3. City Lights
Realistically, any of Charlie Chaplin's films could have ended up on this list. Almost every single one of them is worth checking out, but for the viewer who is new to the silent era, it's probably best to start off with one of his most famous films. City Lights is the achingly sweet story of the lovable Tramp (played by Chaplin) who meets and falls in love with a blind woman who mistakes him for a wealthy benefactor. You can feel almost at once that City Lights is intensely personal to Chaplin -- some people have suggested that the film is autobiographical, with the blind girl representing his mother (who died a few months before filming began on this film) and the millionaire representing his father. City Lights was met with decent reviews when it first came out, but it wasn't until the film was re-released in 1950 that it received major critical praise, leading James Agee of Life Magazine to famously dub the last scene as the "single greatest piece of acting ever committed to celluloid."