I didn't expect my favorite adaptation of a Victorian-era Gothic horror story to be a postmodern silent-film ballet originally intended for Canadian TV, but it is. Director Guy Maddin and company merge the styles of two mute art forms, ballet and silent film, with their own codes of silent gestures, and no film adaptation has better depicted the sexual and xenophobic themes of Stoker's tale.

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The earliest Dracula film still known to exist, F.W. Murnau's loose, unauthorized, silent-film adaptation of Stoker's novel introduced shadows to the Count, made sunlight an existential threat to him and began the oft-reused incident of him being fascinated by an image of the Mina/Lucy-type character - none of which Stoker wrote. But the film's association of the vampire with the plague is faithful to the spirit of Stoker's subtext of vampirism as portending natural disease.

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A fictional telling of the making of the above 1922 "Nosferatu," wherein actor Max Schreck (in an Oscar-nominated performance by Willem Dafoe) is either an incredible method actor or a real vampire pretending to be an actor pretending to be a vampire. Film itself is also treated as a vampire, especially as embodied by the zealous director F.W. Murnau (as played by John Malkovich).

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One of the most influential films of all time, this early talkie essentially invented the horror genre in Hollywood and inspired Universal to launch its series of monster movies, as well as encouraging other studios to make their own shockers. It also introduced the most iconic performance of Dracula ever with Bela Lugosi's suave Count, with mesmerizing eyes highlighted by cinematographer Karl Freund. Lugosi's wonderful accent gave us the since-oft-repeated non-Stoker line, "I never drink... wine." If the film weren't so stagy in its later scenes, I'd rank it higher.

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Unofficially, director Tod Browning's (of the film above) third try at Stoker's tale and a remake of his first, now-lost attempt, "London After Midnight" (1927). In some ways, it's an improvement on Browning's 1931 "Dracula," and it plays on Bela Lugosi's star image from that film in an interesting, self-reflexive way.

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Filmed at nights while the English-language version listed above was made in the days, Universal's Spanish-language version is an interesting take on the same script and sets but by another cast and crew. In some ways better and in other ways worse--and in still other ways just different--, it remains the best adaptation of the Catholic proselytizing in Stoker's novel because of its Spanish-language orientation.

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Another case of the orientation of the filmmakers and intended audience providing a greater context to an aspect of Stoker's book, "Drakula Istanbul'da" might be the first and only Dracula movie to benefit from mentioning the historical Vlad the Impaler, whose minor influence on Stoker has since been blown out of proportion. But, for this Turkish production, it adds resonance to the invasion threat of this fictional descendant of the real man who gruesomely killed thousands of Turks. Being a low-budget, non-Hollywood production, for a primarily non-Christian domestic audience, it also adapts the familiar story in other interesting and sometimes amusing ways.

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Hammer shook up the vampire movie indefinitely with its blood-and-bosoms formula and red-blooded color filming introduced here, its first of nine Dracula movies. It's a bare-bones and action-paced adaptation and remains the best in the Hammer series, introducing Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Dracula. It also introduced elaborate make-up-enhanced visual effects and the makeshift-cross trope to vampire movies.

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Campy, exploitative, grotesque and well-made low-budget reworking of the Dracula tale, sending the vampire to Italy in search of virgin blood. This Count is more concerned with chastity than is the Church, and his aristocratic ways meet their match in a rapacious Red working man with an axe to grind.

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An experimental documentary following the making of Jesus Franco's poor international 1970 Dracula, listed much farther below, "Cuadecuc vampir" is a mostly silent rendition that retells much of the Dracula narrative, which kind of makes having watched Franco's bad movie worth it, and it includes the best mirror scene of any Dracula film in its only talking sequence.

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The funniest Dracula parody out there, tanned George Hamilton is a hilarious vampire, who reluctantly invades America after the Communists evict him from his Romanian castle. And I love this play on Stoker's line, "Children of the night, shut up!"

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A sequel that's better than the original, it continues the themes of race and a racist police force from the first "Blacula," while dropping the stupid reincarnation romance and replacing it with a strong Mina-type heroine and Voodoo religious leader (played by Pam Grier)--probably the best reworking of Stoker's religion since the 1931 Spanish-language "Dracula" and one of the more anti-sexist Dracula-type films made.

