What This Page Contains
On this page you will find a table listing all 54 American silent feature films of 1919 that can be viewed online, mostly on YouTube. For each film on the list, you will find a link to the best online version of the film.
Highlights of Our List of 1919 Online Films
Our 1919 list contains 7 films by the great D.W. Griffith, including some of his greatest offerings ever, such as Broken Blossoms and True Heart Susie. You can see Erich von Stroheim’s initial directing effort, Blind Husbands, a film in which he also plays his patented on-screen role of the severe Prussian officer. Cecil B. DeMille was also hitting his stride in 1919, a year in which three of his greatest films appear on our list, two of which (Don’t Change Your Husband and For Better, For Worse) feature DeMille favorites Elliot Dexter and Gloria Swanson. Director Tod Browning also debut’s on our list, with The Wicked Darling.
In fact, there are a number of entries on our list which demonstrate individual directors working on multiple films with the same stars: James Cruze directed handsome Wallace Reid and the lovely Lila Lee in two movies on our list; D.W. Griffith directed Richard Barthelmess and Carol Dempster in one pair of films, and Lillian Gish and Robert Harron together on three!
Marion Davies can be found in Getting Mary Married, her earliest complete surviving film. Olive Thomas, Sessue Hayakawa, Mary Pickford and Lon Chaney appear each in a trio of our films, and Harry Houdini’s debut feature film, The Grim Game, also can be be found on our 1919 list.
Movies about the Great War frequent 1919’s list, including features such as Behind the Door, The Girl Who Stayed Home, and The Lost Battalion, the latter of particular interest as it includes actual veterans of the 77th Division recreating their getting trapped in behind German line the Argonne Forest in October 1918.
Other films of interest from our list include Deliverance, the first screen biography of Helen Keller; Bolshevism on Trial, in which idealistic young Marxists are forced to put their beliefs to the test against real-life human nature; and Broken Blossoms, which addresses the topic of child abuse, and features Richard Barthelmess playing a Chinese man.
Want to See American Feature Films from Other Years?
Go to American Feature Films of: 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931
Sessue Hayakawa and Tsuru Aoki
in The Dragon Painter (1919)
Elliot Dexter and Gloria Swanson
in For Better, For Worse (1919)
Mary Pickford in The Hoodlum (1919)
1919 Statistics (per the Library of Congress database):
Number of Features Released: 761
Number Extant (complete and incomplete): 204
Number Completely Lost: 557
1919 American Feature Films Available for Viewing Online
| Title | # Reels | Director | Stars | Genre | Best Online Version | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A.B.C. of Love, The | 6 | Léonce Perret | Mae Murray, Holmes Herbert | Drama | Link | Intertitles in Dutch, with English CC. Thanks to this uploader for adding music and the English translation. | |
| Behind the Door | 7 | Irvin Willat | Hobart Bosworth, Jane Novak, Wallace Beery | Drama, War | Link | No music. | |
| Blind Husbands | 8 | Erich von Stroheim | Sam De Grasse, Francelia Billington, Erich von Stroheim | Drama | Link I Link II | Link I: with piano score, good quality. Link II: no music, but extra-sharp picture. |
|
| Bolshevism on Trial | 6 | Harley Knoles | Robert Frazer, Pinna Nesbit | Drama | Link | aka "Shattered Dreams". | |
| Broken Blossoms | 6 | D.W. Griffith | Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess | Drama | Link I Link II Link III | Link I: lovely orchestral score. Link II: older orchestral score. Link III: alternate orchestral score. |
|
| Burglar by Proxy | 5 | John Francis Dillon | Jack Pickford, Gloria Hope | Comedy | Link | With ads and no music; but poster deserves thanks for restoring intertitles. | |
| Daddy Long Legs | 7 | Marshall Neilan | Mary Pickford, Mahlon Hamilton | Comedy | Link | No music. | |
| Delicious Little Devil, The | 6 | Robert Z. Leonard | Mae Murray, Richard Cummings | Comedy | Link I Link II | Link I: good quality print, Intertitles in Dutch with English CC. Link II: same film as Link I, with same music, but faster speed, and lesser quality print. |
