The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever

58:22

1915 E3 - Jeremy Mathews

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/09/30

Filmmaker, musician, and writer Jeremy Mathews takes a couple tacks in his selections for 1915. In addition to a couple National Film Registry entries and another widely praised American drama, he selects an offbeat short comedy and a surreal, macabre, and underseen Russian horror, of a kind.Jeremy’s film criticism has appeared in Eye for Film in the UK and Paste Magazine in the US. He fronts the indie band NSPS as singer, songwriter and guitarist, with upcoming projects including the new NSPS

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42:49

1915 E2 - Anthony Slide

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/09/23

Anthony Slide, prolific film historian, author, and archivist, personally knew a few people who acted in his selections of 1915. This secondhand view of their production is combined with his wide historical knowledge of their significance to bring valuable insight to the year and period.Anthony is the author of numerous books since 1970 and has served as archivist at the American Film Historian and resident film historian for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Perhaps his most relevant

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4:02

1915 E1 - The White-Hooded Elephant in the Room

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/09/16

To borrow a phrase from an upcoming guest of this season, Jeremy Mathews: 1915 has a white-hooded elephant in the room. D.W. Griffith’s racist epic The Birth of a Nation has to be mentioned when discussing film in this year, and although (spoiler) it was only selected by one guest, its shadow is cast somewhere into each of the conversations and diverse picks to come, addressing both its good and bad influence.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1915!Media

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4:51

1914 E7 - Wartime Modernity

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/09/09

While the 1914 season introduction promised the omnipresence of “The Great War,” World War I, if still at least mentioned in every episode, didn’t dominate the conversations. Even still, its representation of sudden disruption, evolution, and modernity is still thematically connected to the aesthetic and industrial developments in film of the year.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to see the list of every submitted film!Mentioned media:Cabiria (1914) - Giovanni PastroneTillie’s Punctured

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52:13

1914 E6 - Brett Wood

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/09/02

Whether he had a hand in their restoration or not, Bret Wood, filmmaker, author, and SVP and Producer of Archival Releases at Kino Lorber, selects five films that hold some personal connections for him. While they shift back and forth from epic drama and short comedy, these picks also highlight some representative traits of American film in 1914.Among the many projects Bret has worked on at Kino are Pioneers of African-American Cinema and Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers. His films include Hell's

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52:37

1914 E5 - Beja Margitházi

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/08/26

The selections from Beja Margitházi, assistant professor at Eötvös Loránd University's Department of Film Studies, begin in Canada and move eastward. They also jump between genres and culminate in an early directorial effort from Michael Curtiz and a representation of the cinema of her native Hungary.Beja is editor of the film theory and history journal Metropolis. She is also the author of The Cinema of the Face: Close-up and Film Style and co-editor of the anthology Visual Communication.Visit

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50:03

1914 E4 - Brian Darr

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/08/19

Library professional Brian Darr once maintained a blog about the San Francisco Bay Area screening scene called Hell On Frisco Bay, an alias he still uses on Bluesky and Letterboxd. So some aspect of the theatrical experience, whether he caught a screening or not, comes into the conversation about each of his five picks (all from a different country!) in addition to their aesthetic recommendations.Brian has written on media history for outlets like Senses of Cinema, the San Francisco Silent Film

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59:33

1914 E3 - Elyse Singer

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/08/12

Elyse Singer, Lecturer in the Department of Theater at Dartmouth College, selects a wide range of forms and genres for her five picks of 1914, from short comedy to serial action to epic tales (one historically dramatic and the other perhaps the first feature comedy). At least two relate to her recent research in female madness in film and the agency of women in serials of the time.Elyse has also taught at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at CUNY and NYU Tisch. Her work has been published in

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52:29

1914 E2 - Susan Potter

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/08/05

Susan Potter, Senior Lecturer in the School of Art, Communication and English at the University of Sydney, wrote the book Queer Timing: The Emergence of Lesbian Sexuality in Early Cinema. While its scope is broader than any one year, and just one of Susan’s 1914 selections is referenced within it, she also mostly highlights female agency and subversion before and behind the screen with her picks.Susan’s research investigates the relation of cinema as modern mass medium to the intensification of

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4:31

1914 E1 - The Great War Begins

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/07/29

The event that has been foreshadowed the past few seasons comes to pass in 1914: the Great War, or World War I. And while not every facet of the conversations this season relates back to the disruption of the film industry that ensued (to say nothing of the disruption of every other aspect of life), it certainly looms large and provides context for filmmaking language and industrial developments in this year and to come through at least the end of the decade.Visit

