Lily-Rose Depp (“The King,” 2019) headlines an all-star cast that includes Nicholas Hoult (“Juror #2,” 2024), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (“The Fall Guy,” 2024), Emma Corrin, (“Deadpool & Wolverine,” 2024), Willem Dafoe (“Kinds of Kindness,” 2024), and Bill Skarsgård (“John Wick: Chapter 4,” 2023), for writer-director Robert Eggers’ gothic horror film “Nosferatu,” an adaptation of influential German filmmaker F. W. Murnau’s seminal 1922 horror of the same name.

Adapting the 1922 movie isn’t exactly for the faint of heart; Murnau was a part of the German expressionist filmmaking movement, which renounced visual realism, instead hunting for the correct language to showcase inner human turmoil. Serving as a fascinating accompaniment to the broader Expressionist movement in both poetry and painting, the radical filmmaking style has birthed some of film history’s most groundbreaking works of art, including (but not limited to) “Der Student Von Prag” (Eng. title: “The Student of Prague,” 1913), and “Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari” (Eng. Title: “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” 1920).

More than a hundred years—and two remakes—later, Eggers’ adaptation of “Nosferatu” shares a lot of the same bones of Murnau’s horror classic; in 1830s Germany, real-estate agent Thomas Hutter (Hoult) must, at the behest of his boss Herr Knock (Simon McBurney; “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” 2015), travel to the Transylvanian mountains to finalize a deal with Count Orlok (Skarsgård), unaware that Knock and the Count have in mind multiple nefarious plans that involve him, his wife Ellen (Depp), and the residents of their town of Wisborg.

The loglines sure sound similar, but the details are where the paths of the 1922 and 2024 films diverge significantly from each other. Radically reframing the core narrative, Eggers pivots to focus primarily on Ellen. Anchored by Depp’s incredible performance, the Ellen we see has now turned the source’s tacit commentary on the perpetuation, normalization, and consequent dismissal of abuse into something that lingers enough to fester in your mind long after you’ve left the cinema.

Turning her into a tragic hero of sorts, Ellen’s character arc, as expanded upon by Eggers, is now transformed into a powerful metaphor for the cyclical nature of abuse, its relationship with religious dogma and misogyny, and the burden its societal after-effects leave on both victims and survivors, whose struggle to be seen and heard feels like a perpetual nightmare. She’s a reflection of the greater struggles victims and survivors of abuse have to go through just to be seen and heard, towering through the constant possibility of being labeled either delusional or manic.

This key distinction radically recasts the climactic finale to feel like an emotionally powerful gut punch. Those who have seen Murnau’s silent film would already know what to expect by the end. What makes a difference, however, is the satisfying fashion in which its many plot devices, both big and small, pay off. The performers only serve to enhance the overall experience. Every actor—from Skarsgård’s spine-chilling act as Count Orlok and Taylor-Johnson’s pitch-perfect display of a man’s life slowly unraveling to chaos to McBurney’s hungry-for-approval lunatic—is in excellent form here.

Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s decision to shoot “Nosferatu” entirely on 35mm film, giving it a partially desaturated look, and framing it in a fashion that invokes the stylings of 19th-century Romanticism, harkening back to the works of German painter Caspar David Friedrich, helps make the route all the more scenic. From muted mornings to monochromatic midnights, we’re transported to a world that feels equal parts disconsolate and discomforting.

Combined with the Rembrandt-adjacent lighting of the many faces in the film and the deep blacks of its color contrast, rendering viewers all but unable to see what the director doesn’t want you to see, the end product looks drop-dead gorgeous—or, at the very least, as gorgeous as a movie about its people gruesomely dropping dead can get. Robert Carolan’s richly textured and emotionally dynamic music enhances its atmospheric design and evokes a sense of impending tragedy throughout the film’s 132-minute runtime.

With “Nosferatu,” Eggers takes from Murnau’s gothic horror roots and conjures from its bones a visually delicious, richly textured narrative that’s equal parts a tragedy and a source of paralyzing dread. Gorgeously shot,and phenomenally acted and directed, this adaptation has what it takes to stand the test of time, not just relative to the 1922 original, but also as a standalone work of art. Highly recommended.