Fritz Lang

Filmmakers

Friedrich Christian Anton “Fritz” Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-German-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best-known émigrés from Germany’s school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the “Master of Darkness” by the British Film Institute. Lang’s most famous films include the groundbreaking futuristic Metropolis (1927) and the also influential M (1931), starring Peter Lorre, a film noir precursor that he made before he moved to the United States. His other major films include Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), Fury (1936), with Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, and Walter Brennan; You Only Live Once (1937), with Sidney and Henry Fonda; Hangmen Also Die! (1943), The Woman in the Window (1944), with Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, and Dan Duryea; and The Big Heat (1953), with Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Jocelyn Brando.

Other films include The Return of Frank James (1940), with Fonda and Gene Tierney; Western Union (1941), with Robert Young, Randolph Scott, and Dean Jagger; Cloak and Dagger (1946), with Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer; Rancho Notorious (1952), with Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, and Mel Ferrer; Clash by Night (1952), with Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe, and Keith Andes; While the City Sleeps (1956), with Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Howard Duff, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, John Drew Barrymore, and Ida Lupino; and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), with Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer, and Arthur Franz.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

Silent films (writer/co-writer)

  • Die Peitsche (1916)
  • Die Hochzeit im Excentricclub (1917)
  • Hilde Warren und der Tod (1917)
  • Lilith und Ly (1918)
  • Revenge Is Mine (1919)
  • Bettler GmbH (1919)
  • Wolkenbau und Flimmerstern (1919)
  • The Woman with Orchids (1919)
  • The Dance of Death (1919) – lost
  • The Plague in Florence (1919
  • The Mistress of the World (1920)
  • The Indian Tomb (1921)

Silent films (writer/director)

  • Halbblut (1918) – lost
  • Master of Blood (1919) – lost
  • The Spiders – Part 1: The Golden Sea (1919)
  • Harakiri (1919)
  • The Spiders – Part 2: The Diamond Ship (1920)
  • The Wandering Image (1920)
  • Four Around a Woman (1921)
  • Destiny (1921)
  • Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler – Part 1: The Great Gambler (1922)
  • Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler – Part 2: Inferno (1922)
  • Die Nibelungen – Part 1: Siegfried (1924)
  • Die Nibelungen – Part 2: Kriemhild’s Revenge (1924)
  • Metropolis (1927)
  • Spies (1928)
  • Woman in the Moon (1929

Sound films

  • M (1931)
  • The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
  • Liliom (1934)
  • Fury (1936)
  • You Only Live Once (1937)
  • You and Me (1938)
  • The Return of Frank James (1940)
  • Western Union (1941)
  • Man Hunt (1941)
  • Confirm or Deny (1941) – uncredited co-director
  • Moontide (1941) – Lang left early in shooting, film direction is credited to Archie Mayo
  • Hangmen Also Die! (1943)
  • Ministry of Fear (1944)
  • The Woman in the Window (1944)
  • Scarlet Street (1945)
  • Cloak and Dagger (1946)
  • Secret Beyond the Door (1948)
  • House by the River (1950)
  • American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950)
  • Rancho Notorious (1952)
  • Clash by Night (1952)
  • The Blue Gardenia (1953)
  • The Big Heat (1953)
  • Human Desire (1954)
  • Moonfleet (1955)
  • While the City Sleeps (1956)
  • Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
  • The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959)
  • The Indian Tomb (1959)
  • The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960)