The seclusion of the 15th-Century dark prince Count Dracula in his Transylvanian castle is interrupted by an encounter with a young lawyer, leading the brooding blood sucker to London in search of the reincarnation of his true love.
So begins Francis Ford Coppola’s romantic and operatic retelling of Dracula, featuring Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) in the central role as the Count himself, alongside Winona Ryder (Girl Interrupted) as Mina Harker, Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs) as Professor Abraham Van Helsing, and Keanu Reeves (The Matrix) as the lawyer Jonathan Harker.
With legendary auteur Coppola (Godfather Trilogy, Apocalypse Now) at the helm, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is given a heart and soul to go with his violent appetite, with the director’s grasp of the romantic arc of Stoker’s novel, and his full commitment to producing an old fashioned, European horror film in the style of Mario Bava making this the most sumptuous, and possibly best, version of Dracula ever committed to film.
This more sympathetic incarnation of the bloodthirsty Count is delivered by a commanding performance from Gary Oldman, and an incredible use of costume, makeup, colour and light that rejected the emerging fashion for CGI, creating a lavish, timeless, incomparably visionary reimagining of the most classic of all vampire stories.