Freaks (1932)

A tight-knit group of circus performers fall in and out of bed with each other. But, when a trapeze artist starts making a fool of a sincere midget in order to get his inheritance, the rest of the "freaks" decide to take action.

Most of the players were cast for their physicality rather than their acting ability, but that doesn't hurt things at all -- I wonder if that's because so many of them had likely been performing most of their lives by this point? Also, though it runs barely over an hour, there's a lot of depth here. You forget about the initial shock of watching a woman with no arms sew, smoke, and eat with her feet, for example, and begin to feel protective of them: indignant that anyone would deliberately treat them unkindly.

B