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Nosferatu can still unsettle a modern viewer—not because its age automatically makes it a masterpiece, but because F.W. Murnau builds dread from images that remain strange and vivid: Count Orlok’s gaunt, rat-like silhouette, ominous stretches of landscape and a town gripped by disease. The film is less a parade of shocks than a slow, dreamlike invasion of the ordinary.
What is Nosferatu (1922) about?
Directed by F.W. Murnau and written by Henrik Galeen, this German silent horror film follows a property agent, Thomas Hutter, who travels to the remote home of Count Orlok. The visit brings the vampire’s attention back to Hutter’s wife, Ellen, and carries a spreading sickness toward their town. The British Film Institute (BFI) lists the film at 89 minutes and identifies Max Schreck, Alexander Granach and Gustav von Wangenheim among its cast.
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Its plague storyline is one of the adaptation’s defining choices: the BFI’s teaching resource highlights rats and disease spreading through the town as a major plot innovation. That choice gives the vampire’s arrival a public, communal consequence, not just a threat to one household.
Is Nosferatu based on Dracula?
Yes. Nosferatu is an unauthorized, freely adapted version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It changes names and details, including Dracula becoming Count Orlok, but the source is clear. The BFI describes Stoker’s widow suing the production company; its classroom resource says the suit succeeded and prints were ordered destroyed. Surviving copies made later restorations and screenings possible, though the cited BFI accounts do not give a complete history of how those copies endured.
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- Remastered in HD from the archival 35mm restoration by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung
- Featuring Hans Erdmann's original 1922 score in 5.1 Surround or 2.0 stereo
- Includes The Language of Shadows, a 52-minute documentary on F.W. Murnau
- Starring Max Schreck as Nosferatu, based loosely on Bram Stoker's Dracula
- From the Kino Classics label
Why does the film still feel disturbing?
Orlok is unsettling before he does anything
Schreck’s Orlok is bald, narrow and almost skeletal, with claw-like hands and an animal quality that makes him feel unlike the polished, seductive vampire later popularized by other adaptations. Murnau makes the character’s outline do much of the work: Orlok’s stillness and silhouette are disturbing even in a medium without spoken dialogue or modern sound design.
The landscape becomes part of the threat
The BFI notes that Murnau avoids the highly stylized sets associated with films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, drawing instead on real forests, mountains and open sea. Those locations make the world feel vast and exposed, while the vampire’s presence turns familiar roads and domestic spaces ominous. The result is not simply a collection of expressionist images; it is a horror film in which place itself seems to carry dread.
Rank #2
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- Polish Release, cover may contain Polish text/markings. The disk has English audio.
Its horror is patient, not relentless
Contemporary viewers accustomed to rapid editing, loud effects and explicit violence may find Nosferatu slower than modern horror. Its unease accumulates through anticipation, stark compositions and the spread of sickness. That restraint is also why the film can still work: it leaves room for Orlok’s image and the looming atmosphere to linger rather than explaining or overwhelming them.
Which version of Nosferatu should you watch?
For a silent film, the accompaniment is part of the viewing experience. The BFI’s listings identify distinct presentations, not a single definitive version:
| Presentation | What the listing says | What to consider |
|---|---|---|
| BFI Player restored print | Presented with Hans Erdmann’s original 1922 score. | A historically rooted musical accompaniment; check the service’s current regional availability. |
| BFI Shop Blu-ray | Described as newly restored and remastered, with James Bernard’s score. | A different musical interpretation; check the listing for current stock and regional compatibility. |
The BFI film record gives an 89-minute runtime, but runtimes can vary across presentations. A shorter listing is not, by itself, proof that a copy is incomplete. Check the specific edition’s runtime, subtitles and format before choosing; the available descriptions do not establish that one restoration has better picture quality than the other.
Is Nosferatu public domain?
In the United States, the Library of Congress says films made before 1923 are in the public domain under U.S. copyright law and may be reproduced and distributed freely. That statement concerns the film under U.S. law; it does not settle the rights status of every later restoration, score or edition, or the law in other countries.
Rank #4
Verdict: a vampire film whose images still bite
Nosferatu remains worth watching for the way its uncanny central performance, real landscapes and plague narrative make horror feel both intimate and widespread. Its pace and silent form may ask for patience, but the film’s most memorable images have not lost their power.
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