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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Binding: DVD
Format: NTSC
Theatrical Release Date: September 23, 1927
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Editorial Review:
There are those who rate Sunrise the greatest of all silent films. Then again, some consider it the finest film from any era. Such claims invite a backlash, but do yourself a favor and give it a look. At the very least, you'll know you've seen a movie of extraordinary visual beauty and emotional purity. This universal tale of a farm couple's journey from country to city and back again was the first American film for F.W. Murnau, the German director of Nosferatu and The Last Laugh whose everyday scenes seemed haunted by phantoms and whose most extravagant visions never lost touch with reality. Hollywood afforded him the technical resources to unleash his imagination, and in turn he opened up the power of camera movement and composition for a generation of American filmmakers. You'll never forget the walk in the swamp, the ripples on the lake, the trolley ride from forest to metropolis. This movie defines the cinema. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Silent Cinema At Its Visual Zenith
In terms of visual quality, German director F.W. Murnau's "Sunrise" (1927) may well be the greatest silent film ever made. Based on Hermann Sudermann's story "The Journey to Tilsit," the plot is relatively simple. A peasant farmer (George O'Brien) becomes involved with a city woman (Margaret Livingston) and is persuaded to murder his wife (Janet Gaynor) - resulting in an intense emotional struggle. Though a Hollywood production, Murnau conveys a distinctly Germanic atmosphere, with superb cinematography ... Read More
Rating:  - Keep and protect her from all harm
This magnificent silent film won the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production at the very first Academy Awards. It is worth watching. Some silent films can put you to sleep, not this one, it packs a punch.
Briefly, the story is about a young married couple, that farm near a lake. The husband (George O'Brien) has an affair with a vacationer--"a girl from the city". This woman talks him into drowning his wife, but making it look like an accident. She makes him a bundle of "bulrushes" ... Read More
Rating: - Learning about a Classic
The other reviewers have well described the movie's plot and many merits. I would only echo what a visual masterpiece this movie is. While the story is as simple as a children's tale, the movie is totally engaging on several levels. This is testament to the genius of the director F.W. Murnau and the movie's photographers.
The settings in this movie do not feel like movie sets, rather they feel like they must be real places, yet they have this strange otherworldly quality that signals some lost ... Read More
Rating: - Still packs a punch eighty years later.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F. W. Murnau, 1927)
In the days of Technicolor and high-powered CGI special effects (well, when they're not low-budget CGI special effects), it's sometimes hard to understand how the effects to be found in the earliest films can still be effective. Not so with Sunrise, F. W. Murnau's first Hollywood film, and the only one to ever win the discontinued Oscar for Best Unique and Artistic Film. (A category which, I firmly believe, needs re-instituted.) It's a simple story; ... Read More
Rating: - It's a shame that this is out of print.
Easily one of the great films of the silent era, and ever - Murnau's ability to present psychological and emotional states in purely visual terms is unparalleled, and 'Sunrise' is so dazzlingly inventive that it comes as a series of little shocks. The story is simplicity itself (flirting brazenly with the simplistic), but the presentation makes every CGI laden special effects extravaganza in recent memory look crude and imagination starved by comparison. Superficially a melodrama, the images here are potent and haunting ... Read More
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