Murnau's Faust at 100: A Dazzling Vision of Damnation

By Elena Vasquez

FW Murnau's "Faust", released in 1926, reaches its centenary this year as one of the towering achievements of German expressionist cinema. The Guardian's review calls the film "a devilishly dazzling vision" and "a spectacular feat of German expressionism" in its assessment of the silent fantasy-melodrama.

The film adapts Goethe's 19th-century tale of the alchemist and natural philosopher who sells his soul to the devil. Murnau's version ends not with damnation but redemption through love — what the review terms "a very high-minded climax of German romanticism." The word "Liebe" appears at the centre of Murnau's radiating vision of concentric circles conjured by the heavens, annulling Faust's debt to the Evil One.

How does Murnau's Faust differ from Marlowe's?

The review draws a sharp line between German and English treatments of the legend. Murnau's Faust, redeemed by "love of a good woman" rather than love of God, is "very different from Christopher Marlowe's scarier and more unforgiving account of Doctor Faustus."

That distinction matters for how audiences read the film's moral architecture. Goethe's romantic optimism, filtered through Weimar cinema, permits salvation where Marlowe's Protestant tragedy permits none.

What links Faust to Nosferatu and Weimar Germany?

Murnau made "Faust" four years after "Nosferatu" (1922), and the review identifies direct echoes between the two films. Having struck his bargain with Mephisto on a provisional 24-hour basis, Faust discovers he is scared of a crucifix — like a vampire.

The review also situates the film squarely in its historical moment:

• It is "very much a film of Weimar Germany with its mad energy"
• It carries "streaks of garish satire and black comedy"
• The book-burning scene, in which Faust immolates his necromancy volumes along with the Bible, "resonated with later events"

That final point carries the review's darkest historical charge. The critic suggests the scene "perhaps indirectly inspired Klaus Mann's novel Mephisto", which István Szabó later filmed.

Why does the centenary matter now?

The Guardian frames the anniversary as "the occasion to ponder this mysterious film." One hundred years after its release, Murnau's Faust continues to reward attention both as cinema — its expressionist imagery remains spectacular — and as a cultural document of a Germany on the edge of catastrophe.

A century on, the film's images of burning books and bargained souls have lost none of their charge; that is the test a silent masterpiece has now passed for one hundred years.

(This article is based on a review published by the Guardian, 15 October 2026, on the occasion of the Mubi centenary release.)