Director
Fritz Lang

Writers
Fritz Lang
Thea von Harbou

Cast
Hans Beckert: Peter Lorre
Mrs Beckmann: Ellen Widmann
Elsi Beckmann: Inge Landgut
Inspector Karl Lohmann : Otto Wernicke
Inspector Groeber : Theodor Loos
Schränker : Gustaf Gründgens
Franz, the burglar: Friedrich Gnass
The cheater: Fritz Odemar
Pickpocket: .Paul Kemp
Bauernfänger : Theo Lingen
Beckert's defender : Rudolf Blümner
Blind panhandler : Georg John
Minister: Franz Stein
Police chief: Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur
Criminal secretary: Gerhard Bienert
Damowitz, the night watchman Karl Platen
Elisabeth Winkler, Beckert's landlady : Rosa Valetti
Prostitute: Hertha von Walther


In a German city, a psychopathic child-killer is on the loose, but remains at large in spite of police attempts to catch him. Finding that he is giving them a bad name in the wake of the public hysteria surrounding the crimes, as well as the increased security making it nigh impossible for them to operate, the city's criminals band together and assist the police in tracking him down.

Part satire and part social melodrama, this is an impeccably-filmed movie, featuring lots of brilliantly-stage sequences and was Germany's first 'talkie'. An unmistakable classic, M is among Fritz Lang's most well-known films, and bears all the hallmarks of his visionary style, from the German Expressionism to the emerging genre traits of film noir and the crime/psychological thriller. Without this early pioneer, we may well have been denied modern classics such as The Silence of the Lambs, Se7en or the works of Hitchcock.