This is the 100th episode and just two weeks past the second anniversary of The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever! It’s a special episode made even more so by Shelley Stamp, Distinguished Professor of Film & Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She literally wrote the book on Lois Weber so it makes sense that pioneering filmmaker’s landmark 1913 film factors into the conversation, but all of Shelley's picks reflect the rapid development of American film grammar and stand in for women’s representation in front of and behind the camera, as well as their fights for equality in “real life.”

Shelley is also the author of Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon. She curated the award-winning box set Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers.

Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own top five for 1913!

Films mentioned:

• What 80 Million Women Want (1913) - Will Louis
• Traffic in Souls (1913) - George Loane Tucker
• A House Divided (1913) - Alice Guy-Blaché
• Suspense (1913) - Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley
• The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913) - Francis J. Grandon
• Hypocrites (1915) - Lois Weber
• The Perils of Pauline (1914) - Louis J. Gasnier and Donald MacKenzie
• The Hazards of Helen (1914) - J.P. McGowan and J. Gunnis Davis
• The Exploits of Elaine (1914) - Louis J. Gasnier, George B. Seitz, Leopold Wharton, and Theodore Wharton
• What Happened to Mary (1912) - Ashley Miller and Charles Brabin
• Fantômas (1913) - Louis Feuillade
• The Lonely Villa (1909) - D.W. Griffith
• Shoes (1916) - Lois Weber
• The Merchant of Venice (1914) - Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley
• The Consequences of Feminism (1906) - Alice Guy-Blaché
• Making an American Citizen (1912) - Alice Guy-Blaché
• Matrimony’s Speed Limit (1913) - Alice Guy-Blaché
• Falling Leaves (1912) - Alice Guy-Blaché
• In the Hands of Impostors (1911) - August Blom
• A Busy Day (1914) - Charlie Chaplin
• Your Girl and Mine (1914) - Giles R. Warren