1910s & 1920s

  • La Roue (1923)

    In drawing on the philosophies of his literary idols, Abel Gance crafts a breath-taking piece of epic cinematic poetry in La Roue, breaking the shackles of conventional silent filmmaking to explore the weight of obsession, guilt, love, and death on a man’s conscience over the course of his mortal life.

  • The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

    Robert Wiene creates the look of a demented, Edvard Munch-like painting brought horrifically to life in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, expressing the nightmarish disorientation of an authoritarian society slowly driving everyone insane.

  • Nosferatu (1922)

    Gaunt-faced, wide-eyed, hunched over, the mere profile of Count Orlok strikes a terrifying image that has persisted in our collective consciousness for almost a century, and yet through F.W. Murnau’s sharp, expressionist lighting, Nosferatu still holds up as being more than just one remarkable performance.