Who plays Lulu in G. W. Pabst’s 1929 German film Pandora’s Box?

Louise Brooks plays Lulu in G. W. Pabst’s 1929 German film Pandora’s Box.

Pandora’s Box is a silent German film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and released in 1929. Brooks plays Lulu, a charismatic and sexually independent woman whose relationships and choices drive the film’s tragic story. The performance became the defining screen role of Brooks’s career and helped make the film a major work of Weimar-era cinema.

The film is loosely based on Frank Wedekind’s stage dramas Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. Pabst’s adaptation is not a direct retelling of the ancient Greek myth, but its title invokes Pandora as a figure associated with desire, danger, and consequences.

Brooks’s bobbed hairstyle and restrained screen presence became especially influential in later film history. The movie was not universally acclaimed at its release, but restorations and renewed critical interest established it as an important silent film.