Free silent comedy movies: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin

The 1920s were the golden age of screen comedy. Keaton, Lloyd and Chaplin wrote, directed and performed their own stunts, and their best features still play to big laughs a century later. Silent films on Starlite TV come with music: either the film's own score or a calm piano accompaniment.

New to silent comedy? Start with The General or Safety Last!, then try Sherlock Jr. at 45 minutes. Silent Pictures (CH 12) shows them live around the clock.

Buster Keaton features

• The General 79 min · Silent Pictures
  Keaton steals back his locomotive in a Civil War chase comedy often called the greatest silent film (1926).
• Sherlock Jr. 45 min · Silent Pictures
  A projectionist dreams himself into the film he is showing, with some of the silent era's most inventive effects (1924).
• Steamboat Bill, Jr. 70 min · Silent Pictures
  A riverboat comedy with the cyclone and the famous falling house front (1928).
• Our Hospitality 75 min · Silent Pictures
  Keaton walks into a Southern family feud; it ends with a waterfall rescue (1923).
• The Navigator 60 min · Silent Pictures
  Two spoiled heirs drift alone on an empty ocean liner (1924).
• Seven Chances 56 min · Silent Pictures
  Keaton must marry by 7 p.m. to inherit a fortune and is chased by hundreds of would-be brides (1925).
• Three Ages 63 min · Silent Pictures
  The same love story told in the Stone Age, ancient Rome and the 1920s (1923).
• Go West 69 min · Silent Pictures
  A drifter heads west and befriends a cow named Brown Eyes (1925).
• Battling Butler 77 min · Silent Pictures
  A pampered rich boy pretends to be a champion boxer to impress a girl (1926).
• College 65 min · Silent Pictures
  A bookish student tries every sport to win the girl (1927).
• Spite Marriage 76 min · Laugh Track
  Keaton's last silent feature: a tailor's presser marries a stage star who only wants to spite her ex (1929).

Harold Lloyd

• Safety Last! 74 min · Silent Pictures
  Lloyd's 'human fly' climb up a department store, hanging from the hands of the clock (1923).
• The Freshman 76 min · Silent Pictures
  An eager college boy will do anything to be popular, right up to the big football game (1925).
• Girl Shy 77 min · Silent Pictures
  A shy tailor's apprentice writes a book about his imaginary love life, then races across town to stop a wedding (1924).
• Speedy 86 min · Silent Pictures
  Lloyd's last silent, shot in New York: a baseball-mad soda jerk saves the city's last horse-drawn streetcar, with a cameo by Babe Ruth (1928).
• Why Worry? 63 min · Laugh Track
  A hypochondriac millionaire lands in the middle of a revolution (1923).
• Hot Water 60 min · Laugh Track
  A newlywed versus a live turkey, a new car and his in-laws (1924).

Charlie Chaplin

• The Kid 53 min · Silent Pictures
  Chaplin's first feature: the Tramp raises an abandoned baby, played by Jackie Coogan (1921).
• The Gold Rush 87 min · Silent Pictures
  The Tramp in the Klondike, with the boiled-shoe dinner and the dance of the rolls (1925).
• Easy Street 27 min · Silent Pictures
  The Tramp becomes a policeman on the toughest street in town (1917).
• Sunnyside 29 min · Laugh Track
  The Tramp as an overworked farmhand in a sleepy country village (1919).

See also: Buster Keaton movies · Charlie Chaplin movies · Free silent movies · Classic comedy teams · All free collections