The General (1926)

Buster Keaton's 1926 masterwork cost $400,000 to make — the most expensive silent film ever produced — and was a commercial failure on release, nearly ending his career. Re-evaluated over decades, it was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry and ranked by Sight and Sound magazine among the ten greatest films ever made in a 1972 poll, the most authoritative critical ranking in cinema.