- Director
- F. W. Murnau
- Year
- 1922
- Country
- Germany
- Runtime
- 94 min
Also released as
- Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
- Nosferatu the Vampire
- Die zwölfte Stunde - Eine Nacht des Grauens
- Nosferatu el vampiro
- Nosferatu, o Vampiro
- Nosferatu, una simfonia del terror
- Nosferatu: Kino Ultimate Edition
- Schatten der Nacht
- Das kostbare Blut
- Nosferatu, El Vampiro
- 吸血鬼
- Носферату, Симфонія жаху
- Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors
- Носферату: Симфонија ужаса
- Носферату, симфония ужаса
- Nosferatu: Uma Sinfonia de Terror
- Nosferatu, una sinfonía de terror
- Nosferatu, Samphony e Vahshat
- Léleklátó
- Nosferatu - Drakula
- Nosferatu: Mia Symfonia Tromou
- Nosferatu - kauhun sinfonia
- Upír Nosferatu
- Носферату - симфония на ужаса
- Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens
- Terror of Dracula
- Nosferatu, šausmu simfonija
- 노스페라투
- Νοσφεράτου: Μια Συμφωνία Τρόμου
- Dracula
- F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu
- Νοσφεράτου
- Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
- Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror
- Nosferatu, Bir Dehşet Senfonisi
Nosferatu
Nosferatu is a 1922 German gothic horror film directed by F. W. Murnau.
An illegal Dracula that survived a court order to burn it. Still the best-looking vampire film.
goreledger editorial rating: 9/10 · Read the review
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Murnau made this without buying the rights. Stoker's widow sued, won, and had the negatives ordered destroyed; prints had already escaped, which is the only reason the most influential vampire film ever made still exists.
Max Schreck plays Orlok as vermin rather than aristocracy: bald, clawed, rat-toothed, moving like something that has never had to pass for human. The rules everyone now takes as vampire canon are largely invented here, including sunlight being fatal, which is nowhere in the novel.
The shadow on the staircase is the single most copied image in horror. It still works.
Goreledger editorial rating
9 / 10
Orlok as vermin rather than aristocracy, and a shadow on a staircase that is still the most copied image in horror. Much of what is now treated as vampire canon starts here. Silent-era pacing is the only caveat.
Our opinion, not an average. How we rate
Goreledger editorial profile
Describes the film, not its quality: high gore means very gory.
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Trailer
The sleeves
The same film, sold as a different film in each territory. Click any of them.
Where to watch
Australia
Canada
Finland
UK
USA
Legal sources only. Availability data from JustWatch via TMDB.
Checked 9 Aug 2026
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Adjacent
WATCHcanonDracula
Stagey, slow, and it has no score at all. Lugosi's face is the entire reason it survives.
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Christopher Lee plays Dracula as a physical threat rather than a foreign gentleman, and it is over in 82 minutes.
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Elizabeth Báthory in an empty Ostend hotel out of season, and it is the most elegant vampire film ever made.
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A plague-quarantined village visited by a travelling circus, and it is the strangest film Hammer made.
WATCHcanonNosferatu
Eggers going back to Murnau rather than to Stoker. Filthy, plague-ridden, and Orlok has a moustache.
WATCHcanonCrimson Peak
Del Toro doing full gothic romance. The house is the best thing in it and it is sinking.
- Next in Gothic: Frankenstein (1931) →
- Next in Vampire: Dracula (1931) →