Nosferatu, originally titled Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, was released as a silent film in 1922. It was an unabashed and unauthorized adaptation of Dracula, the seminal 1897 novel by Bram Stoker, widely regarded as the father of the vampire genre.

The film’s unauthorized nature was no small matter. After Stoker’s death, his widow, Florence Stoker, sued for copyright infringement, and the court ruled in her favor, ordering all copies of Nosferatu to be destroyed. Fortunately, several prints survived, allowing the film to endure and cement itself as a cornerstone of Gothic horror and vampire cinema.