The transition from silent films to talkies (as movies with dialogue were once called) is perhaps the most dramatic of any change in cinema history. Both short films and feature films existed throughout cinema’s earliest decades - though some shorts were released as far back as the 19th century -with 1927 being the yearwhen things started to change. It became possible to synchronize sound with images, and with that came convincing on-screen dialogue.
With sound/dialogue came the capacity for more naturalistic performances, and, for some directors, perhaps an over-reliance on dialogue at the cost of more visual storytelling.Various films have depicted this transition in cinema, with a particular focus on how difficult it was for some actors to make the leap from silent films to talkies (seeThe Artist,Singin' in the Rain, andBabylonfor examples).It may have proved less challenging for directors, even with the clear differences between silent films and talkies, as the following examples show. All the directors below are noteworthy for making impressive films from both cinematic eras, though admittedly, some are more associated with silent movies, and some are more well-known for their non-silent movies.
10Charlie Chaplin
Directed from 1914 to 1967
Few silent movie directors are as famous asCharlie Chaplin, who’s perhaps most iconic still as an actor, though he frequently directed the films he also starred in. His career began with various shorts in the 1910s, and by the 1920s, he was making some features, likeThe Kid(which is still not much longer than a short film) andThe Gold Rush.He’s also noteworthy forcontinuing to make silent movies into the 1930s, sometime after most had abandoned such a style, with perhaps his two greatest works:City LightsandModern Times.
1940 marked the year he gave in and started to make movies with dialogue,as evidenced byThe Great Dictator… which instantly showed he was more than up to the task, given that it’s one of his overall best movies. His filmmaking career slowed a little after that point, but he made several more films, all of which were talkies, though not usually referred to as such, given talkies became pretty normal pretty quickly.
9Alfred Hitchcock
Directed from 1923 to 1976
Unlike Charlie Chaplin,Alfred Hitchcockis a filmmaker who’s much more well-known for his non-silent films than his silent ones. He made his earliest films in the UK, well over a decade before he made his more well-recognized American films, with the earliest of these UK releases being during the silent era. Outside the U.S., it took some other countries a little longer to adopt sound in their films,with Hitchcock being notable for directing thefirst talkie made in Britain, 1929’sBlackmail(though it had silent and sound versions).
His earliestmovies did also tend to be thrillers, like a good many of his acclaimed later masterpieces, but his style naturally got more distinct the further he got into his career. Those earlier films made in the UK, including some of his silent ones, are worth checking out for those who consider themselves big fans of the filmmaker, so long as they go in knowing they’re not going to see anything quite as great as sayPsycho,Vertigo, orNorth by Northwest.
8Victor Fleming
Directed from 1919 to 1948
The career ofVictor Flemingis a strange one, because his two most well-known films as director, by far, both came out in 1939. It’s not unheard of for filmmakers to deliver two well-known movies in one year, givenFrancis Ford Coppoladid it in 1974 withThe ConversationandThe Godfather: Part II, andSteven Spielbergdid it in 1993 withSchindler’s ListandJurassic Park, but both of those directors have had other well-known films.
With Fleming, it’s mainly just the two 1939 releases that he’s known for:the classiclive-action fantasy filmThe Wizard of Oz, and thetruly epic (and lengthy)Gone with the Wind. Still, he was active well before 1939, directing almost as many films during the silent era as he directed post-1927.
7William Wyler
Directed from 1925 to 1970
William Wylermade his start as a director right toward the end of the silent era, with his earliest films getting released in the mid-1920s. These are generally obscure, and it’s the movies he made in the decades following the 1920s that have given him the reputation for being one of the great directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age,especially considering he directed three films that won Best Picture Oscars.
Two of theseBest Picture winners were World War II movies,Mrs. MiniverandThe Best Years of Our Lives, the formermade during the Second World Warand the latterbeing made right after. Then, in the 1950s, he made the hugely successfulRoman Holiday, and finished off the decade with histhird Best Picture winner: the epicBen-Hur. His sound films are the ones that are most remembered, but it is interesting to note he nevertheless began working in the silent era.
6John Ford
Directed from 1917 to 1970
Another director from Hollywood’s Golden Age who may have started making movies earlier than many people realize,John Ford’smost acclaimed works tended to get made during the 1930s to 1960s, but his silent films can be worthwhile; at least those that have survived.One of these is 1926’s3 Bad Men, which showed his early keenness to explore morally complex characters within the Western genre.
