The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Directed by Robert Wiene · Cinematography by Willy Hameister

67 min60 frames

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Stills, screencaps & shots from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) — © Decla Film Gesellschaft Holz & Co.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari — official trailer

What is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari about?

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. The quintessential work of early German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of a hypnotist who uses a somnambulist Cesare to commit murders. The film features a dark, twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms; oblique, curving lines; structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles; and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets. The set design is "anti-realistic, claustrophobic" and "harsh" which is "coupled with feverish anxiety [that] entered the vocabulary of filmmakers and film viewers" particularly during the Weimar Republic, when this film was made.

Second paragraph from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Where can you watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?

US availability for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Data by JustWatch, listings on TMDB. Availability changes — check the provider for current listings.

Who stars in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?

Who made The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?

What does the cinematography of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari look like?

Sampled across 60 frames, the coverage of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari leans on medium shots (52% of the sample) and full-body frames (23%). Cinematographer Willy Hameister keeps 63% of it in soft, low-key light. Night and dusk account for 65% of the frames. Vintage glass shapes the frame. Deep focus keeps foreground and background readable at once in 62% of the frames. The production design places the film in the 1920s.

What is the color palette of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?

The dominant colors across the sampled frames of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) are #090b08, #251b0f, #54452c, #342817, #0a332e, #906b37 — measured from the per-frame color data FrameThrower extracts for every film.

  • #090b08
  • #251b0f
  • #54452c
  • #342817
  • #0a332e
  • #906b37

See the full The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari colour palette — every hex with its share, plus warmth, saturation and luminance.

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