

God and Satan wager on the soul of a learned and prayerful alchemist as part of their eternal war over Earth.
Cinematography
Carl Hoffmann's floating camera and impossible shadows invented horror grammar.
Acting
Jannings' Mephisto: grotesque, seductive, still the definitive devil.
Practical Effects
Fire effects and flying shots that put modern CGI to shame.

Director
F. W. Murnau
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Murnau made this immediately after Nosferatu as his final German film before fleeing to Hollywood; the Expressionist movement's last gasp before sound killed its shadows.
The flying scenes used an elaborate camera rig on a pendulum—Ekman actually soared above miniature villages, no green screen, 1926.