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The best of Hammer's Dracula sequels, this fifth rendition in the series aptly merges Stoker's exploitation of Victorian England's sexual hypocrisy with Hammer's catering to its target audience of Vietnam-era youth. This time, the Count is like the Id monster from "Forbidden Planet" (1956), fulfilling the wishes of a rebellious youth movement against the duplicity of their fathers.

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Hugh Jackman is more X-Men's Wolverine than Stoker's Van Helsing here, but at least its Dracula is more like Stoker's Count than the weak or lovesick vamps that comprise much of the rest of this list. This monster rally is also over-filled with characters and CGI, but it employs the camera to some use within the action and is, thus, more fun to watch than the prior year's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," listed far below.

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If not concerned with copyright infringement, this Columbia shocker could've been named, "Dracula Meets the Wolf Man." Lugosi plays the vampire again, and this time he's an allegory for German invasions in WWI and WWII. Might be the first movie to resurrect a vampire by removing a stake from his heart, which was reused in "House of Frankenstein" (1944).

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The camp doesn't mix too well with the social commentary in this blaxploitation flick, but the allegory of vampirism to racism in urban America is a worthy translation of Stoker's themes to the exploitation genre.

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Highly stylized--even gaudy--and definitely not a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula." It adapts the reincarnation romance from the 1974 TV movie listed far below, as well as from "Blacula" (1972), and it takes some other non-Stoker elements from other Dracula films. On the plus side, Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation doesn't shy away from the source's sex, and the film introduces the then-new invention of cinema to a story that featured several then-new inventions--although the filmmakers miss the reason for these inventions: for Stoker, they were used to defeat the ancient Count; here, they're merely part of the film's decorations.

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A light and sometimes amusing, if poorly plotted, vampire parody with Lee is his last Dracula-esque role. The otherwise-tired reincarnation romance is reinvigorated here by turning it into an Oedipal complex and love triangle involving the Count and his son. There's also some self-reflexive scenes where Lee plays a vampire playing a vampire in a film-within-the-film.

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Dracula invades suburban California in this poverty-row production where vampirism becomes a metaphor for contemporary Cold War politics. Czech-born Frances Lederer had the best accent for the role since Lugosi. It might be the first movie to show that vampires can't be photographed.

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John Carradine's Dracula is an afterthought in this light but fun monster-rally sequel to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).

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Sure, the humor is largely outdated, but this trend-setting monster-rally comedy is still a lot of fun. That Dracula's reflection is seen through the mirror in one scene, however, is a continuing source of frustration for me (otherwise, I'd rank this higher).

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A short Dracula parody that's similar to the same year's feature-length "Love at First Bite" listed above. Both extend Dracula's Western travels all the way to New York, where they're assisted by Renfield, and both are full of rapid-fire, if sometimes dated, gags. A musical number and moments of breaking the fourth wall are highlights.

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Another Dracula-related comedy, this one mixes the vampire and western genres, while ignoring Stoker's book entirely except to steal a couple character names. It's fun in a goofy B-picture kind of way--just don't expect anything especially witty.

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This kiddie monster rally has some charm and is well paced except for the slow movements of its hardly-menacing monsters, which include the entire gang of Dracula, Frankenstein's creature, the Wolf Man, Gillman, the Mummy and three vampire brides.

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At one-hour-and-a-quarter length, this Czech TV movie is the best option if one merely wants to get the gist of Stoker's story in a relatively short movie. It even manages to retain some of the book's epistolary plotting by focusing on the diary entries and narration of Jonathan Harker. Otherwise, the poor production values are what you'd expect from a 1971 TV movie, but at least it doesn't over extend itself like a couple of other 1970s TV movies listed below.

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Werner Herzog's remake of the 1922 "Nosferatu" suffers from turning the Count into a heavy-breathing, lovesick clown (as played by Klaus Kinski) and from its deathly-slow pacing and stiff acting. Otherwise, the drab cinematography fits well with the plague theme.

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Hammer ended its Dracula series on a mixed note with this 9th incarnation--mixing the horror genre with that of kung fu. It's best when appreciated as camp.

