M

Fritz Lang’s masterpiece is a terrifying excursion into an urban underworld where it is difficult to distinguish morally between the activities of organized crime and organized law enforcement. Peter Lorre gives his immortal performance as a pathetic child murderer pursued by both the law and the syndicate. In the rigor of its construction—which fuses atmosphere with plot and image with sound to express a kind of entrapment that is at once psychological and based in reality—M is a precursor not only to the films that the Vienna-born Lang made in America, but to American film noir in general.