The Aryan is a 1916 American silent Western film starring William S. Hart, Gertrude Claire, Charles K. French, Louise Glaum, and Bessie Love.

[3] A partial print of the film survives in the Library of Congress,[4][5] which was restored at the Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In the town of Yellow Ridge, however, he is detained by a seductive dance hall girl named Trixie (Glaum).

Learning the next day that his mother is dead, Denton is infuriated about being cheated and betrayed by Trixie, who pretended to be good, and other false friends.

He is secretly visited that night by Mary Jane Garth (Love), an innocent and virtuous young woman among the migrants who bravely confronts the Indians and Mexicans.

But by allowing myself only to think of the terrible wrong that the white race had done me—pure imagery—I settled into it, and I am sure Bessie Love at the time believed I was the typical brute.Hart was given a screenplay by the screenwriter C. Gardner Sullivan in which the hero had, according to Hart, "no motive for his hardness."

[citation needed] Although it was made during the silent era, Sullivan wrote long speeches for the actors to perform, which were filmed and later edited down.

"[17] Other scholars have labeled this as "perhaps the first film to openly proclaim the doctrine of White supremacy over Native American Indians".