1922

Fritz Lang distils the fearful mistrust of authority in Weimar Germany down to a single criminal mastermind in Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, painting out an expressionistic world under his hypnotic control with dark, jagged strokes, and setting the proto-noir standard of elaborately plotted crime narratives.

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.