|
| Deliverance | 9 | George Foster Platt | Etna Ross, Edith Lyle | Biography | Link I Link II | With brief introduction and live piano accompaniment by Cliff Retallick, from the great folks at Retroformat. Link II: the Library of Congress' own version, with different piano score. |
|
| Don't Change Your Husband | 5 | Cecil B. DeMille | Elliot Dexter, Gloria Swanson | Comedy | Link | ||
| Dragon Painter, The | 5 | William Worthington | Sessue Hayakawa, Tsuru Aoki | Drama | Link | ||
| End of the Game, The | 5 | Jesse D. Hampton | J. Warren Kerrigan, Lois Wilson | Western | Link | Intertitles in French and German only. | |
| Eyes of Youth | 7 | Albert Parker | Clara Kimball Young, Gareth Hughes | Drama | Link | Film is only 1 hour 24 minutes in length, but repeated in full in video. Film needs restoration. | |
| Fall of Babylon, The | 7 | D.W. Griffith | Constance Talmadge, Tully Marshall, Seena Owen | Historical Drama | Link | Film is abbreviated form of 1916's Intolerance, focusing solely on Babylon story, with some added footage. | |
| False Faces | 7 | Irvin Willat | Henry B. Walthall, Mary Anderson, Lon Chaney | Drama | Link I Link II | Link I: lesser quality video, with organ soundtrack. Link II: abbreviated version, with fewer and different intertitles, but high quality, if slightly darker, video. |
|
| For Better, For Worse | 7 | Cecil B. DeMille | Elliot Dexter, Gloria Swanson, Tom Forman | Drama | Link | ||
| Getting Mary Married | 5 | Allan Dwan | Marion Davies, Norman Kerry | Comedy | Link | ||
| Girl Who Stayed Home, The | 7 | D.W, Griffith | Richard Barthelmess, Carol Dempster | Drama, War | Link I Link II | Link I: with piano score. Link II: classical soundtrack, with ads. |
|
| Glorious Lady, The | 5 | George Irving | Olive Thomas, Matt Moore | Drama | Link | No music; intertitles in Dutch with available English CC. | |
| Greatest Question, The | 6 | D.W. Griffith | Lillian Gish, Robert Harron | Drama | Link | ||
| Grim Game, The | 5.5 | Irvin Willat | Harry Houdini, Ann Forrest | Drama | Link | ||
| Hawthorne of the USA | 5 | James Cruze | Wallace Ried, Lila Lee | Conedy | Link | ||
| Heart O' the Hills | 6 | Joseph De Grasse, Sidney Franklin | Mary Pickford, Harold Goodwin | Drama | Link | No music. | |
| Heart of Humanity, The | 8 | Allen Holubar | Dorothy Phillips, Erich von Stroheim | Drama, War | Link | No music. | |
| His Majesty, the American | 8 | Joseph Henabery | Douglas Fairbanks, Marjorie Daw | Comedy, Adventure | Link | ||
| Hoodlum, The | 7 | Sidney Franklin | Mary Pickford | Comedy | Link | No music. | |
| Jubilo | 5 | Clarence C. Badger | Will Rogers, Josie Sedgwick | Western, Comedy | Link | No music. Link is to archive.org. | |
| Lost Battalion, The | 8 | Burton L. King | Robert Alexander | Drama, War | Link | No music. | |
| Love's Prisoner | 6 | John Francis Dillon | Olive Thomas, Joe King | Drama, Crime | Link | No music, video of poor quality. | |
| Male and Female | 9 | Cecil B. DeMille | Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson | Drama, Adventure | Link | ||
| Man Beneath, The | 5 | William Worthington | Sessue Hayakawa, Helen Jerome Eddy | Drama | Link | Intertitles in Dutch; no music. | |
| Miracle Man, The | 8 | George Loane Tucker | Thomas Meighan, Lon Chaney | Drama | Link | Only this brief fragment of the film survives. | |
| Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch | 5 | Hugh Ford | Marguerite Clark, Mary Carr | Comedy, Drama | Link | ||
| Mystery of the Yellow Room, The | 6 | Emile Chautard | Ethel Grey Terry | Mystery | Link | Intertitles in Italian, with optional Spanish CC. No music. | |
| Other Half, The | 5 | King Vidor | Florence Vidor, Charles Meredith | Drama | Link | Intertitles in Dutch. | |
| Out Yonder | 6 | Ralph Ince | Olive Thomas, Huntley Gordon | Drama | Link | Intertitles in Dutch; no music. | |
| Ravished Armenia | 8 | Oscar Apfel | Aurora Mardiganian | Drama | Link | aka Auction of Souls. Most of the film is lost. This is a reconstruction using stills and surviving footage. | |