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So-bad-it's-good film that is surprisingly average technically but predictably ridiculous in its premise of a vampire dog, who along with his Renfield-type master, are on a quest to turn the last of the Dracula clan in modern-day USA into their vampiric overlord.

Another Dracula film that erroneously reveals the Count to have a reflection, this updating of Dracula to the American South is a mixed bag. Contrary to some critical opinions, the mustached and super-strong Lon Chaney Jr. is a decent Count, and he's more faithful to Stoker than the suave renditions of Dracula started by Lugosi. The use of mist as a vampiric form and the foggy floating swamp scene are standouts.

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Possibly the most faithful adaptation of Stoker's novel, this TV movie is otherwise not that good. It suffers from its poor TV production values, but the not-so-Stoker exaggeration of Dracula as a cult leader struggling as a counterweight to Catholicism, and Renfield's struggle between the two forces, is well conceived.

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So-so third installment in Hammer's Dracula series sees the return of Christopher Lee as the Count in one of the series' most graphic scenes. Dracula's daring raid on a monastery reworks Stoker's Renfield subplot unused by Hammer's '58 adaptation. This is also the first of Hammer's films to invent water as a weakness of vampires--as if Hammer's vampires weren't already weak enough.

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Universal's Dracula, Frankenstein monster, Wolf Man, a mad scientist and a hunchback return again in this sequel that inconsistently respects or disregards where the last movie left off. Although Dracula gets more screen time this go around, and the mad scientist adds a variation on Jekyll/Hyde to the mix, the lack of the journey plot from "House of Frankenstein" makes this one feel slightly more episodic and lacking.

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A reconstruction of the lost 1927 silent film, this is the closest thing to seeing what looks to have been an interesting film. Mostly relying on stills, however, this reconstruction is itself rather non-cinematic.

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Forget the vampire-human romance about Dracula's granddaughter trying to be human through disco dancing and just try to bare through the bad dialogue and acting, to get to the groovy soundtrack. If you don't like disco music, then I wouldn't recommend this one. It doesn't really have anything else going for it.

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Dull sequel to the 1931 "Dracula," it features some psychobabble and a misogynist narrative, but Gloria Holden is a worthy successor to Lugosi, and the homosexual overtones of same-sex vampire biting is more explicit this time.

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Another dull Dracula sequel, this time from Hammer's followup to its '58 film. Despite its misleading title, it neither features Dracula, nor his brides; instead, we get kid-vamp Baron Meister, but, at least, Peter Cushing returns as Van Helsing.

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Like Count Chocula, it's a mere caricature of Stoker's Dracula, overly sweet and not very good for you.

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Batman Begins. A superhero origins story for Dracula which goes all-in on Stoker's slight suggestion that the Count was originally the historical Vlad the Impaler. A potential sequel is set up via a reincarnation romance, and it's racist in a watered-down "300" (2006) kind of way.

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A bad movie that's derivative of Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), but the film indicates that the filmmakers had no pretensions otherwise. Might be worth a look if you enjoy intentionally bad sex comedies, and at least it's better than the same director's "Dracula has Risen from the Grave" (1968), listed below.

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The 8th film in Hammer's Dracula series has a promising premise involving the Count as the head of a corporation and a Satanic cult in the present day, but gets tangled up by Hammer's typically weak vampires.

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Another bad vampire parody, Mel Brooks failed to recapture the glory of "Young Frankenstein" (1974), which isn't to say this one's without a few laughs, too.

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The first Dracula adaptation to include a reincarnation romance, which is nowhere to be found in Stoker's novel, and to blow way out of proportion the book's connection to the historical Vlad the Impaler. But, sadly, not the last.

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This disco adaptation of Stoker's story suffers from being made into a dime-romance novel and from being based on the same play as the 1931 films. Also, a vampire's reflection appears in water, while the same vampire and Dracula don't cast ones in mirrors. A boyishly-handsome Frank Langella is way too suave as the Count. And, it's sexist.

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Hammer's sixth Dracula film includes a few particulars from Stoker's novel, including the Count climbing walls, but it doesn't do anything interesting thematically beyond redecorating the interiors of Castle Dracula in a red theme befitting of his blood lust. Otherwise, it's sexist and full of cheap fake bats.

