His Last Race

The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West

The Curse of Quon Gwon is the oldest known Chinese-American film and one of the earliest American silent features made by a woman. Only two reels of the film survive, and no intertitles are known to exist, making it difficult to parse out the exact plot. An article in the July 17, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture World states that the film "deals with the curse of a Chinese god that follows his people because of the influence of western civilization." The film also touches on themes of Chinese assimilation into American society. Formally premiering in 1917, no distributor was willing to purchase a Chinese-American film without racial stereotypes. Considered a devastating financial failure, the film was only screened two more times until its rediscovery in 2004. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

The Eternal Flame

A 1922 film directed by Frank Lloyd.

The Two Sister’s Tragedy

Two sisters are separated as infants after their father leaves their mother. One grows up with her father in privilege and the other grows up in hardship with her mother.

A Daughter of the Poor

A young girl, Rose Eastmen lives with her lazy Uncle, who works as a janitor in a publishing house. Lacking education, both Rose and her Uncle are susceptible to the socialist ideas of writer Rudolph Creig. One day Rose encounters Jack Steven's the wealthy son of the publishing house, working on his car. She believes he is a common laborer, and begins seeing him. Through her exposure to Jack, Rose begins to realize the rich are not such an abominable people. Rudolph has also reached this conclusion after learning Steven's has published his book. Now with a hefty royalty check and success, Rudolph is able to marry Rose.

Love's Devotee

Two friends, Fritz and Theodor, make the acquaintance of Christine and Mizzi, who are also friends. Fritz is immediately captivated by Christine, who is bashful and modest as opposed to the eager, effervescent Mizzi. But even though the love between the two grows, Christine is not the only woman in Fritz’s life. His affair with a married woman will prove to have fatal consequences.

The Climbers

To keep his social-climbing wife and daughters in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed, wealthy George Hunter makes some large investments in the stock market, but the stocks crash and he loses a great deal of money. His wealthy aunt offers to bail the family out, but complications ensue.

Greed

When housewife Trina wins the lottery, her comfortable life with her dentist husband John slowly deteriorates, in part by her own increasing paranoia and partly by the machinations of villainous acquaintance Marcus.

Poppy

A 1917 film directed by Edward José

The Ghosts of Yesterday

After his wife/model has died of starvation with her portrait unfinished, an impoverished artist meets another woman with a striking resemblance to her.

By Right of Purchase

A 1918 film directed by Charles Miller.

The Probation Wife

A 1919 film directed by Sidney Franklin.

The Scarlet Letter

Hester Prynne's forced public shaming in a strict 17th-century Puritan colony. She wears a scarlet "A" for having a child out of wedlock while her husband is missing and her lover, a minister, hides his involvement.

Empty Hearts

Milt Kimberlin is a down-on-his luck horse owner, but Rosalie, a cabaret performer (the lively and engaging Clara Bow), doesn't care -- she turns down the fancy jewelry offered by oily Frank Gorman for a wedding ring from Kimberlin. Even though his finances never improve, Rosalie sticks by her husband only to sicken and die in a garret. Kimberlin's luck changes almost overnight and he becomes incredibly wealthy.

The Fighting Cub

A determined copy boy achieves his aspiration of becoming a journalist after unearthing the hideout of a criminal gang.

Trooper O’Brien

Divorce and the Daughter

A married man suddenly inherits a fortune and finally has enough money to live his dream of becoming an artist. He moves his wife and daughter to a big expensive house and starts living the life of a "bohemian" artist. When he begins an affair with another woman, his wife leaves him and his daughter Alicia breaks off her engagement to a wealthy doctor and becomes involved in the "free love" movement espoused by one Herbert Rawlins. Rawlins, however, has his own plans for Alicia, and they don't involve "sharing" her with anyone else. Complications ensue.

It Happened to Adele

Adele has grown up in a tenement, but she longs for greater things. She gets her chance at the stage when her mother runs into an old friend, Blanche. Blanche has been working steadily in the theater, and she helps Adele get work. The young girl finds romance with Vincent Harvey, an aspiring composer. One day Adele suffers an accidental fall out of a window.

The Denial

When Dorothy wants to marry Bob (Robert Agnew), her mother, Mildred, forbids the match. Dorothy angrily asserts that Mildred might reconsider if her own mother had forbid her marriage. The rest of the film is a flashback, as Mildred recalls her own youth, when her dictatorial mother did forbid her to marry Lyman. Lyman enlisted with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders to fight in the Spanish-American War, but was killed in battle.

Lying Lips

A spoiled rich girl from England encounters a wonderful young man who, unfortunately, has no money. Will love or money win out?

TalhotBlond

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

Train Dreams

A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.

Hardball

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

The River

Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.

Won't Back Down

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

Home Run

A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team

Hands of Stone

The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

The Unforgivable

A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.

Jane Got a Gun

After her outlaw husband returns home shot with eight bullets and barely alive, Jane reluctantly reaches out to an ex-lover who she hasn't seen in over ten years to help her defend her farm when the time comes that her husband's gang eventually tracks him down to finish the job.

Girl in the Box

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

Road to Paloma

While Native American Wolf is being pursued by the FBI for having taken the law into his own hands, when his mother was raped and killed on their reservation he crosses paths with Cash, a down and out musician who is coping with the end of his marriage. An unlikely friendship develops, as they ride together towards the Teton mountain range, where Wolf will spread his mothers ashes.

The Padre

American retired Judge Randall Nemes and his hired gun, Gaspar, track down a con man posing as a priest in a small Colombian town only to be thrown off-course by a scrappy 16-year-old girl intent on reuniting with her sister in the United States.

Gigi & Nate

A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.

The Young One

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

Head Full of Honey

A young girl tries to help her grandfather, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, navigate his increasing forgetfulness, and ends up going on a remarkable adventure with him.

Man with No Past

Waking up in an unfamiliar city, a man with no memory must confront the mysteries of his own identity. However, his desperate search to uncover the past pits him against a powerful enemy, leading to a showdown that ultimately reveals the truth.

The Visit

Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...

Come Sunday

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

True Grit

Following the murder of her father by a hired hand, a 14-year-old farm girl sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find—a man with 'true grit'—Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn.

Wonderstruck

The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.