German Expressionism is a 1920s german film movement of stylised sets, distorted shadows, and psychological extremity.
German Expressionist cinema flourished in the Weimar Republic from roughly 1919 to 1929. Robert Wiene's 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' (1920) introduced its visual grammar: hand-painted sets with jagged streets, walls that lean, shadows applied directly to the scenery, and a story framed within a madman's account. F. W. Murnau's 'Nosferatu' (1922) and 'The Last Laugh' (1924), Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' (1927) and 'M' (1931), and Paul Wegener's 'The Golem' (1920) extended the style into vampire myth, futurist allegory, and serial-killer thriller. Expressionism externalised psychological states as architecture and light. Its influence outlived its political context: when many of its directors emigrated to Hollywood after 1933, they brought the style with them and helped invent film noir, the horror film, and the look of postwar science fiction. The shadows of Caligari fall over every dark film made since.