Most Popular Movies & TV Shows from 1928

Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).

After being released from jail, two con artists take their grift to a carnival.

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.

Paramount's first all-talking picture, Interference was dismally directed by Roy Pomeroy, whose lofty status as the studio's "technical wizard" did not necessarily qualify him to be a director. Evelyn Brent heads the cast as scheming Deborah Kane, who sets out to blackmail Faith Marley (Doris Kenyon), the above-reproach wife of Sir John Marlay.

The 74th NHK Asadora Drama is Junjo Kirari, which means something along the lines of "pure-hearted Kirari." The story is set in Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture in the era around the Second World War. When the story opens in 1928, the heroine, Sakurako, is a very active seven-year-old girl. Indeed, even in the first episode she exhibits her confidence and enthusiasm. But above all else, Sakurako is interested in becoming a jazz pianist, and music features extensively in the plot.

Four Sons is a 1940 film directed by Archie Mayo. It stars Don Ameche and Eugenie Leontovich. It is a remake of the 1928 film of the same name.

Struggling actress Hedda Hopper can't get a break in Hollywood, even though an acquaintence of hers is the extremely powerful gossip monger Louella Parsons - maker and breaker of careers (and lives) through her daily syndicated newspaper column. The big movie moguls, fed up with Parson's power over their stars, decide to de-claw her by setting up gossip Hopper as a competitor in the rumour industry. What they couldn't forsee was that Hopper would become as big as Parsons -- and every bit as much of a pain. Based on the true life stories of two of the most powerful (and arguably dangerous) women of Hollywood's hay-day.

A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

Fantasy-comedy about a young man who lives as if it is 1928 or so, and his encounters with modern-day women and modern-day criminals.

A detailed dramatization of historical events during the time of the Revolution in Mexico. Using never-before-known historical documents, details about what happened during the period from 1910 to 1928 are revealed.

John, an ambitious but undisciplined New York City office worker, meets and marries Mary. They start a family, struggle to cope with marital stress, financial setbacks, and tragedy, all while lost amid the anonymous, pitiless throngs of the big city.

The just out of college effete son of a no-nonsense steamboat captain comes to visit his father whom he's not seen since he was little.

Maldone is a canal worker, happy with his life after running away from his family estate. He falls in love with Zita, a young gypsy girl, during a local fete. However, after his brother dies, Maldone is called back to manage the estate. There, he takes up the life of a landowner and marries a neighbor's daughter. Years later Maldone is still restless on the estate, and becomes obsessed with Zita, after meeting her by chance one evening.

The circus provides the backdrop for this melodrama that chronicles the lives of four children raised within the big top. Film historian and collector William K. Everson stated that the only surviving print was lost by actress Mary Duncan who had borrowed it from Fox Studios. In the December 1974 issue of "Films in Review," he explained that Mary Duncan, one of the film's stars, wanted it to show to a group of friends in Florida. The star was aware that it was a dangerous nitrate print and assumed that Fox had others. She threw the only copy in the ocean, a mistake characterized by Everson as "a monumental blunder to rank with Balaclava, Sarajevo, and the Fall of Babylon as one of history's blackest moments."

A beautiful Russian spy seduces an Austrian military officer in order to obtain secret plans. When she falls in love with him, both are placed in danger.

Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things don't go entirely according to plan.

Colombia receives the indemnity for Panama and accepts foreign credit to undertake development works, which increases the number of workers, although with poor wages and terrible working conditions. María Cano, a political activist, began her fight for the conditions of salaried workers and for the fundamental rights of the population.

When Letty Mason relocates to West Texas, she finds herself unsettled by the ever-present wind and sand. Arriving at her new home at the ranch of her cousin, Beverly, she receives a surprisingly cold welcome from his wife, Cora. Soon tensions in the family and unwanted attention from a trio of suitors leave Letty increasingly disturbed.

Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

The mastermind behind a ubiquitous spy operation learns of a dangerous romance between a Russian lady in his employ and a dashing agent from the government's secret service.

The Master and Margarita is a Russian television production of Telekanal Rossiya, based on the novel The Master and Margarita, written by Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov between 1928 and 1940. Vladimir Bortko directed this adaptation and was also its screenwriter.

A documentary following the career ups and downs of television's Batman as his confidants fight to get him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Arrogant and wise-cracking Brice Wayne enrolls at the United States Military Academy at West Point and adjusts to life as a plebe. He tries out for the plebe football team, where he excels and shows up the varsity team. However, his ego is unrivaled, especially in competition with upperclassman Bob Sperry. At the same time, Brice meets a local girl named Betty Channing who cheers for him at football practices.

