The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever

Kynan Dias, Assistant Professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is no stranger to podcasting as co-host, with Lester Ryan Clark, of a series of film history podcasts on the TruStory.FM network. His picks reflect some of the conversation surrounding this 1910 season regarding literary adaptations and real-world impact, but the discussion finds new angles to explore, including a landmark work of Native American filmmaking.

Kynan earned a B.A. in film from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he pursued acting, screenwriting, and directing. Later, Kynan earned his MFA in screenwriting from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he developed a love for writing TV sitcoms that was further nurtured during his time studying improv comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your five selections for 1910!

Films and resources mentioned:
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1910) - Edwin S. Porter
Frankenstein (1910) - J. Searle Dawley
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910) - Otis Turner
White Fawn’s Devotion (1910) - James Young Deer
Jeffries-Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Contest (1910) - unknown
Boxing Cats (1894) - William K.L. Dickson and William Heise
The Dancing Pig (1907) - unknown
The Great Train Robbery (1903) - Edwin S. Porter
The “Teddy” Bears (1907) - Edwin S. Porter
Alice in Wonderland (1903) - Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow
Alice in Wonderland (1951) - Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske
Alice in Wonderland (1933) - Norman Z. McLeod
Frankenstein (1931) - James Whale
Frankenstein (2025) - Guillermo del Toro
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) - Kenneth Branagh
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - James Whale
A Christmas Carol (1910) - J. Searle Dawley
The Wizard of Oz (1939) - Victor Fleming
The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) - J. Farrell MacDonald
The Wizard of Oz (1933) - Ted Eshbaugh
Wicked (2024) - Jon M. Chu
The Wizard of Oz (1925) - Larry Semon
Cabin in the Sky (1943) - Vincente Minnelli
The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays (1908) - Francis Boggs and Otis Turner
The Birth of a Nation (1915) - D.W. Griffith
The Red Girl and the Child (1910) - James Young Deer
The Toll of the Sea (1922) - Chester M. Franklin
Stagecoach (1939) - John Ford
Smoke Signals (1998) - Chris Eyre
Glenroy Bros. (1894) - William K.L. Dickson
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) - Stanley Kramer
Brokeback Mountain (2005) - Ang Lee
Norma Rae (1979) - Martin Ritt
Triumph of the Will (1935) - Leni Riefenstahl
The Great White Hope (1970) - Martin Ritt
A Trip to the Moon (1902) - Georges Méliès
The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney - Richard Schickel
Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only - The Life of America's First Black Filmmaker - Patrick McGilligan

Laura Horak, Professor of Film Studies at Carleton University, is the author of Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressing Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema. Therefore, most of the conversation addresses the transgression, or lack thereof, of films that depicted such changes in dress, a rich topic represented by four of her five picks.

Laura is also the director of the Transgender Media Lab and Transgender Media Portal. She is co-curator of the 99-film Bluray set Cinema’s First Nasty Women and co-editor of Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space and Unwatchable.

Films and resources mentioned:
The Red Girl and the Child (1910) - James Young Deer
The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg (1910) - Sidney Olcott
The House with Closed Shutters (1910) - D.W. Griffith
Le Rembrandt de la Rue Lepic (1910) - Jean Durand
The Abyss (1910) - Urban Gad
White Fawn’s Devotion (1910) - James Young Deer
The Fabelmans (2022) - Steven Spielberg
The General (1926) - Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman
The Sealed Room (1909) - D.W. Griffith
Hamlet: The Drama of Vengeance (1921) - Svend Gade and Heinz Schall
Motion Picture Paradise: A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry - David Morton
The American Girl Goes to War: Women and National Identity in U.S. Silent Film - Liz Clarke
Danish Silent Film

David Morton, Lecturer at the University of Central Florida, is the author of Motion Picture Paradise: A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry. With this expertise in mind, the opening of the conversation covers the American film industry’s halting migration to the southern state, but moves on to American migrations to other locations and censored films.

David received his Ph.D. in Texts and Technology in 2019 from University of Central Florida in 2019. He was a 2017-18 recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship and served as a visiting scholar at the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies at Ghent University.

