SILENCE is golden and in the case of this gorgeous black and white silent film, the gold will be a clutch of Oscars, probably including the coveted statuette for Best Picture.

It charts the rise and fall of a dashing actor against a backdrop of tumultuous change in a bygone era of Hollywood.

Stripped bare of expository dialogue, expensive set pieces and digital trickery, Michel Hazanavicius’s love letter to the moving image is tender, romantic and incredibly funny, reminding us that the beating heart of any film is human emotion.

Here, a single lingering glance, underscored by composer Ludovic Bource’s grand orchestration, speaks louder and clearer than reams of impassioned confession.

During the early part of the 20th Century, Lillian Gish and Greta Garbo became the queens of the silver screen in the golden age of silent movies.

Then in 1927, The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson changed movie-making forever by successfully combining images and sound.

Within a decade, the death knell sounded forever on silents.

Writer-director Hazanavicius steps back in time to that pivotal year, when handsome and romantically unattached screen idol George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is setting hearts aflutter. His films are greeted with rapturous applause, sell-out crowds and female fans clamour for his autograph.

On the set of his latest production, he meets aspiring starlet Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) and is smitten.

With the advent of sound, George’s fortunes wane and Peppy’s star ascends into the stratosphere to the delight of cigar-smoking studio boss Zimmer (John Goodman).

The film replicates movie-making techniques of the past to create a warm, witty and swoonsome romance that will charm and beguile modern audiences.

Dujardin is a debonair and charismatic leading man and there is simmering screen chemistry with the luminous Bejo.

A rousing, toe-tapping finale, which nods and winks to feel-good cinema of the 1930s, ensures we are grinning with glee when the end credits roll.