Lois Weber

Known for DirectingBorn 1879-06-12Died 1939-11-13Allegheny City [now Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania, USA

Lois Weber (1879 - 1939) was a true American auteur on par with D. W. Griffith. A director, actress, screenwriter, and producer of mostly silent films, she was the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film (1914's The Merchant of Venice), the first American woman director to own her own film studio, and one of the first film directors to experiment with sound. Weber pioneered the split-screen technique in the 1913 short film Suspense, and Hypocrites featured the first non-pornographic full-frontal female nude scene in 1915. Many of her films tackled social issues like abortion, poverty, discrimination, and religion, drawing the attention of censors. Only a fraction of her films, estimated to number between 200 and 400, were preserved. In 2022, the American Film Institute announced a new initiative titled "Behind the Veil," after one of Weber's lost films. The initiative "will document 6,000 short films from the silent and early sound eras to uncover the innovative contributions of female and BIPOC storytellers."Read more

Movies & web series

The Angel of Broadway

Topsy and Eva

A Midnight Romance

Mary Regan

A Japanese Idyll

Eyes That See Not

Sherlock Holmes, Jr.

On the Brink

The Marriage Clause

What's Worth While?

A Heroine of '76

The Women Who Run Hollywood

Fate

Alone in the World

The Pursuit of Hate

Home

To Please One Woman

Forbidden

When a Girl Loves

The Dumb Girl of Portici

Lost by a Hair

Suspense

Fine Feathers

The Rosary

Sensation Seekers

A Chapter in Her Life

The Blot

The Price

Shoes

From Death to Life

Where Are My Children?

Hypocrites

How Men Propose

Too Wise Wives

White Heat

Discontent

Tarzan of the Apes

Idle Wives

The Twins

What Do Men Want?

Betty in Search of a Thrill

Early Directors on Directing

For Husbands Only

The Doctor and the Woman

Borrowed Clothes

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Even as You and I

The Mysterious Mrs. M