Silent Era, probably the most important silent film site on the internet, has a long-running poll to find the best silent era films.
The list is obviously far from perfect and suffers from three problems all acknowledged by the creators of the poll. The first is that some silent films are lost, either partially or wholly, while many others suffer from severe deterioration, and as such no definitive list of silent films is possible. The second problem is that, being a poll, the list will naturally favor those films which are more readily available for viewing on DVD and other media. The third problem is defining exactly what a "silent film" is.
To solve this last problem "silent film" is…
Silent Era, probably the most important silent film site on the internet, has a long-running poll to find the best silent era films.
The list is obviously far from perfect and suffers from three problems all acknowledged by the creators of the poll. The first is that some silent films are lost, either partially or wholly, while many others suffer from severe deterioration, and as such no definitive list of silent films is possible. The second problem is that, being a poll, the list will naturally favor those films which are more readily available for viewing on DVD and other media. The third problem is defining exactly what a "silent film" is.
To solve this last problem "silent film" is defined as silent films made from 1891 to 1929 and "true silents" made a later date. There is some editorial opinion in determining this, for example City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931) is counted despite having a synchronized soundtrack, but Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936) is not.
However keeping those points in mind it's certainly a good starting point for anyone looking to get into silent cinema. I also very highly recommend MongooseCmr's Big Silent Movie List which is even better in that regard.
NOTES
I have no idea why there are only 298 of these!
