Sunrise

A landmark in the history of cinema that turns melodrama into high art with the story of a hard-up farmer (George O'Brien) whose affair with a city girl (Margaret Livingston) leads him to the brink of killing his doting wife (Janet Gaynor). Read full review

The miracle of Murnau’s mise-en-scene is to fill the simple plot and characters with complex, piercing emotions, all evoked visually through a dense style that embraces not only spectacular expressionism but a subtle and delicate naturalism. Read full review

The more you consider Sunrise the deeper it becomes -- not because the story grows any more subtle, but because you realize the real subject is the horror beneath the surface. Read full review

Murnau's silent masterpiece about a troubled young country couple (Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien), a vamp from the city (Margaret Livingstone), murder plots, fate and redemption contains some of the most glorious visual set-pieces in the history of cinema. [01 Aug 2008, p.C8]

Imaginative and surprisingly moving for a silent art movie. Read full review

Sunrise reminds us that the silent film was reaching its artistic heights just as sound was arriving. [29 Apr 1985, p.2]

Sunrise is often rightfully noted for its technical achievements but what is often overlooked is its emotional power. Read full review

For its look and its innovation, and for its ability to suggest shades of feeling with a minimum use of intertitles — and as a classic of the first order — Sunrise must be seen. Read full review

A horn of cinematic plenty continuously spills from Sunrise, not only in its production design and Murnau’s dreamlike images (rendered by a pair of American cinematographers in the German émigré’s first Hollywood film), but in an unswerving commitment to the varied tones of screenwriter Carl Mayer’s scenario. Read full review

Sunrise remains a magnificent tale of adultery and forgiveness, and contains more lessons in visual storytelling in any given five-minute sequence than most film schools deliver in a semester. Read full review

FW Murnau's classic 1927 silent is one of the first movies with a really substantial feature-length narrative: an exuberant pioneer picture conceived on a big canvas, blazing an inspirational trail for just about everything Hollywood has done since. [06 Feb 2004, p.15]

Mr. Murnau shows himself to be an artist in camera studies, bringing forth marvelous results from lights, shadows and settings. He also proves himself to be a true story teller, and, incidentally, here is a narrative wherein the happy ending is welcome. Read full review

The greatness of Murnau’s work—maybe even the essence of beauty—is that it offers much to talk about, because it is neither emptily decorative nor devoid of ideas, but, rather, embodies ideas even as it surpasses them, and conveys, by the very fact of its being, emotions far beyond those arising from story, character, or situation. Read full review

A near masterpiece...The story is told in a flowing, lyrical German manner that is extraordinarily sensual, yet is perhaps too self-conscious, too fable-like for American audiences.

Murnau's first Hollywood film and one of the last great silent movies. Read full review

Imported from Germany to lend class to Hollywood's new Fox studio, the great expressionist filmmaker, F.W. Murnau, did exactly that with this affecting, visually intoxicating 1927 masterpiece about a troubled young country couple (George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor) whose marital bonds are renewed during a day in the city. [12 Mar 1998]

Its dreamlike realism is also to be enjoyed: when lovers appear to walk across a crowded city street, into (superimposed) fields, and back to kiss in a traffic jam, you have an example of True Love styled to cinema perfection. Simple, and intense images of unequalled beauty. Read full review

An undisputed masterpiece, and that rarest of films that achieves absolute perfection in every area. Read full review

Sunrise is a distinguished contribution to the screen, made in this country, but produced after the best manner of the German school. 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. Read full review