Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd: 12 Silent Comedy Classics You Can Watch Free

A Southern railroad engineer, turned away by the Confederate army, chases the Union spies who have stolen his beloved locomotive — and then has to outrun them all the way back. It is based on the real Great Locomotive Chase of 1862, and for its climax Keaton sent a real locomotive across a burning bridge and into an Oregon river. It lost money on release; it is now routinely ranked among the greatest films ever made.

A small-town projectionist who dreams of being a detective falls asleep in his booth and walks straight into the film on the screen — where the scenery keeps cutting around him, dropping him from a garden onto a busy street, a cliff edge and a rock in the sea. At about forty-five minutes it is short, and it is still one of the most inventive films about the movies ever made. Keaton broke his neck during a gag with a water tower and did not find out until years later.

A parody of the Hatfield–McCoy feuds: a young man travels south to claim his inheritance, falls for a girl on the train, and discovers that her family has sworn to kill him — but cannot, by the rules of Southern hospitality, while he is a guest under their roof. The journey on a replica 1830s train is a delight, and the waterfall rescue at the end is one of Keaton’s great stunts. It was a family affair: his wife Natalie Talmadge plays the girl, and his father and baby son both appear.

A struggling broker learns he will inherit seven million dollars — if he is married by seven o’clock that evening. When the story reaches the newspapers, hundreds of would-be brides descend on him, and the chase ends with Keaton fleeing down a hillside ahead of an avalanche of boulders. The opening scenes are in early two-colour Technicolor.

A dapper college boy comes home to his gruff father, the captain of a battered riverboat, and is a disappointment in every way — until a cyclone flattens the town. The storm sequence contains the most famous stunt in silent film: the whole front of a house falls on Keaton, who survives because he is standing exactly where an open upstairs window lands. It was the last film he made as an independent before signing with MGM.

The Tramp finds an abandoned baby in an alley, tries every way he can think of to get rid of him, and ends up raising him — until the authorities come to take the boy away. Chaplin’s first feature opens with the title card “A picture with a smile — and perhaps, a tear”, and it delivers both. Jackie Coogan, as the kid, became the first great child star. This is the original 1921 cut; Chaplin’s shortened 1971 reissue, with his own score, is a separate work.

The Tramp joins the Klondike gold rush and ends up snowbound in a cabin with a starving prospector who begins to see him as a chicken. It contains three of the most famous scenes in comedy: Chaplin boiling and eating his own boot, the “dance of the rolls” with two forks and a pair of bread rolls, and a cabin teetering on the edge of a cliff. Chaplin said it was the picture he wanted to be remembered by.

Twenty-odd minutes long, and a perfect introduction. The Tramp crosses the Atlantic on a ship that will not stop pitching, wins at cards, falls for a fellow passenger (Edna Purviance), and arrives in America — where, broke, he finds himself in a restaurant he cannot pay for, with a very large head waiter. It comes from Chaplin’s year at the Mutual company, which he later called the happiest period of his career.

A young man who has told his girlfriend he is a big success in the city — he is actually a lowly department-store clerk — dreams up a publicity stunt: a climb up the outside of the store’s building. When the friend he has lined up to make the climb is chased off by a policeman, Harold has to do it himself, one floor at a time. The climb was filmed on real rooftops in downtown Los Angeles, with the camera placed so the street appears far below, and the image of Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock is one of the most famous in all of cinema.

Harold arrives at college determined to be the most popular man on campus, and does everything wrong: his classmates are laughing at him, not with him. His one chance at redemption is the big football game, as the water boy who finally gets sent onto the field. It was one of the biggest hits of the silent era, and it is the most purely sweet-natured film on this list.

A tailor’s apprentice who stammers in front of women writes a book of advice on how to seduce them — and then falls for a real girl who is about to marry the wrong man. The finale, a frantic race across Los Angeles by car, streetcar, horse and anything else he can grab to stop the wedding, is a model of how to build a chase.

The timid youngest son of a tough rural sheriff, left to do the housework while his big brothers do the manly jobs, has to prove himself when the town’s money goes missing. It is Lloyd at his most lyrical — the courtship scenes with Jobyna Ralston, his leading lady in several films, are lovely — and many critics rank it alongside Safety Last! as his best.