Another great sleeper is on HBO, Shadow of the Vampire, from 2000, starring John Malkovich and Willem DaFoe in perhaps his greatest performance, and I highly recommend it. Part of the reason more didn’t see it, I think, was that nobody knew exactly what it was supposed to be — we didn’t either. It’s an original idea: F.M. Murnau is shooting Nosferatu, and is using the real Dracula (Willem DaFoe) in the title role, but only Murnau knows that the Dracula character really is a vampire. It isn’t a horror movie at all, and the “real vampire in the vampire movie” idea is really only tangential to what makes this a great movie. This is a beautifully done insight into F.M. Murnau and German Expressionism.
Everything about this movie is great. The photography, the editing, the performances. But the best way to see this is to watch it, then watch Nosferatu. You’ll see things in the classic that you had never seen before. And if you don’t think film can be great art, then you haven’t seen Nosferatu.
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