Fritz Lang’s veteran experience in silent cinema is everywhere apparent in this visually dazzling noir which makes incredible use of shadow and stark lighting to follow Ray Milland who stumbles out of release from an asylum into a world of treacherous deceit that will be the greatest test of his sanity yet. Pulled into an underground spy ring, Milland turns for help to a pair of Austrian siblings who share as much reason to fear police suspicion. Set in London during the Blitz, Ministry of Fear delivers a claustrophobic portrait of the paranoia-as-virtue cultivated by a nation at war—a milieu the émigré Lang knew well. The frenetic pace veers between madcap humor, high drama and sinister understatement, as the viewer fumbles through the darkness and twisting plot with as little to hold onto as the protagonist.