NOSFERATU received 4 nominations at the 2025 Academy Awards. The film was recognized for Best Cinematography (Jarin Blaschke), Best Costume Design (Linda Muir), Best Production Design (Craig Lathrop), and Best Makeup and Hairstyling (David White, Traci Loader, and Suzanne Stokes-Munton). It did not win any Oscars.

NOSFERATU received 5 nominations at the 2025 British Academy Film Awards. The film was recognized for Best Cinematography (Jarin Blaschke), Best Costume Design (Linda Muir), Best Makeup and Hair (David White, Traci Loader, and Suzanne Stokes-Munton), Best Original Music (Robin Carolan), Best Production Design (Craig Lathrop). It did not win any BAFTAs.

A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake. A film by Robert Eggers, starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Willem Dafoe.

In 1830, young Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) desperately calls out for a guardian angel to dispel her loneliness. A shadowy being answers her plea, asking if she will commit to him for eternity. Ellen pledges herself to him, unaware that he is not an angel but a sinister creature of darkness. When she realizes what he is, it’s already too late, Ellen becomes haunted by the demonic creature in her nightmares, forever trapped by her own ill-fated pledge.

Later, Ellen meets and falls in love with a real estate agent named Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), and her nightmares seem to fade away. The two get married and now live together in the town of Wisburg.

In 1838, on the day Thomas is set to receive an official position at Knock und Cie Makler (Knock & Assoc. Estate Agents), Ellen experiences a premonition that although Thomas has indeed secured his position, they will send him away. She senses the impending danger but struggles to explain it to Thomas. Instead, she begs him not to go to work and to stay with her. Nevertheless, Thomas insists that he must go, asserting that this job is of utmost importance for both of them.

At the firm, Thomas’s employer, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), personally requests that Thomas journey to a small, isolated country east of Bohemia in the Carpathian Alps. The purpose is to meet a foreign count named Orlok, who wishes to acquire Grünewald Manor in Wisburg for his retirement. Knock explains that Count Orlok is too infirm to travel and insists that the firm must send an agent with the contract. Initially hesitant, Thomas eventually agrees when Knock promises that securing this account will guarantee Thomas’s official position at the firm.

Despite Ellen’s desperate pleas for Thomas to stay, warning him that her nightmares have returned, Thomas dismisses her concerns as mere flights of fancy. In her dream, she initially appears delighted at the wedding ceremony, but when she turns around, she realizes the groom is Death itself, and all the guests, including her own father, are dead. Unable to convince Thomas to abandon his travel plans, Ellen cries as he insists the job will provide them the good life she deserves.

Before embarking on his six-week trip, Thomas leaves Ellen in the care of his dear friend Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), along with Friedrich’s pregnant wife Anna (Emma Corrin), and their two young daughters, Clara (Adéla Hesová) and Louise (Milena Konstantinova).

Upon arriving at an inn in the Carpathian Alps of Transylvania, Thomas is shunned and ridiculed by a group of gypsies when they learn he is visiting Castle Orlok beyond the Árnyék Pass. That night, Thomas experiences dream-like visions and is shocked to witness the gypsies exhuming a vampire’s grave and impaling the body within the coffin. The following morning, Thomas awakens in his bed to find his shoes caked in mud, suggesting the experience was more than just a dream. When he exits the inn, he discovers that gypsies have vanished, taking his horse with them.

Thomas continues his journey on foot along a dark, snowy road. An unmanned carriage approaches and stops before him, its door mysteriously opening on its own, inviting Thomas inside. The carriage transports him directly to Count Orlok’s castle.

At the castle gate, Thomas encounters a shadowy figure who turns and walks away without a word, silently beckoning him to follow as the castle gate closes behind them. As Thomas ascends the stairs, the figure is revealed to be Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), who chides Thomas for being late, noting that it is past midnight and his attendants have already retired.

Orlok becomes fixated on the locket Ellen gave Thomas before his journey. He requests Thomas to sign a document in an unfamiliar language, claiming it belongs to his forefathers. Initially hesitant due to his inability to read the document, Thomas eventually signs after Orlok insists and promises a sack of gold coins as commission. Unbeknownst to Thomas, the true purpose of the document is to covenant Ellen to Orlok.

After signing the covenant, Thomas expresses his desire to leave, citing irregular dreams and fears of illness. Orlok insists Thomas remain and rest, warning that journeying while unwell is a bad omen. The next day, Thomas attempts to depart but finds the front gate locked. Searching for an exit, he enters a black door leading to a large chamber, where he discovers an ancient sarcophagus.

Curious, Thomas pushes open the coffin’s lid and is startled to find Orlok lying inside. Remembering the gypsies’ method of dealing with vampires, Thomas attempts to stake Orlok but fails. Orlok awakens and feeds on Thomas again, as he did the previous night. When Thomas regains consciousness, he escapes through the window, accidentally falling into the sea below. Later, Orthodox nuns find Thomas by the river and take him to the church for treatment.

