20 Vampire Movies You Must See Before You Die

1. Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu might be almost a hundred years old, but - even now - it hasn't lost any of its dark power. As a disturbing vision of nightmarish proportions, of a man's treacherous, doomed quest to meet a true embodiment of evil, F.W. Murnau's classic picture still stands tall as the definitive cinematic experience of the vampire myth. If you've never seen Nosferatu because of its age, it is probably not the movie you're expecting it to be: powered by a gripping - albeit familiar - story, Thomas Hutter's ill-judged quest to Count Orlok's castle at the base of the Carpathian mountains is rendered through a series of truly unnerving, flickering images that serve to captivate right from the off. As Orlok, Max Schreck manages to be creepy and inhuman in ways you wouldn't expect from a 1922 film; there's just something about how the camera captures him - and the way he moves - that reeks of malevolence. If Nosferatu is a "symphony of horrors" and Murnau is the conductor, then Schreck is the violins, the drums and the double bass all at once. Be it because the film itself is "old" and therefore holds an inherent creepiness, there's something sinister about Nosferatu that makes it lot scarier than the pictures that have followed in its wake. It's interesting that cinema's earliest vampire feature film is still its most powerful - and the most relevant. Like this article? Agree or disagree with the picks? Did we fail to include an essential work from the list? Let us know all your thoughts on the matter in the comments section below.