I'm sorry I didn't watch more of her films.
Only caught The Maltese Falcon some decades ago, and maybe one other movie where she had a lesser role.

Reaching back a little earlier, one of the things that's always blown me away is how every single silent movie I've ever watched has been delightful in one way or another. It's just a fascinating era, in which one can see the very processes of film-making being created and developed.

Come to think of it, it looks like Stroheim's restored GREED classic is right on YT. That's the one where about 20yrs ago they took the existing, cut-down movie and supplemented it with lost, cleaned-up footage.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=greed+movie+long+restored+version

Not totally sure, but I think the 4hr version there is the restored one? Original movie ran like 9hrs!!

Most silent movies are gone so there are less chances to catch a bad one. And there were some stinkers and clankers especially during the shorts era. The studio fires made sure of that unfortunately.

The other thing with silent film is that it required a peculiar grasp on film language that forces more creative approach because you only have visuals and editing to do the job and it is mighty hard to do the trick.

What's funny is that american cinema wasn't the brightest bulb in this department - if you compare even something like peak DeMille or Borzage from the 1920s and then switch to Europe - some Lang or Murnau or Renoir or Gance - DeMille's cinematic language seems kindergarten level. I mean even the great Browning was rather limited in his cinematic vocabulary and kept everything very vaudvillain theatric - and on the other side - Fairbanks and Keaton relied more on stunt spectacle than film language. Chaplin is an outlier - he evolved very rapidly and his work reflects some of the cutting edge film theory of the era.

Stroheim is a weird case because he's fairly limited as a director (his storytelling approach is comparably basic and follows the Griffith template) but he applied what he knew with such intensity and commitment that his limitations worked to his benefit. Kinda like a fighter who practiced that one punch one thousand times in a way. Greed is a good example of that - it's a backwards movie if you compare it to someone like Dovzhenko or Eisenstein but it doesn't really matter because Stroheim makes it work within his language.

Very interesting thoughts on all that. I wish I had a greater early film vocabulary in order to understand better, or even craft a simple argument or two.

Are silent films something you studied in school, perhaps?

nah, i'm just a nerd.

check out Hollywood, the Pioneers by Kevin Brownlow for the american silent film and then The Haunted Screen by godlike Lotte Eisner and The Cine Goes to Town by Richard Abel. And of course In the Service of the State about the great Dovzhenko