Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, 1922) is Fritz Lang's four-hour silent crime epic — watch online on iFILM. Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays a criminal mastermind who moves through Weimar Berlin as an aristocrat, a stockbroker, a drunken sailor, whatever the scheme requires. Hypnosis does the rest.

Mabuse rigged the stock exchange before the opening reel is out. He ruins millionaires at card tables through psychic manipulation, runs a criminal network and stays invisible by never being the same person twice. Police Commissioner von Wenk starts an investigation with almost no leads, because how do you hunt someone without a fixed identity? Lang adapted the story from Norbert Jacques's novel and released it in two parts — Der grosse Spieler and Inferno — at a moment when Germany's real economy was collapsing into hyperinflation and street violence.

That context bleeds into every frame. Mabuse is not just a villain; he is the Weimar moment personified — chaotic, shape-shifting, running on speculation and fear. Lang returned to the character twice more across his career, but this original is where the mythology was built. Stream Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922) online on iFILM.