Speedy loses his job as a soda jerk, then spends the day with his girl at Coney Island. He then becomes a cab driver and delivers Babe Ruth to Yankee Stadium, where he stays to see the game. When the railroad tries to run the last horse-drawn trolley (operated by his girl's grandfather) out of business, Speedy organizes the neighborhood old-timers to thwart their scheme.

A dramatized re-enactment and documentary of the Battle of Verdun as seen by both French and German soldiers, shot on site of the actual battle.

Mickey Mouse, piloting a steamboat, delights his passenger, Minnie, by making musical instruments out of the menagerie on deck.

Gwynplaine, son of Lord Clancharlie, has a permanent smile carved on his face by the King, in revenge for Gwynplaine's father's treachery. Gwynplaine is adopted by a travelling showman and becomes a popular idol. He falls in love with the blind Dea. The king dies, and his evil jester tries to destroy or corrupt Gwynplaine.

A personal and captivating account of the extraordinary life and work of Ingrid Bergman (1915-82), a young Swedish woman who became one of the most celebrated actresses in world cinema.

The Crawley family goes on a grand journey to the south of France to uncover the mystery of the dowager countess's newly inherited villa.

Two lonely people in the big city meet and enjoy the thrills of an amusement park, only to lose each other in the crowd after spending a great day together. Will they ever see each other again?

A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.

A despairing clown suffering a broken heart and a self-indulgent count who uncontrollably laughs learn to help each other with their problems, but both fall in love with the same young woman.

Marion is a factory worker who hopes to trade the assembly line, for a beautiful penthouse apartment. Mark Whitney, a wealthy and influential lawyer can make her dreams come true, but there is only one problem, he will give her everything but a marriage proposal. Will this affair ever lead to marriage?

Rikiya is blinded in a fight after falling in love with a courtesan. Believing the blindness permanent and his opponent dead, he goes back home to his sister Okiku, who become a prostitute to pay for his treatment.

Three childhood friends, Martha, Walter and Sam, share a terrible secret. Over time, the ambitious Martha and the pusillanimous Walter have married. She is a cold businesswoman; he is the district attorney: a perfect combination to dominate the corrupt city of Iverstown at will. But the unexpected return of Sam, after years of absence, deeply disturbs the life of the odd couple.

After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada.

A stranger called Allan goes to the House of Usher. He is the sole friend of Roderick Usher, who lives in the eerie house with his sick wife Madeleine. When she dies, Roderick does not accept her death, and in the dark night, Madeleine returns.

A young prince falls in love with a beautiful barmaid while at university in old Heidelberg.

A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.

A magician seeks vengeance upon the man who paralyzed him and the illegitimate daughter he sired with the magician's wife.

A tense vignette about the fate of an unlucky man in poverty-stricken Weimar-era Germany.

A family saga in which three of a Bavarian widow's sons go to war for Germany and the fourth goes to America, Germany's eventual opponent.

A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.

The behind the scenes story of the life of A.A. Milne and the creation of the Winnie the Pooh stories inspired by his son Christopher Robin.

A young impoverished aristocrat falls in love with an inn-keeper's daughter, but has to marry money.

Monty Banks gets involved in tracking down a stolen fortune, his adventures culminating in a whirlwind, gag-filled climax at sea.

Set against the backdrop of the shell crisis of 1915 at home and the Battle of Loos on the Western Front, two soldiers, one the manager of Grimlaw’s munitions factory are tested in their rivalry for Diana, a red cross nurse (Madeleine Carroll in her first film role).

Neglected by her husband, an ambitious lawyer, Irene seeks variety in Berlin's nightlife-- An evening of dancing, dolls, cocaine and immoral passion. Irene takes the "devious path" as she seeks to make her husband jealous.

Georg Jacoby’s Jokeren is a light-hearted entertainment picture set during the carnival in Nice, a romantic comedy with a touch of melodrama. A young artist, fatally injured in a car accident, foolishly entrusts a batch of compromising love letters to Borwick, a crooked and unscrupulous lawyer, instructing him to destroy them. Instead, Borwick proceeds to blackmail the woman who sent the letters, Lady Cecilie Powder, married to the straight-arrow Sir Herbert Powder. Lady Cecilie gets help from her spunky younger sister Gill. In turn, she draws in Peter Carstairs, a debonair adventurer known to all as “the Joker” – the card that trumps all others. When the Joker repeatedly foils Borwick’s schemes, the crooked lawyer ups the ante, trying to incriminate his adversary Carstairs and expanding his demands to include marriage to Gill. But as the characters converge at yet another lavish carnival celebration party, it becomes clear that one card does indeed trump all the others: the Joker!