Meanwhile in Wisburg, Ellen’s health deteriorates, marked by increasing sleepwalking and seizures. Unable to treat her, Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson) consults his former mentor, Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe), an eminent physician from Zurich who was dismissed from the university due to his obsession with alchemy, mystic philosophy, and the occult. After carefully examining Ellen’s symptoms, Albin believes she is under the spell of the undead plague carrier, the Vampyr Nosferatu.

Written and directed by American filmmaker Robert Eggers, Nosferatu is a gothic horror film that draws inspiration from two significant works: F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens and Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Interestingly, Murnau’s original film was itself an unauthorized adaptation of Stoker’s novel.

Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror), released in 1922, is a landmark silent film in the horror genre and a pivotal work of German Expressionism. The film is an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, featuring significant changes to characters and settings to evade copyright issues; for instance, Count Dracula is renamed Count Orlok. Despite facing legal challenges from Stoker’s widow, who sought to destroy all copies of the film due to copyright infringement, Nosferatu survived and has since been recognized as one of the most influential horror films ever made. It set a template for future vampire films and established many conventions still in use today. The character of Count Orlok is particularly notable for his unsettling appearance and performance by Max Schreck, which has been described as an iconic representation of the vampire archetype in cinema.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, published in 1897, is a seminal Gothic horror novel that has significantly influenced the vampire genre and popular culture. The narrative unfolds through a series of journal entries, letters, and newspaper articles, creating a sense of immediacy and realism. The story begins with Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor, traveling to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula in purchasing an estate in England. Harker soon finds himself imprisoned in Dracula’s castle and encounters supernatural elements, including three female vampires. After escaping, he returns to England, where Dracula follows him aboard the ship Demeter, which arrives in Whitby with the crew mysteriously missing. Today, Dracula remains a cornerstone of Gothic literature and continues to be studied for its complex characters and themes. It has influenced the portrayal of vampires in subsequent works, shaping public perception of these creatures as both monstrous and charismatic.

The film’s narrative is deceptively simple yet captivating, weaving a dark mythical tale of Count Orlok, an immortal night creature who sustains his existence by drinking human blood. Unable to love, Orlok becomes obsessed with a young, beautiful woman, fixating on possessing her eternally. His terrifying power is absolute: he brings a deadly plague that threatens to consume an entire city, and he will relentlessly pursue her without mercy or restraint.

Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography is extraordinary, capturing the film’s essence from the darkest recesses of Count Orlok’s castle to sweeping camera movements that soar over the city, as if through the predator’s own eyes witnessing unfolding horror. Nosferatu is a remarkable reimagining that elevates the Dracula narrative to new cinematic heights.

Nosferatu premiered in Berlin on 2 December 2024. The film was theatrically released in the United States on 25 December, by Focus Features.

Read The Screenplay For Robert Eggers’ Dream Project Revamping A Gothic Nightmare
Eggers’ early fascination with Nosferatu ignited a passion for filmmaking that would shape his career. He became inspired by both Henrik Galeen’s screenplay and Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, and with high school classmate Ashley Kelly-Tata adapted the story for the stage, performing it at their school. Their production caught the eye of Edouard Langlois, who invited them to transfer it to New York’s Edwin Booth Theatre. Eggers’ process included exploring his story in a different medium: “I ended up writing a novella with extensive backstories and scenes that I knew would never be in the film to understand why Nosferatu needed to be told again.”

‘Nosferatu’ Director Robert Eggers Breaks Down the Erotic Vampire Scenes
One of the biggest cinematic influences on this film is Jack Clayon’s “The Innocents,” in which all of this sexual stuff is left to the imagination. And it just burns in your imagination. It’s so powerful, but I’ve seen versions of “The Turn of the Screw” where they do the sexuality explicitly and it really doesn’t work. So certainly we were taking a chance in bringing that stuff to the forefront. But I think part of what perhaps makes it work the way that it does is that the story is told entirely through the eyes of Ellen, the female protagonist. That is going to allow for greater potential for emotional and psychological complexity because you’re centering around this woman who’s a somnambulist.

Focus Features announced the release of made-to-order replicas of the Transylvanian vampire Count Orlok’s sarcophagus from the film.
For the best sleep of your life. A full-size replica Sarcophagus bed as featured in Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu. Hand crafted from premium materials including a wooden base with intricate carvings. These highly collectible Sarcophagi also feature a distinctive interior with a custom-fit mattress and foam lid for easy opening at sundown. The Sarcophagus bed weighs 250 pounds, is sanded and hard-coated, and includes a Numbered Certificate of Authenticity. The Sarcophagus outside measures (including lid and base): 97.75” Length, 36” Wide, and 46.5” High. The retail price is $20,000. Beds are made to order within 8 weeks and on a limited run.

Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu Filmed At The Same Castle As Werner Herzog’s Version
For over 100 years now, Nosferatu has been the ultimate cinematic vampire – or, ‘vampyr’, if you want to go really old-school – story. The crooked shadow of FW Murnau’s 1922 film still looms large over the genre, later reimagined by Werner Herzog in his 1979 Nosferatu. When it came to finding real-life locations befitting an ancient vampire’s lair, it was impossible not to reconnect with Nosferatu history. The gatehouse and courtyard of Count Orlok’s gaff in Eggers film was shot at Pernštejn Castle in the Czech Republic.