Nosferatu

Nosferatu is Robert Eggers' long-anticipated gothic reimagining of F.W. Murnau's legendary 1922 silent film, transplanting the tale of obsessive vampiric possession into a world of oppressive shadow and period-authentic horror. Set in 1838, the film follows Ellen Hutter, a young woman haunted since childhood by a malevolent presence from the darkness. When her husband Thomas travels to Transylvania to complete a business transaction with the mysterious Count Orlok, a chain of events is set in motion that will bring ancient evil to the cobblestone streets of Wisburg.

Eggers, working in his signature mode of meticulous period recreation, transforms Nosferatu into a film of overwhelming atmosphere. Bill Skarsgård's Count Orlok is a creature of genuine horror — animalistic, pestilential, and radiating a kind of ancient wrongness that registers on a primal level. Lily-Rose Depp carries the film's emotional weight as Ellen, a woman whose psychology the script takes seriously: she is not merely a victim but a figure of tragic agency, drawn toward the horror she most fears.

Shot by Jarin Blaschke in deep shadows and cold grey light, Nosferatu is one of the most visually arresting American films of the 2020s. Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Hoult, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson round out an exceptional ensemble. The film announces itself as the definitive version of this vampire legend — a horror film of genuine artistic ambition that honours its source material while finding entirely new meanings in its most ancient imagery.