Silent film

A silent film is a film with no accompanying, synchronized recorded spoken dialogue. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the motion picture itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, most films were silent before the late 1920s.

Top grossing silent films:

• The Birth of a Nation (1915) - $10,000,000
• The Big Parade (1925) - $6,400,000
• Ben-Hur (1925) - $5,500,000
• Way Down East (1920) - $5,000,000
• The Gold Rush (1925) - $4,250,000
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (film) (1921) - $4,000,000
• The Circus (1928) - $3,800,000
• The Covered Wagon (1923) - $3,800,000
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) - $3,500,000
• The Ten Commandments (1923) - $3,400,000
• Orphans of the Storm (1921) - $3,000,000
• For Heaven's Sake (1926) - $2,600,000
• Seventh Heaven (1927) - $2,500,000
• What Price Glory (1926) - $2,400,000
• Abie's Irish Rose (1928) - $1,500,000