Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora, 1929) is G.W. Pabst's Weimar-era silent masterwork — watch it online on iFILM. Louise Brooks plays Lulu, a woman who drifts through Berlin society leaving ruin in her wake — not out of malice, but out of sheer, unguarded existence.

Pabst refuses to judge her. Men obsess and destroy themselves, a jealous wife, a devoted father figure, a young suitor — all undone by the same force. As Lulu falls from wealth to the margins of London, the film tracks the damage without ever making her the villain. Fritz Kortner and Francis Lederer co-star.

Brooks' performance here is the one that film scholars keep returning to — a pre-Code intensity that Hollywood quickly decided it didn't want. The film was banned in several countries on release; decades later it became required viewing at film schools across Europe and the US. Stream Pandora's Box (1929) online on iFILM.