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In Hammer's seventh film in the series, hippies resurrect Dracula in the present day... and that about sums it up.

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An early attempt from Universal (prefiguring the Abbott and Costello monster rallies) at making fun of its own monsters. A narrator makes lame jokes over cannibalized clips from "Nosferatu" (1922), Frankenstein (1931) and the lost-film "The Cat Creeps" (1930) and pretends the first on-screen meeting of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster.

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For all its gratuitous nudity, cheesy visual effects and 3D crudity, which could've made for some fun camp, this is an unfortunately dull, cluttered and derivative adaptation that removes a lot of the best parts of Stoker's book.

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Like "Dracula A.D. 1972," of above, this is an obviously updated Dracula that focuses on youth culture, specifically Van Helsing's daughter. This one makes some other bad alterations to Stoker's original, features a young-adult cast mostly known for TV work, with the exception of Christopher Plummer, has a sexy Drac derivative of Frank Langella's 1979 version and contains blatant and repeated product placement for Virgin Records. Followed by two direct-to-video sequels.

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The worst thing about this film is that despite its goofy premise, pitting a historical Western gunfighter against a supernatural vampire, is that instead of being unintentionally funny, it's a bland and relatively competently made B-picture.

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Another try at Stoker's story by director Jesus Franco, this one benefits from being a looser reworking of the novel than the relatively-faithful 1970 Dracula listed farther down, and it also has lots of nudity and lesbians. It sucks otherwise.

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Well, Van Helsing is in it, and he's teamed up with the ghost of Dr. Frankenstein in some cockeyed Dr. Moreau-like cross-species experiments, including, ironically, blood transfusions to keep the nearly-200-years-old Van Helsing alive. Arguably either one of the worst films ever made or a film so bad it's good, I rate it as not quite either and a bit of both.

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Well, Mina Harker is in it. She's a vampire and, more inexplicably, a chemist. Meanwhile, Dr. Jekyll and the Invisible Man, apparently, don't perform any chemistry. Go figure. This CGI-bloated nonsense deserves the critical rebukes it received, but at least it has more character development than the other comic-book action movie listed directly below.

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The third installment in the Blade series employs Dracula as an underdeveloped, burly supervillain with a ridiculously-convoluted past. The rest of the movie is a mess, too, and worst of all for an action movie, it's dull.

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Artsy updated reworking of Universal's "Dracula's Daughter" (1936) listed above, this one is partly annoying and partly laughable. Fuzzy, pixelated images from a toy camcorder obscure all of the good vampire stuff, while all of the self-indulgent naval gazing and sophomoric philosophizing of the titular young Goth woman, smoking and hanging out in bars, is what's captured with crisp black-and-white photography.

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Loose, low-budget Dracula adaptation that moves the story to present-day California and renames the Count, "Yorga." An unmemorable reworking of the novel, and it's also tame in blood and sex compared to contemporary Dracula films--except for a shocking dead cat scene. Followed by a sequel, "The Return of Count Yorga" (1971).

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Choppy, stylistically derivative and inconsistent semi-sequel/reworking of Werner Herzog's 1979 "Nosferatu" remake listed above. Klaus Kinski returns to the titular role, sort of--he refused to wear the sad clown makeup this time. And, he was, reportedly, such a terror to work with that the film went through several directors. The result is boring and a mess.

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Produced by Roger Corman, this low-budget bad movie could've been so-bad-it's-good if the entire production were like its unintentionally-hilarious ending. Piggybacking on the success of "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992) listed above, it also has a stupid reincarnation romance.

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The fourth and worst film in Hammer's Dracula series, the production design is claustrophobic in its cheapness, the characters are annoying and look like they're from the late 20th Century as opposed to the film's early-20th Century setting, and the depiction of the atheist is insulting. Worst of all, Dracula has a reflection.

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A good example of why you shouldn't try to make a relatively faithful adaptation of Stoker's novel if you don't have a budget. Also a good example of why zooming is not an interesting overriding aesthetic framework and why no matter how many times you zoom in and out on taxidermic animals, it won't make them look alive.

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Cheap, poorly constructed, perverted and weird. And, as good as that sounds, the film is worse. The version with Elvira's interruptions is probably more fun to watch; at least, I don't see how it could be worse.

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