London After Midnight
It reached cinemas worldwide. The last known print later vanished in a vault fire.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Officially Gone
- Peak stage
- general availability
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
A silent mystery-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney.
The film was a genuine MGM release seen by paying audiences. Its disappearance happened later: surviving prints gradually vanished until the final known copy was lost.
Existence timeline
Tod Browning directs Lon Chaney in a feature adapted from Browning’s story.
MGM releases the film to cinemas.
Browning revisits the premise in Mark of the Vampire.
As nitrate copies deteriorate or are discarded, known holdings diminish.
The final known copy is lost in an MGM vault fire.
Turner Classic Movies presents a version assembled from surviving stills.
Why it ended
A 1965 fire in MGM’s storage vault destroyed the last print known to survive.
Last confirmed trace
Production stills, scripts, reviews and a photographic reconstruction are now asked to stand in for the moving image.
What it left behind
It has become one of the most sought-after lost films and a symbol of how much silent cinema disappeared through neglect and unstable film stock.
How we classified it
The film received a normal theatrical release, but no complete print is known to survive after the last confirmed studio copy was lost.
A theatrical release reached the 100-point general-availability stage.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.