The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German Expressionist silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer.

At a fairground, the sinister Dr. Caligari exhibits Cesare, a somnambulist who has slept for 23 years and can predict the future. When Cesare predicts a murder that duly occurs, Francis begins to investigate — and discovers that reality may be far more unstable than it appears. The film's jagged painted sets and stark chiaroscuro lighting made it a landmark of German Expressionism and one of the most influential horror films ever made.

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Video source: Internet Archive — the_cabinet_of_dr_caligari · Public domain

Chapters

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1. 00:00 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German Expressionist silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer.
2. 03:00 The film's sets — painted canvas backdrops of twisted streets, impossibly angled buildings, and jagged shadows — are among the most celebrated examples of German Expressionist design in cinema history, reflecting a distorted, psychologically unstable world.
3. 08:00 At a fairground in the town of Holstenwall, the sinister Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) exhibits Cesare (Conrad Veidt), a somnambulist who has slept for 23 years and can answer any question about the future.
4. 20:00 Cesare predicts the death of Francis's friend Alan — who is murdered that same night. Francis (Friedrich Fehér) suspects Caligari and begins to investigate, while Cesare is sent to abduct Jane (Lil Dagover).
5. 35:00 Francis tracks Caligari to an insane asylum where, to his horror, the doctor is not a patient but the director. Caligari's files reveal he is obsessed with a medieval mystic who used a sleepwalking killer.
6. 45:00 A narrative frame is revealed: the story has been told by Francis, who is himself a patient in the asylum. The "real" Caligari is the benevolent director, and the entire tale is Francis's delusion — a unreliable narrator twist that has been debated ever since.

Copyright status

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was first released on 26 February 1920 in Berlin. Under United States copyright law, all works published before 1 January 1928 are in the public domain. This film may be freely watched, downloaded, copied, modified, and redistributed without restriction or payment.

References

1. Kracauer, Siegfried (1947). From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton University Press.
2. Eisner, Lotte H. (1969). The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema. University of California Press.
3. Robinson, David (1997). Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. BFI Film Classics.
4. Internet Archive. “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)”. archive.org/details/the_cabinet_of_dr_caligari.