| Red Lantern, The | 7 | Albert Parker | Alla Nazimova | Drama | Link I Link II | Link I: more peaceful, mostly piano soundtrack. Link II: more intense, more contemporary soundtrack, slightly lesser quality video. |
|
| Right to Happiness, The | 8 | Allen Holubar | Dorothy Phillips, William Stowell | Drama | Link | Intertitles in Dutch, with optional English CC. No music. | |
| Roaring Road, The | 5 | James Cruze | Wallace Reid, Ann Little | Comedy, Sports | Link | No music. | |
| Romance of Happy Valley, A | 6 | D.W. Griffith | Lillian Gish, Robert Harron | Drama | Link | ||
| Scarlet Days | 7 | D.W. Griffith | Richard Barthelmess, Carol Dempster | War | Link | ||
| Should a Woman Tell | 6 | John Ince | Alice Lake, Jack Mulhall | Drama | Link | Intertitles in Dutch, with optional Spanish CC. No music. | |
| Sporting Chance, A | 5 | Henry King | William Russell, Fritzi Bonheur | Comedy, Mystery | Link | Film survives in incomplete form; this is a reconstruction, with intertitles added to describe action in missing sections. | |
| Through the Toils | 5 | Harry O. Hoyt | Montagu Love, Ellen Burford | Drama | Link | Intertitles in Dutch; no music. | |
| Tong Man, The | 5 | William Worthington | Sessue Hayakawa, Helen Jerome Eddy | Crime, Drama | Link I Link II | Link I: with inappropriate soundtrack and with ads. Link II: no music, but no ads. |
|
| True Heart Susie | 6 | D.W. Griffith | Lillian Gish, Robert Harron | Comedy | Link I Link II | Link I: piano score. Link II: small ensemble score. |
|
| Virtuous Sinners | 5 | Emmett J. Flynn | Norman Kerry, Wanda Hawley | Drama | Link | ||
| Wagon Tracks | 5 | Lambert Hillyer | William S. Hart, Jane Novak | Western | Link I Link II | Link I: organ score. Link II: piano score. |
|
| When Bearcat Went Dry | 6 | Oliver L. Sellers | Vangie Valentine, Bernard J. Durning | Drama | Link | Film rediscovered in 1996 with Dutch intertitles; we must thank the fellow who retranslated them into English, even if English appears not to be his first language; the translations are hilarious. Film needs restoration. | |
| When the Clouds Roll By | 6 | Victor Fleming | Douglas Fairbanks, Kathleen Clifford | Comedy | Link | With optional Russian CC. | |
| Wicked Darling, The | 6 | Tod Browning | Priscilla Dean, Wellington A. Playter, Lon Chaney | Drama | Link | ||
| World and Its Woman, The | 7 | Frank Lloyd | Geraldine Farrar, Lou Tellegen | Drama | Link | Intertitles in French and Dutch, with English CC; no music. | |
| Yankee Doodle in Berlin | 5 | F. Richard Jones | Bothwell Browne, Ford Sterling | Comedy | Link |
American Feature Films of 1919 Commercially Available,
But Not Yet Uploaded Online
The goal is to get the films listed below uploaded to YouTube. All of these films are in the public domain. However, any musical accompaniment is likely not in the public domain, and may be flagged by YouTube; consequently, you may wish to upload them without any soundtrack (or add your own).
| Title | Director | Stars | Buy From | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Busher, The | Jerome Storm | Charles Ray, Colleen Moore | Oldies.com | Part of Charles Ray double feature, with "The Pich Hitter". | |
| Dangerous Hours | Fred Niblo | Lloyd Hughes | Grapevine Oldies.com SHOF | SHOF #146. Like "Bolshevism on Trial", story of idealistic youngster who falls under the spell of the glories of Communism. |
|
| Heart of Wetona, The | Sidney Franklin | Norma Talmadge | Oldies.com SHOF | SHOF #55. Talmadge plays a half-breed Indian in this Western. |
|
| Human Desire | Wilfrid North | Anita Stewart, Conway Tearle | Oldies.com | ||
| Mother and the Law, The | D.W. Griffith | Mae Marsh, Robert Harron | Grapevine | This is a re-edited, stand-alone version of the "modern" sub-story from "Intolerance". | |
| Phantom Honeymoon, The | J. Searle Dawley | Marguerite Marsh | Grapevine | ||
| Sandy Burke of the U-Bar-U | Ira M. Lowry | Louis Bennison, Virginia Lee | Grapevine Oldies.com | ||
| Six Feet Four | Henry King | William Russell, Vola Vale | Oldies.com | Part of Western double feature with "Salomy Jane". | |
| Twin Pawns, The | Léonce Perret | Mae Murray | Oldies.com SHOF | SHOF #132 | |
| Unknown Love, The | Léonce Perret | Dolores Cassinelli, E.K. Lincoln | SHOF | SHOF #180 | |
| Victory | Maurice Tourneur | Jack Holt, Seena Owen | Oldies.com |