Spione (1928)

The opening minutes alone are a masterclass in suspense: valuable secret documents vanish, and the Minister of Trade is murdered in broad daylight on the street. "What power is at work here?" a bewildered official wonders—and the film answers with a close-up of the banker Haghi, the mastermind behind a vast espionage network: "Me!" What follows is a breathless cat-and-mouse game filled with ingenious technical gadgets, seductive female agents, and brilliant supervillains—motifs that have since become staples of the genre. Cinema’s first major spy thriller ultimately became a symbol of technological progress itself: for its American premiere, the film print made a spectacular transatlantic crossing by airship.
(Florian Widegger)