Bogart, Dietrich, Keaton: faces from Hollywood’s golden years – in pictures
A new book pulls together glamorous portraits of film stars from the 1920s to the 60s who could draw an audience with their name alone
August 2022
The seven best films to watch on TV this week
The Assistant to The Invisible Man: the seven best films to watch on TV this week
Julia Garner stars in a disturbing fictionalisation of Weinstein’s crimes, while an exceptional Elisabeth Moss gives us the best version of HG Wells’s sci-fi classic ever
June 2022
Ranked
The 20 best films set on trains – ranked!
The Railway Children Return is shortly to arrive on UK platforms and Bullet Train speeding down the tracks behind it. Until then – as rail strikes bring stations to a standstill – here are 20 vicarious train trips
May 2020
Silent witness: unseen Buster Keaton sketches underline his comic genius
Two previously unpublished scripts show how the Great Stone Face meticulously mapped out his stunts and jokes
March 2020
Silent witness: the Hollywood alley with the five-star reviews
Historian campaigns to have Los Angeles location renamed Chaplin Keaton Lloyd Alley after the silent movie stars who filmed there
February 2020
Peter Bogdanovich: 'I missed my chance to tell Buster Keaton he was a genius – now I'm telling the world'
The Hollywood director has made a documentary about the silent-era legend, who he rates even above Charlie Chaplin. He explains why it was a project that came from the heart
April 2018
My favourite film decade
From Nosferatu to The General – why the 1920s is my favourite film decade
Chaplin and Keaton made millions laugh, but silent cinema’s greatest classics were the fruit of wild European fancy … and then Hollywood invented the talkies
February 2018
From the Guardian archive
Archive: Buster Keaton obituary - 'something of a genius'
2 February 1966: Along with Charlie Chaplin and Harry Langdon, Keaton was one of the three big stars of the silent film era
July 2016
Silent but deadly!
Cinema paradiso: Bologna's magical Il Cinema Ritrovato
From the beautiful Coeur Fidèle to a perfectly restored 1899 film projector, the city’s festival of rediscovered gems induced strained necks and gasps of delight
April 2016
Silent but deadly!
The rundown on Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton's tribute to silent chase comedies
A new documentary reveals the fascinating story behind Samuel Beckett’s sole foray into cinema, a conceptual chase film that bamboozled its star Buster Keaton
September 2015
Steamboat Bill, Jr review – miraculous physical comedy and stunt work
Silent but deadly!
The silent-era film stars who risked life and limb doing their own stunts
July 2015
Readers recommend
Readers recommend: songs about safety … and danger
Cinema Ritrovato: Hudson, Bergman, Keaton – a feast of film under Italian skies
January 2015
Kraken review – unfeasibly stretchy gags from Keaton-esque clown
This is less an absurd stream of consciousness than a vomit of transformations from naughty-but-nice Trygve Wakenshaw, writes Lyn Gardner
August 2014
Film blog
Timing is everything: why Tati's The School for Postmen delivers
Peter Bradshaw: Watch Jacques Tati's short comedy about a bumbling postman on a bike to see why the French director ranks up with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the world's great film-makers
January 2014
The General – review
Buster Keaton's pioneering 1926 film, now rereleased, more or less invented the action movie and looks even more startling than ever, writes Peter Bradshaw
What you should watch this week
Why Buster Keaton's The General is the one film you should watch this week – video review
Andrew Pulver recommends Buster Keaton's 1926 silent action-comedy film, The General, set during the American civil war
Lebensraum – review
There is something disturbing going on in this tale of identity, gender politics and Frankenstein-style experimentation, writes Lyn Gardner
November 2013
Film blog
Top 10 silent movies
Think silent films reached a high point with The Artist?The pre-sound era produced some of the most beautiful, arresting films ever made. From City Lights to Metropolis, Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best
