Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922)

Directed by Benjamin Christensen, this Swedish-Danish silent film is partly a documentary, and partly a horror film. Based partly on Christensen’s study of the Malleus Maleficarum, Häxan is a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases and mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts, interspersed with gorgeously staged dramatic reenactments of historical witchery.