Hoop-tober the Ninth Chapter Twenty-Six: Hell over Berlin

"Do you want a woman, a card game, an orgy?"

My best Hoop-tober pick of 2022, by a safe margin. I won't go and say that it's better as a whole movie than Nosferatu, but I am gonna claim that this one is the more visually striking of the two on several occasions—yes, I am referring particularly to that famous shot of Mephistopheles's batwings encompassing the entire town. This is Murnau at the very height of his visual imagination, accompanied by a narrative intensity that only just falls short of his very best work. Oh, and it's endlessly appropriate that Emil Jannings portrays the very face of evil.