Speaking of the Western genre, he’s mostwell-known for directingJohn Waynenumerous timesin plenty ofclassics, includingStagecoach,The Searchers, andThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Ford wasn’t just a Western filmmaker, though, and proved capable of making his fair share of dramas, war movies, and even some comedies, with a large chunk of his filmography being essential viewing, essentially, for those who are interested in older movies.
5Sergei Eisenstein
Directed from 1923 to 1946
Making films that were revolutionary both in subject and for what they did for cinema as a whole,Sergei Eisensteinwasn’t a hugely prolific director, as far as feature films were concerned, but he was an important one. Arguably, his best-known films were made during the silent era,withStrikeandBattleship Potemkinboth getting released in 1925, and both proving to be very powerful(the latter is held in particularly high regard by many,including filmmakerMichael Mann).
His later films had sound, and tended to look back further in the past than his best-known silent works, as he made well-regarded historical dramas likeAlexander Nevskyand two films aboutIvan the Terrible.There was a third intended, regarding the latter, though Eisenstein was being censored by Soviet authorities toward the end of his career, and his death in 1948 ensured his planned trilogy went sadly unfinished.
4Luis Buñuel
Directed from 1929 to 1977
Luis Buñueljust managed to squeeze in a well-regarded film during the silent era, and though he made far more films after said era was over, the fact that his silent effort is one of the most famous short films of all time makes him worth mentioning here. That silent film is the short known asUn Chien Andalou(1929), which is a dreamlike and incredibly surreal experience that still proves unsettling and strange to this day.
His later work was often defined by being not just surreal,but frequently biting and satirical, and included titles made as late as the 1970s, likeThe Discreet Charm of the BourgeoisieandThe Phantom of Liberty. Buñuel was a singular filmmaker during both key eras of filmmaking, and all these decades later, there’s still no other director quite like him.
3Cecil B. DeMille
Directed from 1914 to 1956
Not only didCecil B. DeMillemake silent films and non-silent films, but he even made two versions of the same story, one in each era. He originally made a film ofThe Ten Commandmentsin 1923, which was a big production for its time… though his secondThe Ten Commandments, made in 1956 (and his final film overall) was a true epic, andarguably one of the grandest in Hollywood history.
He also directed a Best Picture winner, albeit not a great one:The Greatest Show on Earth, released in 1952. His final decade as a director, the 1950s, also saw him give a memorable performance in the classicSunset Boulevard, playing a version of himself and being referred to by name in the film’s iconic final line – that film itself is also notable for revolving around a star of the silent era who never managed to transition when the talkies came into being.
2Fritz Lang
Directed from 1919 to 1960
Fritz Langhad anundeniably fascinating career as a filmmaker, making a huge variety of movies and continually adapting to changes in the industry and upheavals in his personal life. The two biggest came back-to-back: in the late 1920s, as mentioned before, sound was introduced to cinema, and then in the early 1930s,the Nazi Party was rising to prominence in Lang’s native Germany,causing him to flee the countryand begin directing in America.
He made mostly silent films in Germany, includingthe iconic science fiction movieMetropolis, and had successfully transitioned to talkies before leaving Germany, as is clearly demonstrated byM. His Hollywood films proved compelling, too, with a variety of entries into the film noir genre that still hold up well, and even some films shot in color right at the end of his career, including the duology made up ofThe Tiger of EschnapurandThe Indian Tomb.
1Yasujirō Ozu
Directed from 1927 to 1962
No one made family dramas quite as effectively asYasujirō Ozu, whose films are up there with some of the mostquietly moving and deeply human of all time. He made some lighter films here and there, and there was certainly a range to his dramas, with some being tragic and some being more slice-of-life, and dealing with very relatable and everyday issues one might’ve faced in Japan during the early to mid-20th century; or perhaps still might face today, in or outside of Japan.
It took until 1936 for Ozu to start making non-silent films, which led to him being one director who was more prolific as a silent filmmaker, but those non-silent films are the ones he’s best remembered for. You can’t go wrong with anything he made in the 1950s or early 1960s, butparticularly great titles from this time directed by the legendary Japanese filmmaker includeTokyo Story,Early Spring, andAn Autumn Afternoon.
