Shadow of the Vampire (R)
BBC Film; IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: none that I know of

This came out in 2000, but I didn't see it until 2020. It's a fictionalized account of the making of the movie "Nosferatu" (which I've long wanted to see, but haven't as yet), in 1921. John Malkovich plays director F.W. Murnau, who hires an unknown actor named Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) to play a vampire named Count Orlok. But throughout the film, it seems increasingly likely that there is no "Max Schreck," and that Orlock is in fact a real vampire. I guess in real life there was a rumor about just that, but of course it wasn't true. I don't want to say whether it was true or not within this movie, though. And... I don't really know what else to say. I wanted to like the movie more than I did. I thought it was decent, but I liked the concept more than the execution. Not that I think there's anything wrong with the execution. I mean, I enjoyed parts of it, but other parts I found a bit boring, I guess. Still, I'm glad to have finally seen it.