Skip to main content
Filmarian
All films
Poster for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Sign in to rateBe the first to rate
+ write a review
Released
1920 · FILM

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Haunted by recent trauma, young Francis storms into Dr. Caligari's twisted exhibition to uncover the truth behind the somnambulist Cesare, only to risk his mind—and his fiancée’s fate—against a mad hypnotist’s deadly control.

“You must become Caligari!”

Directed by
Robert Wiene
Written by
Hans Janowitz, Carl Mayer
Rated
MPA · NR
Color
Black & White
Runtime
77 min
Language
DE
HorrorMysteryThriller

Synopsis

Francis, a young man, remembers the distressing events he and his fiancée Jane recently endured. He and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit in which the enigmatic doctor displays the somnambulist Cesare and briefly awakens him from his death‑like sleep.

Credits

Actors
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

Related titles

No curated related titles yet. Use the edit affordance to add "More from this director", "Same franchise", or "Adaptation source material" entries — every change goes through the wiki review queue.

How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 23

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Shot by Willy HameisterScored by Alfredo AntoniniDesigned by Walter Reimann

Box Office

1920 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.5× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$9K

Budget$18K
Worldwide gross$9K
break-even (2.5×)

Re-release box office

20141 theaters
$9K($12K today)

Domestic gross earned in theatrical re-release, by year · adjusted for inflation

Also known as

  • Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligaride
  • Le Cabinet du docteur Caligarien
  • The Cabinet of Dr. Caligarien
  • El gabinete del doctor Caligaries
  • Le Cabinet du docteur Caligarifr
  • Il gabinetto del dottor Caligariit

Community tags

Be the first to tag this page — tags appear right away. Try a theme, capability, or subject (e.g. WWII, heist, slow burn, time travel, A24).