Rudolf Klein-Rogge

The second half of Fritz Lang's Nibelungenlied adaptation, picking up after Siegfried's murder. Kriemhild marries the Hun king Etzel (Attila) to gather an army, then engineers a massacre of the Burgundians at his court. Where the first film was a myth of heroism, this one is a study of grief hardening into vengeance, ending in a burning hall strewn with bodies. Lang's staging of the climactic siege, with Huns setting the hall alight and Burgundians choosing death, is one of the most violent images in silent cinema. The two films together were meant as a national epic for Weimar Germany, and their ambivalence about loyalty, honor, and revenge has been read and re-read through every German crisis since. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Fantasy · Adventure · Drama · Silent

The first half of Fritz Lang's two-part adaptation of the medieval Nibelungenlied, written with his wife Thea von Harbou. Siegfried of Xanten forges a magic sword, slays a dragon, bathes in its blood to become invulnerable, and travels to Worms to woo the Burgundian princess Kriemhild. Lang stages the legend on a monumental scale, with carved forests, a mechanical dragon, and geometric compositions that turn myth into architecture. The film was a prestige production for UFA, meant to assert German cinema's ambition after the First World War, and its visual grandeur has influenced fantasy filmmaking ever since. The story continues in the companion film, Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Fantasy · Adventure · Drama · Silent

Fritz Lang's two-part criminal epic introduced cinema's first great supervillain. Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a hypnotist, master of disguise, and criminal psychologist who manipulates Berlin's decadent gambling clubs, ruins the industrialist Hull, and destroys the young Count Told — all while state prosecutor von Wenk (Bernhard Goetzke) doggedly hunts the phantom pulling the strings. Adapted from Norbert Jacques's novel and subtitled *A Picture of the Time*, the film is both a cracking crime saga and a portrait of Weimar Germany's postwar instability. Mabuse's chilling final descent into madness made him an archetype Lang would revisit twice more. Published in 1922, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Thriller · Silent

In a vast future city, the wealthy live in pleasure gardens above ground while workers toil underground to keep the machines running. Freder, the son of the city's master, follows a woman into the workers' city and sees the human cost of his father's order. A robot built in the shape of Maria is set loose to destroy the workers' hope. Fritz Lang's film is one of the most influential ever made; its images echo through every science fiction film since, from the robot design to the towering cityscape. The film was cut down and re-edited for years after its premiere, and a near-complete restoration was assembled decades later from archives around the world. Thea von Harbou wrote the screenplay and the novel it is based on. The film is in the public domain as a pre-1930 work.

Sci-Fi · Silent