Chris O’Rourke, Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, explores the early history of film acting, stardom and fandom in Britain up to the end of the silent era in his book Acting for the Silent Screen: Film Actors and Aspiration between the Wars. While film acting wasn’t quite a specific discipline in 1905, that distinction would arise sooner than one might think, and in the meantime, Chris’ picks explore UK innovations in editing, pace, and length, French spectacle, and American actuality.

Chris also developed the website London's Silent Cinemas, which mapped early film exhibition sites across the city. His other research interests include queer and trans film history and he is one of the editors of the academic journal Early Popular Visual Culture.

Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1905!

Films and resources mentioned:

• Rescued by Rover (1905) - Lewin Fitzhamon and Cecil Hepworth
• The Life of Charles Peace (1905) - William Haggar
• The Black Imp (1905) - Georges Méliès
• The Hen that Laid the Golden Eggs (1905) - Gaston Velle
• Coney Island at Night (1905) - Edwin S. Porter
• The International Exchange (1905) - Lewin Fitzhamon
• The Lonely Villa (1909) - D.W. Griffith
• The Great Train Robbery (1903) - Edwin S. Porter
• History of a Crime (1901) - Ferdinand Zecca
• The Life of Charles Peace (1905) - Frank S. Mottershaw
• A Terrible Night (1896) - Georges Méliès
• King of Dollars (1905) - Segundo de Chomón
• Down in the Coal Mines (1905) - Ferdinand Zecca and Lucien Nonguet
• The Strike (1904) - Ferdinand Zecca
• The Boarding School Girls (1905) - Edwin S. Porter
• Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927) - Walter Ruttmann
• The “Teddy” Bears (1907) - Wallace McCutcheon and Edwin S. Porter
• Spirited Away (2001) - Hayao Miyazaki
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) - F.W. Murnau