The Nosferatu director Hitchcock learned from

F. W. Murnau was a German silent film director who told stories almost entirely in pictures, and Alfred Hitchcock, the British director of Psycho, learned from him. Hitchcock called Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924) "the prime example" of telling a story visually from beginning to end, and the BFI says he carried Murnau's floating camera through his whole career.

Critics rate him highly too. In the BFI's 2012 Sight and Sound poll, critics placed his Sunrise fifth among the greatest films ever made. Relay has four of his films.

Who was F. W. Murnau?

He was born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe in Bielefeld, Germany, and took the name Murnau from a village in Upper Bavaria that he visited on a bicycle trip. After his German hits, William Fox, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, invited him to Hollywood to make Sunrise.

Murnau died in 1931 in California after a car accident, a week before his last film, Tabu, premiered. He was buried near Berlin. In July 2015 his skull was stolen from the family grave in Stahnsdorf, and the cemetery administrator, Olaf Ihlefeldt, said it was likely taken between July 4 and 12.

What are the four Murnau films on Relay?

Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, with the count renamed Orlok and played by the actor Max Schreck. Stoker's widow Florence sued, and in July 1925 a German court ordered the negative and all prints destroyed. Prints had already gone abroad, and copies survived in archives.

Horror

The Last Laugh (1924)

An aging hotel doorman, played by Emil Jannings, one of the top actors of German silent cinema, is sacked and watches his life fall apart. The film has no dialogue or narration titles except one. Karl Freund, the cinematographer, glided the camera through the scenes instead of fixing it to a tripod.

After seeing it, Fox invited Murnau to Hollywood.

Drama

Faust (1926)

A demon wagers with God that he can corrupt a mortal man's soul. The German studio Ufa made it, and it is known for its special effects, elaborate sets and lighting. Jannings plays the demon Mephisto.

Drama

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

A farmer is tempted by a woman from the city to drown his wife. At the first Academy Awards, it won Best Unique and Artistic Picture, a category given only once. Charles Rosher and Karl Struss, its cinematographers, won the Oscar for cinematography, and the star Janet Gaynor won the Actress award for it and two other films.

Drama

Which Murnau film do critics rank highest?

Sunrise is the one critics rank highest. Nosferatu is the best known, and The Last Laugh shows the camera work that Hitchcock praised.

For more silent films on Relay, see Silent Films.