Top-Tier Alternatives In the Shadow of Dealers in Death: Cult Guide

Dir: Anthony Young

Films shot by newsreel companies and army cameramen are featured to tell the story of what it was like for soldiers during World War I.

Dir: Unknown Director

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Bottom of the World perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

The true story of Sir Ernest Shackleton's dramatic exploratory journey to Antarctica aboard the Endurance, during which the ship and all aboard became icebound.

Dir: B.A. Rolfe

In the Roman Coliseum, at the beginning of the Christian era, the Emperor Turnerius, accompanied by his favorite, Nerissa, watches the bestial games in the arena. His son Gordian is asked by Grimaldo the magician to save the life of a Christian girl about to be thrown to the lions. He refuses, whereupon Grimaldo prophesies the fate of the Empire by telling the prince a story of the future: Two thousand years hence, in New York, a parallel situation takes place in which a young man is led to put a stop to the base plans of his father. The prince is so deeply affected by the injustice of the story that he plunges into the arena to save the girl, causing the emperor to die in a fit of rage, thus precipitating the coronation of his son as the new emperor.

Dir: Paul Scardon

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Madonnas and Men perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

1860 ushers in the era of iron ships, Richard Sibley, a builder of wooden ships, stubbornly resists the change, which leads him to forbid the marriage of his daughter Rose to John Rhead, a proponent of the new method. This injustice outrages John's sister Gertrude so much that she breaks off her engagement to Sibley's son Sam. Meanwhile, John and Rose elope. Twenty-five years later, John has grown rich and conservative and has a daughter named Emily. Gertrude, still single, tries to help her niece Emily marry the man she loves, Arthur Preece, rather than her father's choice, old Lord Monkhurst, but Gertrude fails. Twenty-five more years pass, and John again attempts to interfere by opposing the marriage of his granddaughter Muriel to Richard Sibley, Jr., an engineer. This time, however, Muriel's independence wins and she marries the man of her choice, and after the death of Monkhurst, Emily and Preece are finally together.

Dir: C.L. Chester

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Jerome Storm

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Milestones perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Luther Green goes to war in France in 1917. When he comes back to his family home in New Jersey, he has a surprise following him: a beautiful French girl named Nina.

Dir: Antoni Bednarczyk

The north-eastern Polish province of Vilnius is after WW1 plundered by savage Bolsheviks. The heroic Polish army is bound to stop them.

Dir: William F. Adler

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Horseshoe and Bridal Veil perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A travelogue/documentary including explorations of the fauna and people of Siam, New Guinea, and Java, with interpolations of an apparently fictitious encounter between the filmmakers and cannibalistic natives of Frederick Henry Island in the South Pacific.

Dir: C.L. Chester

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Donald Crisp

During the Civil War, young widow Rachel Hayne is among those "held by the enemy" when her old family home is within the lines occupied by the Northern troops. Protected by Colonel Prescott from looters and the unwelcome attentions of Surgeon Fielding, Rachel begins to fall in love with the gallant Yankee officer. Their romance is disrupted when Rachel's husband Gordon, long reported dead, is captured as a spy and condemned to death. When Gordon is wounded during an attempted escape, Rachel's loyalty impels her to try to save him by feigning his death. As Gordon's stretcher is carried through the hospital, Fielding demands an examination of the body, charging that Prescott is involved in a plot to smuggle the spy out of the hospital alive. General Stanton lifts the cover from the body, only to find that death has really come, freeing both Rachel and Prescott.