"Sunrise" is a beautiful film from the silent era, winning an award that became quickly obsolete in Best Unique or Artistic Production. I still consider this a winner of Best Picture and think it is among the most timeless films from the old days. The themes are relevant to just about anyone, celebrating things like love, forgiveness, and hope. The movie starts out pretty dark and it takes a little while to get into, but once a certain event happens 30 minutes in, the rest of the movie is just a delight. I found myself engaged with the movie and think it is much more accessible than many old films. Overall, it is a joyful experience to watch and one that stands the test of time in more ways than one.

Spooky gaslighting amidst temptation and fear, Sunrise admittedly took a while to click with me but it's hard to deny the sheer artistry on display here, blending the figurative, the imaginative and the real into a film that works purely from its simplicity and passion. A blinding portrayal that anyone holding the experiences of the hazards encountered during the tricky travails of a relationship expiring will know only too well. Murnau weaves a dangerous net of excellent technical proficiency here, he takes the barren sets and dark, hallow rooms and turns them into treasure troves of lighting and nuance, creating something as simple as a railway depot or a big traffic intersection and making it a story all by itself. The photography is frequently beautiful mixing German expressionism with a huge helping of Hollywood money and balances a story of obsession, love and forgiveness in a moving, harrowing and heart-rending way, it almost feels a shame that sound came along. Having a silent film that's not overly reliant on interludes was an exceptionally bold move by Murnau, his complete disinterest in them results in a gradual disappearance from the film altogether ultimately just letting his actors express themselves physically, it's a little cheesy and melodramatic yes, but it works within the medium. Without the need to play his story out in a thoroughly realised reality, Murnau uses illusion and the poetry of his medium to communicate the themes of his modernist fable and that's exactly what Sunrise is; a timeless achievement to the world of cinema in a marriage of expressionism, visual lyricism and daring technological ambition.

农満青年在城市女郎的勾引下要杀害自己的妻子，谋杀前一刻他幡然悔悟，然后和妻子度过了浪漫的蜜月之旅。电影运用了许多多重曝光，幻灯片似的展示了许多城市奇观，让人一睹大萧条来临前的繁华縼采。我可以想象当时关注看到这么多迷幻的叠影，这么多游乐场鍧海浪奇观，会感到多么震撼。而开头城市人来乡下度假的情景，让我思考到底是从什么时候开始，社会开始流行起旅游和度假了呢？

Sometimes the canon classics leave you bewildered about what made them earn their reputation. Sometimes you can see why they were influential at the time, without actually enjoying them. But sometimes a movie that's near a 100 years old completely bowls you over, like Sunrise. F.W. Murnau is an absolutely genius of visual story telling. Also the only canon classic prominently featuring a drunk piglet.

The stark contrast between purity and adultery and the effects of the two. Adulterous love leads to guilt and moral deterioration. But a pure, innocent love strengthens courage and selfless. This is a movie about a man who overcomes to find the joys of purity.

One of the most innovative pieces of cinema EVER. Absolutely love the emotion that’s conveyed in this; it’s genuine, it’s real, it’s beautiful, and it makes this one of the greatest silent films of all time. F. W. Murnau struck cinematic gold with Nosferatu (1922) and Faust (1926), but this is a completely different beast and is captivating in every way.

A mix of German expressionism and realism, the influences from the era it was made created a beautiful film.

A near perfect film. Proof that silent films can be both emotional and exciting. It is also a technical wonder for its time. The performances from Janet Gaynor and especially George O'Brien are flawless. So much can be said with almost no words. Remarkable. One of the greatest film experiences of all time.

Honestly, you can say the first half of this is a masterpiece. It is filmed in such a different way and with more care and consideration than any movie from the era. There is a little lull after where it dips into some misplaced silent film slapstick, the ending sequence is a little weird story wise but beautifully filmed.

One of the earliest silent film movies of its time.

