The Hands of Orlac (German: Orlacs Hände) is a 1924 Austrian silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and starring Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina and Fritz Kortner. The film was also released as Die Unheimlichen Hande des Doktor Orlac. The film’s plot is based on the book Les Mains d’Orlac (1920) written by Maurice Renard.
Wiene had made his name as a director of Expressionist films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and in The Hands of Orlac combined expressionist motifs with more naturalistic visuals. The film has been remade three times: as Mad Love (1935) directed by Karl Freund, as The Hands of Orlac (1960), a British/ French co-production, and as a low-budget American company as Hands of a Stranger (1962) directed by Newt Arnold. The film Body Parts (1991) also drew extensively on Renard’s story.