10 best silent films, selected by Tim Robey Watch a clip from Dr Mabuse, The Gambler The General (1926) Pictures reached near-constant motion in Buster Keaton's giddy wonderwork and own favourite film, which achieves delightful velocity whenever it's on board the titular train. His stunts as a heroic Civil War train engineer still look death-defying. Read a review of The General Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) A pinnacle of craft in the silent era, FW Murnau's gorgeous poem to love, faith and other dilemmas of the psyche resonates with a genuinely timeless power, because it's about the fundamental question of who we want to spend our lives with. Read a review of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans Silent but tearjerking: FW Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans Un Chien Andalou (1928) Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dalí changed the face of film with this 16-minute Surrealist short, instantly confronting the viewer with the sight of an eyeball being slit open. Narrative is jettisoned, and the unnerving power of juxtaposition championed in dreamlike montage. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) Uncanny lyricism abounds in this early Poe adaptation, which manages to suggest that things are indefinably wrong in the Usher residence, using shivery long takes and marvellous photographic effects. A wordless séance, full of surprises. The Last Command (1928) The great German silent star Emil Jannings rose to Shakespearean heights for Josef von Sternberg as a former army commander in Tsarist Russia, who descends into poverty and is reduced to working as an extra in Hollywood. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Cowed but not broken by all the tricks and tortures her accusers visit upon her, Joan (Renée Maria Falconetti, in the era's greatest performance) ascends to grace. The stark white sets and even Dreyer's camera angles seem to conspire against her. Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Everything film could do in 1929 was paraded in this dizzying technical manifesto - we're still doing most of it, and the absence of sound, colour or 3D hardly get in Dziga Vertov's way: a man conducting his maturing medium like an orchestra. Watch a clip from Man with a Movie Camera Pandora's Box (1929) Black-bobbed Louise Brooks was propelled to instant stardom in GW Pabst's rivetingly seamy adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays, as a promiscuous seductress whose heedless desires prove the undoing of everyone around her - not least herself. What is your favourite silent film?