th century didn't magically advance the still very young art form of cinema, the films selected by the guests for the 1900 edition of The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever represent exciting developments. Color, sound, trickery, medicine, animation, and the ever-present regret that so many films from this era are lost were recurring themes in the conversations throughout the season.
In this finale, host Tristan Ettleman briefly summarizes these themes, shares his five picks for 1900, and creates a high-level list from guests' and listeners' picks. That list...
1900 E6 - Enri Ceballos
The affinity Enri Ceballos has for dance is intensely represented by his picks for 1900, four of which feature the sheer joy of human movement. Both in front of and behind the screen, these films (all French and helmed by women!) also represent the diversity of gender and sexuality at play, along with sound and color technologies, in early cinema's history.
Enri is the General Director for the Mexico International Silent Film Festival, a PhD student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and a member of Women and Film History International.
Films and resources...
1900 E5 - Carolyn Jacobs
Considering Carolyn Jacobs' research focuses on the cultural history of media, especially in relation to histories of medicine, science, and public health, it makes sense that she examines her five picks through those lenses. From kissing panics to women being barred from performing surgery, the medical view of the discussed films brings new angles to understanding early cinema.
Carolyn is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Communication Department at Central Connecticut State University. Her current book project, Sanitizing Cinema: Public Health and the Regulation of American Film, considers the effects of health emergencies on the development o...
