Nosferatu (1922)

Count Orlok's shadow climbs the stairs toward Ellen's room, claw raised, in F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu. Max Schreck never appears in the shot; the menace is all silhouette, long fingers and a hunched back on a pale wall. Murnau had not secured the rights to Dracula, and Bram Stoker's widow won a court order to destroy the prints, yet copies survived and so did this shadow, which horror films have been copying ever since.