Sunrise might have been called Sunset, and the title would have seemed equally appropriate. Watching the movie today is like seeing an art form reaching its highest peak just at the point when that particular medium was about to die forever. The streets that see in the movie were actually a studio set costing $200,000. The film company recovered some of the costs by using the set in other films of the time. Some cost-cutting was made by using smaller sets in the background, and making them seem bigger with use of forced perspective, the optical illusion of making smaller objects appear as if they are further away. Murnau understood the craft of how to visually convey meaning to the audiences better than almost any director of his time. There is not a single moment in Sunrise where the audience feels confused about what is happening. His storytelling is crystal clear, and yet it is told with minimal intertitles. The use of a synchronised music score and sound effects also help to clarify what is happening in scenes. What Murnau showed best in Sunrise is how much more sophisticated late silent movies were than the early sound movies. The need to soundproof the cameras so that they could not be heard on the final movie led to an era of static camerawork. Here in Sunrise, we have nothing of the sort. The camera has a freedom that it would not have for several years. One notable feature is Murnau's use of long tracking shots, still something of a rarity in an age when visual movement was limited by the need to crank up the camera. This was made easier by the fact that even many of the outdoors scenes in Sunrise were filmed in a studio. When The Man and The Woman from the City meet in a marsh, it is merely a set, allowing Murnau to put the camera on an overhead rail to achieve the long tracking shot required to make the scene so effective. Murnau's camera crew also had access to a camera with an electric motor. On several occasions, images are superimposed onto one another. We see a train and a boat in a split screen effect, perhaps reflecting the personality of the main character in the movie. Images of the marsh fill the bottom of the screen while images of the city fill the top of it, as if to show The Man's thoughts. In another scene, The Man is lying on the bed while above him we see an image of the water on the lake where he is planning to drown The Wife. This visual effect was achieved by masking part of the screen, and then exposing the rest of it. Murnau could then arrange for the second image to be exposed in the areas where the first image was masked, and masked in the places where the first image was exposed. The action revolves around three people. None of them is named. There is The Man (George O'Brien), The Wife (Janet Gaynor) and The Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston). The absence of names has led some people to view the work as allegorical. If the story is an allegory, we may ask who are the two humans in the film's title, especially since there are three central characters. Could it be the two women in The Man's life, who may represent good and evil? I do not see them as allegorical representations myself. They seem to me to indicate two possible paths that The Man can follow. One is domesticated and a little dull, but safe and perhaps more fulfilling in the end. The other is thrilling, but it will destroy him. Which choice will he make? Perhaps the two humans are both The Man – his lighter and darker sides. He is under the influence of temptation that may bring calamity on himself and others, but he also has a kinder and more compassionate side that might redeem him. A more likely explanation is the least interesting one. The two humans are The Man and his Wife. This seems to be hinted at in an early intertitle in the film. The married couple are at the heart of the movie. The action follows their marital problems in the first part, a cessation of those problems in the second part, and an unexpected separation in the last part. By contrast The Woman from the City is only dominant in the first part. She is almost totally absent from the middle section of the film, and never regains her importance in the final part. What the first two parts of Sunrise have established is that tragedy need not be inevitable. In many film noirs, there is a fatalistic sense that the characters are trapped by circumstances and by their own moral weakness. They are doomed from the start. In Sunrise, there is still the sense that people have a choice, and the chance to change their destiny at any point. Whether Sunrise ends happily or unhappily, the outcome was not pre-ordained, and could gone differently. A happy or an unhappy ending would have been equally correct. I wrote a longer appreciation of Sunrise on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2020/12/24/sunrise-a-song-of-two-humans-1927/

This silent film teaches morality lessons with 3 characters in one day. Handsome farmer is being seduced by a city woman. Her evil plan against his wife just cannot be done. Instead, he falls in love with his wife again. There is more, but I won't tell.

This is truly a cinematic masterpiece that should never be lost to time. It was one of the 2 films that won the most awards in the very 1st Academy Awards. Watching the film you get lost in the love between the Man and the Wife and how it was almost destroyed before they built it back. It's poetic and it's timeless. The first intertitle says 'This song of the Man and his Wife is of no place and every place: you might hear it anywhere at anytime'. It's a tale that's both old as time, yet still can ring true to this day. A truly beautiful piece of artwork that I hope everyone gets the chance to see.

Usual over-acting style of silent film. I felt the middle part was unnecessarily long. I don't think it needed the comedic elements. However, there were some wonderfully innovative cinematic elements, like the drowning subtitles and the walking between cars. 7/10.

F.W. Murnau's Sunrise is certainly a film from a different era. Case in point: after a failed attempt to murder her, a woman forgives her husband within a matter of minutes after he offers a sincere apology and takes her out for a swingin' night on the town. After almost a hundred years, it is understandably dated in terms of both style and content. Despite its shortcomings, what makes it watchable are the effectively restrained performances, some interesting images and special effects, and some truly remarkable lighting. While hailing Sunrise as one of the all-time greats, as many do, is probably a bit of an overstatement, it is still interesting viewing even a century after the fact, a pretty impressive accomplishment.

The first half is a little boring but the second half really pucks up and has some interesting plot twists for the time.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is an enduring and endearing story. Janet Gaynor's performance is so pure that you don't want anything bad to happen to her, and you can almost see the heavy weight that George O'Brien's character is carrying. This silent film is also a technical marvel, with many visual effects that were far ahead of their time. Take the time to watch Sunrise and remind yourself of what's really important in life.

Heralded as one, if not the greatest silent film ever made, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans won the very first Academy Award for Best Unique and Artistic Picture during the first ceremony in 1929. It is another striking example of German expressionism and also is one of the very first films with a synchronized musical score and sound effects soundtrack.

A masterpiece but with a meager story that remains picturesque soporific for a long evening. This is widely considered by critics and historians to be one of the greatest films ever made. The groundbreaking cinematogrophy features tracking shots. Tiles appear sparingly with long sequences of pure action and the bulk told in FW Murnau's style. Forced perspective is striking, particularly in a shot of the City with normal people in the foreground and smaller in the background. Very likely the greatest film of the silent era.

One of the most beautiful love story ever made for the screen, but don't expect anything corny here. It has a thriller touch, and is very catchy and surprising. The cinematography is incredible for its time, very very beautiful. A masterpiece.