Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a 1927 film directed by F. W. Murnau, his first American production, made for Fox Film Corporation, following an unnamed farmer who is tempted by a visiting woman from the city into a plan to murder his wife and move away with her, then reconciles with his wife over the course of a day trip into the city instead. Murnau's fluid, mobile camera work, an elaborate forced-perspective studio-built city set, and the blending of German Expressionist visual technique with a simple melodramatic story made the film one of the most technically celebrated of the silent era. At the first Academy Awards ceremony it won the only Academy Award ever given for Unique and Artistic Picture, a category retired after that one year.