Murnau's visual mastery, his marriage of expressionism, visual lyricism and the daring technological ambition of pre-sound Hollywood, shows silent cinema at its pinnacle.
Comment
02/13/07
Sunrise (1927)
97 %
Reviews Counted: 35 Fresh: 34 Rotten:1 Average Rating: 8.8/10
Consensus:
Held aloft by director F. W. Murnau's visual genius, Sunrise is one of the greatest silent films ever made, and a wonderful example of the medium's capabilities, then and now. Beautiful, dark and luminous, and astonishing even today, it has exerted a profound influence on countless subsequent films, and represents an undisputed pinnacle of the art form.
Rated: U
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Theatrical Release: 06-02-2004
Synopsis: SUNRISE chronicles the murderous desires--and ultimate repentance--of a wayward husband. Deeply attracted by a sophisticated vamp who worms her way into the couple's simple country existence, the man agrees to take his wife into the city by rowboat...with plans to drown her on the way. In... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston, Arthur Housman, J. Farrell MacDonald
Director: F.W. Murnau
Reviews
Top Critic Top Critic
This sexy melodrama and intense psychological thriller provides an original and satisfying mix of romanticism, artifice and realism.
04/01/06
Top Critic
An exuberant pioneer picture conceived on a big canvas, blazing an inspirational trail for just about everything Hollywood has done since.
04/09/04
Top Critic
It's a love story that's more than just a tale of broken hearts and damp hankies. It's also a landmark in the history of cinema that turns melodrama into high art.
02/03/04
Top Critic
In its artistry, dramatic power and graphic suggestion it goes a long way toward realizing the promise of this foreign director in his former works, notably Faust.
02/20/08
Top Critic
Top Critic
[an] unexpectedly harmonious marriage of German expressionism and Hollywood romanticism.
08/06/07
Released in 1927, the last year of silent film, it's a pinnacle of that lost art.
02/13/07
Moody and melodramatic, a technical treat that grabs hold of the viewer and will not let him go.
05/06/06
One of the finest examples of cinema's artistic flowering at the cusp of the silents-to-sound transition...
04/06/06
Mr. Murnau proves by Sunrise that he can do just as fine work in Hollywood as he ever did in Germany.
03/25/06
Top Critic
F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (1928) conquered time and gravity with a freedom that was startling to its first audiences. To see it today is to be astonished by the boldness of its visual experimentation.
01/20/06
Top Critic
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