January 1 is celebrated as the start of a new year, but movie fans have another reason to celebrate. It is Public Domain Day, when a new slate of works enter the public domain in the U.S. This year, the movies, books, music, and other pieces of art from 1927 will no longer be protected under copyright. Although these works were released 95 years ago, the collection of movies includes some incredible works of art, which will now be available for all to access and share.
Most of the films entering the public domain from 1927 are silent movies, made at the height of the art form. F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and William A. Wellman’s Wings are just two of the movies soon to be in the public domain that influenced generations of filmmakers. Wings is the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and remains one of the best movies about planes and friendship ever made.
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The list of 1927 movies also includes The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, which Alfred Hitchcock had considered his true first movie. A chilling story inspired by Jack the Ripper, The Lodger includes many of the elements that would make up the Master of Suspense’s best sound movies. The Jazz Singer is probably the most technically important movie on the list. It was the first “talkie,” featuring synchronized songs and dialogue. Unfortunately, the movie also features extensive use of Blackface and is not as entertaining as the silent classics released at the same time.
Scroll on for a look at some of the iconic movies entering the public domain on Jan. 1, 2023.
The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer is not the best movie on this list, but it’s the most important because it changed Hollywood almost overnight. The Warner Bros. movie was made using the Vitaphone process, which featured a record synchronized to the film. Although there had been short films and features with synchronized music before, when Al Jolson says “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” it really is the first time audiences heard an actor talk in a feature-length film.
The Jazz Singer is more famous for its place in history than for being an entertaining film. Jolson’s style is a relic of the 1920s and he performs in Blackface multiple times. This was a major part of his stage act and was treated in the film as just another part of being an actor.
The Lodger: A Story of London Fog
Although Alfred Hitchcock is best known today for his Hollywood masterpieces like Psycho, Vertigo, and North by Northwest, he made dozens of movies in his native England before 1940. He even made the first British sound film, Blackmail, in 1929. His best-known silent film is his third, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. It introduces many of the themes that would dominate Hitchcock’s thrillers for the rest of his life.
The Lodger, along with others on this list, has been released on Blu-ray with musical accompaniment. As Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain points out, these added elements are still in copyright. It’s the films themselves that were made in 1927 that are entering the public domain.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
It’s hard to put into words just how perfect F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is. That’s because it’s such a visual marvel. This is a beautiful story of a husband and wife whose idyllic life is threatened by a woman from the city. Murnau brought his German expressionist eye to the American farm, providing a perspective unlike any other. Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress Oscar for this film, along with 7th Heaven and Street Angel. (The first Oscars cited multiple films for the Best Actor and Actress awards.)
Wings
Wings is so important even today that Rian Johnson recreated the sweeping barroom shot in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The Paramount movie was the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar and stars Charles “Buddy” Rogers and Richard Arlen as pilots during World War I who are in a romantic rivalry over Mary, played by Clara Bow. The fight plane sequences will leave you dazzled.
The King of Kings
Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) is still shown on television every year, but it’s just one of many religious epics the master showman made. During the late silent period, he released the second part of a Biblical trilogy, The King of Kings, which focuses on the last weeks of Jesus’ life. H.B. Warner, who lived long enough to appear in The Ten Commandments, plays Jesus. The first part of the Biblical trilogy is the original 1923 film of The Ten Commandments, while the third film is the 1932 epic The Sign of the Cross. The King of Kings also features important scenes shot in two-strip Technicolor.
The Unknown
Tod Browning was a master of the bizarre. Although he is best known today for his talkies Freaks and Dracula, his silent movies are far more impressive. The Unkown is the best remembered of his MGM films with Lon Cheney. In this disturbing masterpiece, Cheney plays an armless knife-thrower competing for the love of a carnival girl, played by Joan Crawford.
Metropolis
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its copyright situation is fascinating. As Copyright Lately explains, the movie first went into the public domain in 1955 after the initial U.S. copyright holder did not renew its registration. In 1996, the Uruguay Round Agreement Act revived the copyright, stating that Metropolis and other foreign works that are still protected by copyrights in their native countries could still be covered in the U.S.
Underworld
Warner Bros. didn’t invent the gangster movie, they just defined it for the 1930s. Gangster movies have existed since the silent era, and one of the best is Josef von Sternberg’s moody classic, Underworld. The Paramount movie won the first Oscar for Best Original Story, thanks to the work of Chicago journalist Ben Hecht.
The Kid Brother
The Kid Brother is one of Harold Lloyd’s best films and was a huge hit in 1927. In this movie, Harold finds himself as the son of a strong sheriff whose other sons are just as strong. Harold is mistaken for the sheriff though and comes to prove that he deserves as much respect as his brothers. Jobyna Ralston, who made several movies with Lloyd, stars as his love interest.
7th Heaven
7th Heaven is an example of director Frank Borzage at his best. Charles Farrell stars as Chico, a Parisian who works in the sewers. He dreams of becoming a street sweeper, but his life is changed when he rescues Diane, a prostitute played by Gaynor. Like many silent movies from the mid-to-late-1920s, it also explores how World War I changes the characters’ lives suddenly and dramatically. Borzage won the first Best Director Oscar for this film. In 1932, Borzage became the first director to win the award a second time, thanks to Bad Girl.
Other important movies entering the public domain include the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Battle of the Century, John Ford’s Upstream, It, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tarzan and the Golden Lion, Alfred Hitchcock’s Downhill (When Boys Leave Home), and the first film adaptation of Chicago.
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