The 1929 German silent film directed by G. W. Pabst and starring Louise Brooks is Pandora’s Box.
Pandora’s Box is a German drama film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Louise Brooks plays Lulu, a charismatic and socially disruptive figure whose relationships and choices drive the film’s tragic plot. The film is based primarily on Frank Wedekind’s plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box rather than being a direct retelling of the ancient Greek myth.
The movie is widely associated with Brooks’s distinctive bobbed haircut and with her major screen performance. It was made during the late silent-film period, shortly before sound films became dominant. Its visual style, themes of desire and social judgment, and Brooks’s performance have helped it remain a major work of Weimar-era cinema.
The title can cause confusion with the Greek myth or with later films using the same phrase. Pabst’s film uses “Pandora” symbolically through Wedekind’s character and story, not as a literal account of the jar opened by Hesiod’s Pandora.