American Feature Films of 1920

What This Page Contains

On this page you will find a list of all 56 American silent feature films of 1920 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 1920 Online Films

The most important item on our list is the earliest appearance of Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American feature-film director. Two of his first four films (Within Our Gates and The Symbol of the Unconquered) survive, and both appear on our list of 1920 films.

A scan of our list may reveal another interesting quality: the appearance of quite a large number of unfamiliar names; this is significant, as it does suggest the wide variety of silent films that managed to survive the last century. Having said that, a number of well-known names are well-represented, as always: Mary Pickford, Richard Barthelmess, Lon Chaney, Gloria Swanson and William S. Hart appear in multiple uploaded films from 1920.

With the release of The Mark of Zorro in 1920, Douglas Fairbanks was transformed from a popular comic actor into a swashbuckling, adventure mega-star. There were two versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde released in 1920: the one starring John Barrymore survives, and appears on our list for this year. In 1920, Olive Thomas starred in The Flapper, introducing the partying, convention-busting female character-type which would, in a sense, define the 1920’s.

Directors Sam Wood and Wesley Ruggles and actors Leatrice Joy and Conrad Nagle make their first appearance on a feature-film list of 1920. Buster Keaton‘s first feature offering, The Saphead, also can be found on our list.

Other films of interest include: Headin’ Home, in which Babe Ruth plays himself; The Daughter of Dawn, in which we find one of the earliest films to feature a credited American Indian, Hunting Horse, in a lead role; and Stolen Moments, Rudolph Valentino’s last film (in which he plays a villain) before exploding into superstardom in 1921 with The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

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]

1920 Statistics (per the Library of Congress database):

Number of Features Released: 735
Number Extant (complete and incomplete): 228
Number Completely Lost: 507

1920 American Feature Films Available for Viewing Online

American Feature Films of 1920 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).