15. GOES WITHOUT SAYING: Feast your eyes on something with little to no dialogue at all.

Directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, this is the perfect expression of German Expressionism. Janowitz and Mayer, both pacifists who despised authority after their military experiences during World War I, created something amazing here, which Wiene realized.

Roger Ebert called it arguably “the first true horror film,” and it’s still unsettling to watch today.

Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) is a hypnotist who has his own sleeping man, Cesare (Conrad Veidt), whom he uses to entertain — and murder — people. Caligari prophesies that  Franzis’ (Friedrich Feher) best friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) will die by morning. When it happens, Franzis and his girlfriend Jane (Lil Dagover) investigate, which leads to a plot where Caligari may or may not be the head doctor of an asylum.

But ah, the ending! The beginning seems so simple, with Franzis telling his story. Finding out that he’s an unreliable narrator makes this entire movie one to watch again.

Is this a fairy tale? Is it one man trying to make sense of things? Is it Janowitz working out witnessing a murder behind the Holstenwall, which gives the setting its name?

While this is considered a cult movie, it was released as a typical film. But when we see it today, a hundred years later, we think that it had to have been an art film.