Michigan State University professor Joshua Yumibe has spent much of his research career examining color in silent film (and beyond). Having that particular lens, it makes sense that all of his picks contain some aspect of color, most of them quite spectacular.

Joshua is the author of Moving Color: Early Film, Mass Culture, Modernism and co-author of Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema and Chromatic Modernity: Color, Cinema, and Media of the 1920s. He is also an editor of Screen and of the Contemporary Film Directors at the University of Illinois Press.

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Films and resources mentioned:

• The Witch (1906) - Georges Méliès
• Miniature Theatre (1906) - Gaston Velle
• Tit-for-Tat (1906) - Gaston Velle
• The Butterflies (1906) - unknown
• Le chemineau (1906) - Albert Capellani
• Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895) - William K.L. Dickson
• The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906) - Georges Méliès
• The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship (1905) - Georges Méliès
• The Legend of Rip Van Winkle (1906) - Georges Méliès
• Bob’s Electric Theatre (1909) - unknown
• An Adventurous Automobile Trip (1905) - Georges Méliès
• Grandma’s Reading Glass (1900) - George Albert Smith
• Mickey’s Garden (1935) - Wilfred Jackson
• Under the Skin (2013) - Jonathan Glazer
• The Wizard of Oz (1939) - Victor Fleming
• Les Misérables (1934) - Raymond Bernard
• Les Misérables (1925) - Henri Fescourt
• Les Misérables (1912) - Albert Capellani
• The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) - D.W. Griffith
• Discovering Cinema: Learning to Talk & Movies Dream in Color