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5:04

1913 E7 - Yes, a Milestone Year

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/07/22

The 1913 season introduction episode’s title was “A Milestone Year?” And indeed, the guests for these past five episodes, as well as the representation of listeners based on their submission lists, made the case that it was artistically, industrially, critically, and popularly.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to see the full list of 1913 submissions!Films mentioned:Suspense (1913) - Lois Weber and Phillips SmalleyFantômas (1913) - Louis FeuilladeTraffic in Souls (1913) - George Loane

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60:14

1913 E6 - Charlie Keil

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/07/15

Charlie Keil, Professor in the Cinema Studies Institute and the Department of History at the University of Toronto, is the author of Early American Cinema in Transition. His periodization of the transitional era, as explored in that book, ends with 1913 and his take on the traits of the time and how it shifts from the beginning of the period in 1907 defines the conversation.Charlie has also published seven other books, the most recent being The Oxford Handbook of Silent Cinema, coedited with Rob

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42:06

1913 E5 - Paul Gagliardi

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/07/08

Paul Gagliardi, Teaching Associate Professor of English at Marquette University, selects almost entirely comedy shorts for his 1913 highlights, although they connect with his proto-expressionist feature pick in that they all contain morbid underbellies. And diving into the comic commentary of these works, intended or not, reflects a few things about audience reception to movies and politics of the time.Paul is the author of All Play and No Work: The Comic Plays of the Federal Theatre Project. His

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58:43

1913 E4 - Michael Gebert

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/07/01

Michael Gebert is the founder and co-moderator of NitrateVille, the online discussion site about vintage films of the silent era through the 1950s. Looking ahead to the advancements soon to come, his selections of almost all features demonstrate editing and performance style shifts, which branched off in slightly different ways in countries like America, France, and Sweden.Michael is host of the NitrateVille Radio podcast, which talks to people doing "cool stuff" in the world of vintage film, from

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46:49

1913 E3 - Julie K Allen

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/06/24

Julie K. Allen, professor of Comparative Arts and Letters at Brigham Young University, is the author of Screening Europe in Australasia. So it makes sense that her selections, each from a different country, would embody the transnational dynamic of silent film just before the outbreak of World War I.Julie is also the author of Icons of Danish Modernity, Danish but Not Lutheran, and The Silent Muse: The Memoirs of Asta Nielsen. She is currently working on a book about the Danish cinema license system

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50:07

1913 E2 - Shelley Stamp

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/06/17

This is the 100th episode and just two weeks past the second anniversary of The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever! It’s a special episode made even more so by Shelley Stamp, Distinguished Professor of Film & Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She literally wrote the book on Lois Weber so it makes sense that pioneering filmmaker’s landmark 1913 film factors into the conversation, but all of Shelley's picks reflect the rapid development of American film grammar and stand in

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4:37

1913 E1 - A Milestone Year?

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/06/10

1913 is considered by many to be a milestone year in the development of film grammar and industry. And it perhaps is, as is set up by this context-setting introduction and the conversations with guests to come for this season!Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1913!Films mentioned:The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913) - Francis J. GrandonWhat Happened to Mary (1912) - Ashley Miller and Charles BrabinFantômas (1913) - Louis FeuilladeTraffic in Souls (1913) - George

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5:14

1912 E7 - The Ol' Power Players Hang in There

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/06/03

Although the 1912 season introduction asserted that “Hollywood was incoming,” the top picks for the year (fueled by a record number of submissions from guests!) is mostly made up of old power players, even if that power would recede in short order. Indeed, both that dynamic and the fact that all of the most popular selections are shorts may change in the near future!Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to see the list of every film submitted for 1912!Films mentioned:The Cameraman’s Revenge

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68:05

1912 E6 - Paul (PT) Klein

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/05/27

Film historian and cultural critic Paul (PT) Klein’s work focuses on American filmgoing cultures. So even when discussing his sole foreign pick, the conversation dives into audience reception to his selections, then and now, in addition to the various aesthetic strengths of each of his movies.PT’s writing has appeared in Film Atlas, Film Matters, Foglifter, Metro Weekly, and more. His work can be found at ptklein.com.Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your top five for 1912!Films

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47:19

1912 E5 - Stephen Horne

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever ·

2026/05/20

Silent film accompanist and composer Stephen Horne has already composed for or accompanied a couple of his five multinational picks for 1912. But besides discussing the general aesthetic pleasures of his selections, he also ruminates on how he could approach playing for both these grounded features and short trick films (they were still hanging in there!).Stephen is a house musician at London’s BFI Southbank. He released Silent Sirens, an album of solo piano pieces based on his silent film

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