Who played Pandora in the 1929 German film Pandora's Box?

Louise Brooks played Pandora in the 1929 German film Pandora's Box. Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the silent film is based largely on Frank Wedekind's plays Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, with Brooks portraying Lulu, the central character whose destructive relationships drive the story.

Although the film's title invokes the mythological image, its plot is not a direct retelling of Hesiod's Greek story. Lulu is a modern stage and literary character, and the film explores desire, scandal, social judgment, and tragedy rather than the release of supernatural evils from a jar.

Brooks's performance became one of the defining roles of silent cinema. Her distinctive bobbed haircut and screen presence helped make the film an enduring part of film history, especially after later restoration and critical reevaluation.

The title can cause confusion because Pandora is not the character's ordinary name in the film's plot. It refers to the work's source material and symbolic associations, while the protagonist is generally known as Lulu. Separating the myth, Wedekind's plays, and Pabst's adaptation clarifies the film's cultural connection.