The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) - Wiene's German expressionist horror masterpiece

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A hypnotic poster for Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

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The story of a mad doctor, who travels around with a coffin that contains his somnambulist Cesare, who has been asleep continually for 23 years. On markets around the country, the somnambulist tell people's futures, which are often short ...

Caligari is one of my personal all-time absolute favorites. Its whole plot in the end turns out SPOILER to be a cover for an even more horrifying truth!
This German expressionist psychological horror mystery is one of the most odd, strange, artistically ambitious and visionary films ever made. It holds hypnotizing imagery, - mostly due to the elaborate, expressionistic sets that were created for it by designer Hermann Warm (The Passion of Joan of Arc/La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)), but also because of its wild make-up, costumes and bizarre acting style.
Werner Krauss (Secrets of a Soul/Geheimnisse einer Seele (1926)) creates one of the best mad men of science in Dr. Caligari. 
The film gets even better depending on which score you watch it with, (there are several.) I have seen one with a gorgeously weird experimental jazz score, which perfectly resonated the visual side of this one of the first and definitely still one of the best horror films of all time.
It was directed by the industrious German master director Robert Wiene (Raskolnikow (1923)).

 

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Top 10: Best German movies

 

Here's some more striking artwork and a single still from Caligari:

Werner Krauss attends his somnambulist Cesare (Conrad Veidt (Casablanca (19442))) in Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Watch the excellent, short Masters of Cinema trailer for the film here

Cost: 20,000 DEM / Est.18,000 $
Box office: Unknown
= A hit
[Despite an initially bad reception, with a relaunched marketing campaign that ran for a reported 6 months, Caligari came out to enthused crowds in Germany, where it became a big hit, as can be read here. It came out in most other European countries as well as USA and Japan in 1920-23. Since we don't know the box office figures, we can't know how big a hit it became exactly.]

What do you think of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?
Other marvelous early horror films that you want to recommend?

Casablanca (1942) - The perfect film

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Beautiful original poster for Michael Curtiz's Casablanca

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A perfect film, master director Michael Curtiz's (Mildred Pierce (1945)) Casablanca may also be the best film ever made.
American Rick has a 'café' in Casablanca, Morocco, during World War II, and the Germans are closing in day by day, when the Czechoslovakian resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) seeks refuge there with the woman, Rick had thought he would never see again; Ilse.
That's all good. But: Why is Casablanca so good?
It shows the purest and most beautiful in man during the worst darkness of our history. Humphrey Bogart (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)) is mesmerizing as the cynic with a humanistic inclination, and Ingrid Bergman (Spellbound (1945)) is as beautiful as an angel, - and all the supporting roles, whether they are humorous reliefs or gripping, they are extremely well-played, and well-cast, to make for continuous viewer's joy.

Dooley Wilson and Humphrey Bogart as Sam and Rick in Michael Curtiz's Casablanca

Curtiz's expressive lighting and the many great scenes and lines, - and the music, Herman Hupfeld's As Time Goes By especially, stays with you forever.
Casablanca is a marvelous, hailed masterpiece about good people's actions during the Nazi insanity, made by an 1920's exiled, Austrian-Hungarian Jew, Michael Curtiz, who himself had family members who were refugees due to the antisemitism of the Germans.
Casablanca won Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay and was also a commercial success that has lived on and still begs to be seen over and over again. It is continuously at the top of Best Films lists everywhere and currently inhabits # 28 on IMDb's Top 250. 

Related post:

Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Watch the gorgeous trailer here

Budget: 0.8 mil. $
Box office: 3.7 mil. $ (only U.S. initial release)
= Big hit 

What do you think of this cinema classic?
Stories about the film, your experience with it, or its stars and/or filmmakers are welcomed