Films and resources mentioned:
Ramona (1910) - D.W. Griffith
Jeffries-Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Contest (1910) - unknown
The Lad from Old Ireland (1910) - Sidney Olcott
The White Slave Trade (1910) - August Blom
Frankenstein (1910) - J. Searle Dawley
In Old California (1910) - D.W. Griffith
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) - Jack Arnold
Mank (2020) - David Fincher
Broken Blossoms (1919) - D.W. Griffith
Ben Hur (1907) - Sidney Olcott and Frank Oakes Rose
An Irish Honeymoon (1911) - Sidney Olcott
Mississippi Burning (1988) - Alan Parker
Psycho (1998) - Gus Van Sant
The White Slave Trade (1910) - Alfred Cohn
The Abyss (1910) - Urban Gad
Taken (2008) - Pierre Morel
Frankenstein (2025) - Guillermo del Toro
Frankenstein (1931) - James Whale
Dracula (1931) - Tod Browning
The Crowd (1928) - King Vidor
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) - F.W. Murnau
Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style and Filmmaking - Charlie Keil
A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes - Helen Hunt Jackson
At the Picture Show: Small-town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture - Kathy Fuller-Seeley
The O’Kalem Collection: Two Views - Michael Patrick Gillespie
Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon - Shelley Stamp
Danish, But Not Lutheran: The Impact of Mormonism on Danish Cultural Identity, 1850–1920 - Julie Allen

Ned Thanhouser is president of Thanhouser Company Film Preservation and grandson of film pioneers Gertrude and Edwin Thanhouser. It makes sense, then, that he and Tristan discuss the founding of his family’s studio, which released its first film in 1910, but they also move on to Ned’s picks of classic literature adaptations and controversy.

Ned directed the 2014 documentary The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema. He has been active in film preservation since 1986, produced 17 DVDs containing over 120 surviving Thanhouser films, and published Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History by Q. David Bowers.

Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your own picks for 1910!

Films mentioned:
Frankenstein (1910) - J. Searle Dawley
Ramona (1910) - D.W. Griffith
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1910) - Edwin S. Porter
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910) - Otis Turner
The Abyss (1910) - Urban Gad
The Actor’s Children (1910) - Barry O’Neil
The Winter’s Tale (1910) - Barry O’Neil
Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896) - Auguste and Louis Lumière
Rip Van Winkle (1910) - unknown
Willing Wendy to Willie (1916) - unknown
Frankenstein (2025) - Guillermo del Toro
The Birth of a Nation (1915) - D.W. Griffith
Intolerance (1916) - D.W. Griffith
The Great Train Robbery (1903) - Edwin S. Porter
Alice in Wonderland (1903) - Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow
A Dog’s Love (1912) - Jack Harvey
Wicked (2024) - Jon M. Chu
The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays (1908) - Francis Boggs and Otis Turner
Cinderella (1911) - George Nichols
The Cry of the Children (1912) - George Nichols
The Evidence of the Film (1913) - Lawrence Marston and Edwin Thanhouser

The start of the 1910s doesn’t quite immediately usher in the cinematic measurement that would come to rule the decade: the feature film. But proto-forms of what would become the narrative standard arise in 1910, and otherwise, exciting images, narrative experiences, and affecting displays of historical milieu can be found in the productions of the year.

Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list to submit your top five picks for 1910!

Films mentioned:
The Broken Oath (1910) - Harry Solter
The Railroad Porter (1912) - William D. Foster
The Birth of a Race (1918) - John W. Noble
The Birth of a Nation (1915) - D.W. Griffith
The Actor’s Children (1910) - Barry O’Neill
In Old California (1910) - D.W. Griffith
Ramona (1910) - D.W. Griffith
In the Sultan’s Power (1909) - Francis Boggs
The Heart of a Race Tout (1909) - Francis Boggs
The Lad from Old Ireland (1910) - Sidney Olcott
The White Slave Trade (1910) - August Blom
Jeffries-Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Contest (1910) - unknown
Frankenstein (1910) - J. Searle Dawley
A Christmas Carol (1910) - J. Searle Dawley
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1910) - Edwin S. Porter