Track horror's history through ten landmark films

Horror has long held a special place in cinema, shaping the wider entertainment landscape since the medium's beginnings — with the first horror often cited as 1896's Le Manoir du Diable (The House of the Devil). Its timeline, from the silent era to the 2020s, shows steady innovation and a string of landmark movies that each mark a significant shift in the genre.

The silent age is best represented by F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), a film still noted for its eerie visuals and unsettling depiction of Count Orlok. Moving into the sound era, James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) exemplifies Hollywood's Golden Age of monsters, its characters and design becoming staples of popular culture.

The postwar years brought new anxieties and new monsters: the 1954 Gojira used Godzilla as a metaphor for atomic devastation, while Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) helped steer horror toward edgier, more modern territory.

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