10 Groundbreaking Films That Are Actually Terrible

D.W. Griffiths’ magnum opus is one of the most groundbreaking movies ever made, a landmark in cinematic history.

This epic silent drama was the first twelve-reel film ever made - and also the longest ever made at that point in cinema history, some cuts exceeding three hours long. Detailing the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and American society through the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, it was incredibly ambitious for the time, the first film to have a musical score, introducing techniques like close-ups and fade-outs that would become part of the vocabulary of the cinema.

It’s also horribly, horribly racist, portraying black men as dumb, sexually aggressive animals who posed a threat to white women and based on a book - The Clansman - by a white supremacist, Thomas Dixon Jr.

This is not a modern interpretation of the film: there were widespread protests from African-American activists across America when it was first released, and the National Association For The Advancement Of Coloured People attempted (unsuccessfully) to have it banned for inciting hatred against the whole race.

The Birth Of A Nation was also responsible for the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan only months after its release, given that it presented the then-defunct outfit as a heroic force for America.

Technically brilliant, hugely ambitious, unbelievably influential? Absolutely - but what an awful, awful shadow legacy this awful, awful movie has.