A young, wealthy painter named Wendland travels to Egypt, where he hears about the tomb of Queen Ma, a site far out into the desert that has reportedly driven everyone who has visited it mad. Intrigued, the painter arranges to be taken to the tomb. When he arrives, he is greeted by an Egyptian native named Radu, who leads him to a coffin in a dark room. There he sees the eyes behind the coffin slowly open and come to life, just before the Egyptian tries to attack him. The painter wards off Radu, and finds that the coffin lid is actually an entrance to a small adjacent room, where a helpless young girl, also named Ma, is held prisoner by the Egyptian’s Svengali-like hypnotic powers. Wendland rescues Ma from the site and takes her back to Europe with him, making her his wife. Radu, heartbroken at losing Ma, wanders into the desert and faints on the hot sands. A wealthy Prince finds him, nurses him back to health, and makes him his personal servant. When Radu comes to, he swears vengeance on Ma for leaving him.
In modern times, an antiques dealer (Henrik Galeen) finds a golem (Paul Wegener), a clay statue brought to life by a rabbi four centuries earlier. The dealer resurrects the golem as a servant, but the golem falls in love with the dealer's wife. As she does not return his love, the golem commits a series of murders.
The film takes place in Prague in 1820, where a poor young man named Balduin is the city's wildest student and greatest swordsman. However, his deteriorating finances and unrequited love toward a rich countess named Magrit have left him depressed and withdrawn. While he broods over his predicament outside a beer hall, a strange old man named Scapinelli approaches him and tells him he may have a solution to his problems.
The film starts out with the passengers boarding at Southampton. The lives of the passengers on board the ill-fated ocean liner are depicted. On 14 April, the Titanic strikes an iceberg, throwing the diners in the Café Parisien to the side. Panic strikes the passengers. The crew ready the lifeboats, despite the fact that there are not enough of them. Women and children are loaded, while the men are held back. The radio operators (who take up most of the sinking part of the film) send out an urgent SOS. Fire blows out of the funnels during the sinking and then the boilers explode. The radio room floods, and finally the operators and captain jump ship and the Titanic sinks. Some survivors make it to a lifeboat, where they are pulled in. The captain swims to the lifeboat but when he is offered a spot, he instead swims away and goes underwater to drown.
En 1907, Hans Castorp, jeune allemand de la haute bourgeoise de Hambourg, rend visite à son cousin poitrinaire Joachim Ziemssen hospitalisé dans un sanatorium chic de Davos, en Suisse. Fasciné par la morbidité du lieu et sa galerie de malades pittoresques, Hans y prend pension et y restera jusqu'au début de la Première Guerre mondiale.