1926 Movies
Take a nostalgic look back at the top movies of 1926, celebrating the films, directors and actors that defined the year and left a lasting legacy in the world of entertainment.
The Son of the Sheik
Directed by: George Fitzmaurice
Starring: Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Bánky, George Fawcett, Montagu Love
Country: United States of America
Outline: The son of the sheik and a dancing girl fall in love, but when he is made to believe she has betrayed him he seeks revenge.
The Black Pirate
Directed by: Albert Parker
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Billie Dove, Tempe Pigott, Donald Crisp
Country: United States of America
Outline: Seeking revenge, an athletic young man joins the pirate band responsible for his father's death.
Don Juan
Directed by: Alan Crosland
Starring: Jane Winton, John Roche, Warner Oland, Estelle Taylor
Country: United States of America
Outline: In 16th Century Italy, devil-may-care playboy Don Juan runs afoul of the despotic Borgias.
Beau Geste
Directed by: Herbert Brenon
Starring: Ronald Colman, Neil Hamilton, Ralph Forbes, Alice Joyce
Country: United States of America
Outline: Michael "Beau" Geste leaves England in disgrace and joins the infamous French Foreign Legion. He is reunited with his two brothers in North Africa, where they face greater danger from their...
Brown of Harvard
Directed by: Jack Conway
Starring: William Haines, Jack Pickford, Mary Brian, Francis X. Bushman Jr.
Country: United States of America
Outline: Tom Brown shows up at Harvard, confident and a bit arrogant. He becomes a rival of Bob McAndrew, not only in football and rowing crew, but also for the affections of Mary Abbott, a ...
The General
Directed by: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley
Country: United States of America
Outline: When Union spies steal an engineer's beloved locomotive, he pursues it single-handedly and straight through enemy lines.
Faust
Directed by: F.W. Murnau
Starring: Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Frida Richard
Country: United States of America
Outline: The demon Mephisto wagers with God that he can corrupt a mortal man's soul.
Flesh and the Devil
Directed by: Clarence Brown
Starring: John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson, Barbara Kent
Country: United States of America
Outline: Childhood friends are torn apart when one of them marries the woman the other once fiercely loved.
Up in Mabel's Room
Directed by: E. Mason Hopper
Starring: Marie Prevost, Harrison Ford, Phyllis Haver, Harry Myers
Outline: Mabel catches her husband buying lingerie, and he won't explain who it's for. She divorces him, but later learns he was buying her an anniversary gift. She becomes determined to win him back.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed
Directed by: Lotte Reiniger
Starring: Lillian Gish, John Gilbert, Rene Adore
Country: United States of America
Outline: A handsome prince rides a flying horse to far-away lands and embarks on magical adventures, which include befriending a witch, meeting Aladdin, battling demons and falling in love with a princess.
Bardelys the Magnificent
Directed by: King Vidor
Starring: John Gilbert, Eleanor Boardman, Roy D'Arcy, Lionel Belmore
Country: United States of America
Outline: Rafael Sabatini's story of the swashbuckling era and of Bardeleys, the handsome courtier who could win any woman he set his mind to...and was not above boasting about it to all who would listen.
Ella Cinders
Directed by: Alfred E. Green
Starring: Colleen Moore, Lloyd Hughes, Vera Lewis, Doris Baker
Outline: Poor Ella Cinders is much abused by her evil step-mother and step-sisters. When she wins a local beauty contest she jumps at the chance to get out of her dead-end life and go to Hollywood, ...
Mother
Directed by: Vsevolod Pudovkin
Starring: Vera Baranovskaya, Nikolay Batalov, Aleksandr Chistyakov, Anna Zemtsova
Country: United States of America
Outline: The Film Version Of Gorki's Great Story Of The 1905 Revolution
The Belle of Broadway
Directed by: Harry O. Hoyt
Starring: Betty Compson, Herbert Rawlinson, Edith Yorke, Armand Kaliz
Outline: Madame Adele, once a great star of the Paris theatre, has fallen upon hard times. But she allows a young American performer, Marie Duval, to perform as the Madame Adele of old, and both ...
The Canadian
Directed by: William Beaudine
Starring: Thomas Meighan, Mona Palma, Wyndham Standing, Dale Fuller
Outline: A couple undergo hardship homesteading in Alberta, where they are plagued by bad weather and financial woes.
Devil's Island
Directed by: Frank O'Connor
Starring: Pauline Frederick, Marian Nixon, George J. Lewis, Richard Tucker
Outline: A wealthy Parisian surgeon finds himself serving time in a brutal penal colony.
The Cruise of the Jasper B
Directed by: James W. Horne
Starring: Rod La Rocque, Mildred Harris, Snitz Edwards, Jack Ackroyd
Lightning Hutch
Directed by: Charles Hutchison
Starring: Charles Hutchison, Edith Thornton, Sheldon Lewis, Eddie Phillips
Outline: A scientist invents a poison gas; the villain and his gang will do anything to get the formula; our hero, "Lightning Hutch", is sent to save the scientist, the scientist's beautiful ...
Sparrows
Directed by: William Beaudine, Tom McNamara
Starring: Mary Pickford, Roy Stewart, Mary Louise Miller, Gustav von Seyffertitz
Country: United States of America
Outline: Molly, the eldest child at a baby farm hidden deep in a swamp, must rescue the others when their cruel master decides that one of them will be disposed of.
Spangles
Directed by: Frank O'Connor
Starring: Marian Nixon, Pat O'Malley, Hobart Bosworth, Gladys Brockwell
The Duchess of Buffalo
Directed by: Sidney Franklin
Starring: Constance Talmadge, Tullio Carminati, Edward Martindel, Rose Dione
Outline: An American dancer on a tour of pre-Boleshevik Russia falls for a young army officer, and the feeling is mutual. However, the officer's father is the Grand Duke of Russia, and he has ...
The Nervous Wreck
Directed by: Scott Sidney
Starring: Harrison Ford, Phyllis Haver, Chester Conklin, Mack Swain
Outline: Henry Williams, out in Arizona looking for a cure for his imaginary ills, stops at the ranch of Jud Morgan, and decides to stay. Jud's daughter, Sally, attracts his attention, although she ...
Torrent
Directed by: Monta Bell
Starring: Ricardo Cortez, Greta Garbo, Gertrude Olmstead, Edward Connelly
Country: United States of America
Outline: A young girl and her father are kicked out of their house by a cruel noblewoman, and the girl's heart is broken when her sweetheart, the noblewoman's son, won't go to Paris with them. After...
Mantrap
Directed by: Victor Fleming
Starring: Ernest Torrence, Clara Bow, Percy Marmont, Eugene Pallette
Country: United States of America
Outline: A sexy young manicurist living with her older backwoodsman husband in a small Canadian town finds herself attracted to a young, rich and famous divorce lawyer who comes to town on vacation.
Battling Butler
Directed by: Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Snitz Edwards, Sally O'Neil, Walter James
Country: United States of America
Outline: A love-struck weakling must pretend to be boxer in order to gain respect from the family of the girl he loves.
What happened in 1926?
Discover what the world looked like in 1926: