Cinema’s fascination with serial killers started early, when the Portuguese drama The Crimes of Diogo Alves fictionalized the life of a notorious murderer in 1911. Over the next 20 years, crime and punishment remained predictably popular themes, catering to bloodthirsty audiences with tales about gangsters, outlaws, and murderers with bizarre psychological motives. But with his 1931 film M, which celebrates its 95th anniversary this week, Austrian director Fritz Lang established a format for decades of serial killer movies to come.
While Lang’s silent sci-fi epic Metropolis (1927) is now his more famous work, M is still considered to be one of the all-time greats, influential both on a technical level as an early masterpiece of sound film, and due to its innovations as a procedural thriller.
