I have never seen a better representation of the spirit of a novel in that the picture not only interprets the lusty romantic feeling of Hugo’s story, but it is sufficient unto itself and has no awkward turns or incongruous passages.

| Dec 27, 2023

Conrad Veidt does a wonderful piece of acting.

| Oct 31, 2023

The Man Who Laughs is a timeless tale of woe, full of pathos and mourning.

| Jun 27, 2023

Leni edify the gothic melodrama with a somber aesthetic that elevates each fragment of the frame through which Conrad Veidt walks to laugh and that demonstrates, above all, his expertise as a craftsman of German expressionism. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 27, 2022

The Man Who Laughs represents silent filmmaking at its creative best.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 20, 2020

despite initial references to unconventional surgeries and deadly torture, Leni's film... is rather a sentimental romance and a political satire, with just a smidgin of rooftop swashbuckling thrown in near the end.

| Aug 17, 2020

Though an early entry in dramatic horror, it tackles some remarkably dark and mature themes.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 27, 2020

...instantly breathtaking...

| Jun 17, 2020

Veidt is the beating heart of The Man Who Laughs, anchoring its grotesqueries in a sense of tragedy and pathos.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 14, 2019

Leni's mastery of framing, depth, lighting and blocking are rivaled only by Veidt's performance, a thing of flawless beauty.

| Jul 16, 2019

The superb German actor Conrad Veidt plays the pathetic protagonist, while Mary Philbin, whose most celebrated screen role was opposite another physically damaged hero in The Phantom of the Opera, is extremely touching as his beloved.

| Oct 17, 2016

Veidt gives one of cinema's most sensitive and moving performances.

| Original Score: A | May 17, 2015

The Man Who Laughs is a truly great, a devastatingly beautiful film.

| Oct 20, 2014

As usual in Hugo, love is measured in sacrifice, yielding a sincere and extravagant sense of romance.

| Jan 8, 2014

Truly amazing.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 19, 2006

Baclanova is amusing as a decadent duchess, but it's Leni's pictorial genius -- aided here by what must have been an enormous budget -- that marks the film as one of the most exhilarating of late silent cinema.

| Jun 24, 2006

This production has been fashioned with considerable skill. It is, of course, a gruesome tale in which the horror is possibly moderated but none the less disturbing.

| Mar 25, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 5, 2005

One of the final treasures of German silent Expressionism.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 9, 2004

Poised between the great German horror that preceded it and the great Universal horror that followed, it is, for genre fans, an inviting and necessary stop.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 7, 2004