The mysterious Count Orlok summons Thomas Hutter to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen. After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok's servant, Knock, prepares for his master to arrive at his new home.
Joe Ryan, a veteran train engineer, is demoted to a flagman position after a disastrous crash-- one caused by his cowardly and opportunistic partner. Though Ryan's failing eyesight is named as the cause of the crash, he's undeterred as he designs an automatic braking invention.
A young history student goes to his uncle’s mansion to find out what caused the old man descend into madness.
Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.
A new young couple struggles to keep their relationship afloat.
Louis Fernando fails to sell a patent upon which he has spent the better part of his life and drowns himself. His orphaned child Marie is adopted by Lord Chatterton. Geoffrey Brooke, who is in the employ of Lord Chatterton, falls in love with Marie. Chatterton's general manager Arthur Newton also loves Marie and formulates a scheme whereby he hopes to win her and also acquire the Chatterton fortune. Chatterton becomes suspicious and by a ruse traps Newton and exposes his plot. Marie and Geoffrey are made happy in the end.
A masked criminal who dresses like a giant bat terrorizes the guests at an old house rented by a mystery writer.
A general store clerk and aspiring detective investigates a mysterious disappearance that took place quite close to an empty insane asylum.
On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder – a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster's daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo's desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.
Three sideshow performers form a conspiracy known as "The Unholy Three" - a ventriloquist, midget, and strongman working together to commit a series of robberies.
A magician seeks vengeance upon the man who paralyzed him and the illegitimate daughter he sired with the magician's wife.
Chaney plays two roles: mad scientist Arthur Lamb and Lamb's "experiment", known only as the Ape Man. This hideous creature was the result of Lamb's attempts to transplant animal glands into human beings. A lost film.
Blizzard, deranged from a childhood operation in which both his legs were needlessly amputated after an accident, becomes a vicious criminal, and eventually mob leader of the San Francisco underworld.
After a baron steals his scientific discoveries, runs away with his wife, and slaps him in public, a man joins a Parisian circus sideshow as a clown whose act consists of being slapped repeatedly and becomes infatuated with a showgirl colleague whose father intends to marry her off to the baron.
Gerald Stanley (John Gilbert) is an English gentleman who is engaged to Beatrice Joyce (Alma Frances). But Stanley's personality changes whenever he drinks, and his brother (who also loves Beatrice) uses this to his advantage.
A stranger called Allan goes to the House of Usher. He is the sole friend of Roderick Usher, who lives in the eerie house with his sick wife Madeleine. When she dies, Roderick does not accept her death, and in the dark night, Madeleine returns.
Thwarted by his despotic uncle from continuing his love affair, a young man's thoughts turn dark as he dwells on ways to deal with his uncle. Becoming convinced that murder is merely a natural part of life, he kills his uncle and hides the body. However, the man's conscience awakens; paranoia sets in and nightmarish visions begin to haunt him.
A romantic rivalry among members of a secret society becomes even more tense when one of the men is assigned to carry out an assassination.
Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée; but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster.
In 16th-century Prague, a rabbi creates the Golem - a giant creature made of clay. Using sorcery, he brings the creature to life in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.