In the early 1800s, a lonely girl named Ellen [Greta Schröder] prays for a companion to ease her loneliness. She inadvertently contacts a powerful being known as the Nosferatu, forging a psychic link between them that shadows Ellen’s dreams and thoughts with a cold, unblinking presence that seems to reach into her very breath.
In 1838, Ellen marries Thomas Hutter [Gustav von Wangenheim], and the newlyweds settle in the quiet German town of Wisburg. Thomas accepts a lucrative commission from his employer, Knock [Alexander Granach], to sell the decrepit Grünewald Manor to the reclusive Count Orlok [Max Schreck], a deal that could cement his fortunes but unsettles Ellen. She shares her unsettling visions with him, pleading that the warnings are omens, yet he remains practical and hopeful about the opportunity, though her unease only grows louder as the days pass.
Thomas travels to a remote hamlet in Transylvania to finalize the sale, and he is met with cold suspicion from the locals. He rooms at an inn and is warned by an old woman to stay away from Orlok. That night, he witnesses a disturbing scene as Roma travelers unearth and stake a supposed vampire’s corpse, a sight that leaves him shaken. When morning arrives, the hamlet is emptied of life and his horse is gone, leaving him to follow an eerie, unoccupied road that ends with an unmanned carriage that ferries him toward Orlok’s looming castle.
There, Orlok’s presence is overpowering. The Count exerts a strange, almost hypnotic force over Thomas and compels him to sign the purchase documents that dissolve his marriage to Ellen, while also stealing a keepsake—a locket containing a lock of Ellen’s hair. Thomas soon discovers a bite on his chest and grows feverish and fearful. He pleads to depart, but Orlok refuses to let him go, insisting he must stay and recover first. The terror intensifies as Thomas drifts between wakefulness and sleep, noticing additional bite marks that deepen his dread. A frantic attempt to escape ends with him stumbling into a crypt where he finds Orlok resting in a coffin, naked and decayed. He attacks the Count with a pickaxe, but Orlok awakens, and with a pack of hunting dogs at his side, gives chase. Thomas plunges into a river beneath the castle, where Eastern Orthodox nuns soon find and care for him, explaining that Orlok is a solomonar who has become a vampire through a pact with the Devil. Orlok then boards a ship bound for Wisburg, carrying plague-ridden rats that silently kill the crew on the voyage.
Back in Wisburg, Ellen, now under Orlok’s sinister influence, endures seizures and episodes of sleepwalking. Her physician, Dr. Wilhelm Sievers [Professor Sievers], collaborates with his former mentor, the Swiss occultist von Franz, who has been ostracized for his beliefs. After visiting Ellen, von Franz confirms the possession-like effect the Nosferatu has exerted over her, though the Hardings remain skeptical. The pair uncover a crucial truth: the Nosferatu must return to the earth from which they were buried in order to be destroyed.
Thomas returns to Wisburg as Orlok’s plague sweeps through the town. Knock escapes capture, killing a porter, and guides Orlok’s coffin-bearing ship toward Grünewald Manor. Orlok begins to invade Ellen’s dreams more forcefully, revealing how Thomas had annulled their marriage. He demands Ellen submit to him within three days, threatening to kill everyone she loves if she resists. Ellen awakens to find Anna, Harding’s pregnant wife, attacked by plague-ridden rats, and Harding’s refusal to heed Ellen’s warnings drives a wedge between them. Ellen and Thomas are expelled from Wisburg after a heated argument, with Ellen revealing her past entanglement with Orlok and confronting Thomas about the vulnerability he allowed himself to trust.
Harding’s grief-stricken rage erupts into tragedy as he dies in a delirious act, his life claimed by the plague while desecrating his wife’s corpse. Von Franz’s early research suggests a desperate path: a fair maiden’s willing sacrifice could destroy Nosferatu. Knowing that only Ellen can stop the threat—and fearing for those she loves—she collaborates with von Franz to keep Thomas away while the plan unfolds.
Thomas, von Franz, and Sievers finally head to Grünewald Manor with a grim aim: to confront Orlok’s hold and sever the curse. They discover Knock sleeping in Orlok’s coffin and, in a moment of betrayal and miscalculation, they kill him. Realizing von Franz’s deception, Thomas returns to safeguard Ellen as von Franz accelerates the destruction of the vault. In a climactic confrontation, Ellen confronts Orlok in her own chamber, re-pledging herself to him in a desperate bid to buy time. Orlok feeds on her until sunrise, but the precious, life-saving light proves too strong, and the Count is undone by the rays of day.
Thomas arrives moments later to hold Ellen’s hand as she dies, her sacrifice lifting the plague’s grip from Wisburg. Von Franz confirms that Ellen’s act has freed the town from Nosferatu’s terror, but at the cost of her life, leaving a quiet, sorrowful end to a tale of fear, devotion, and the costs of confronting the darkness.
