Who Wore the Fangs Best? The Dracula Actors Who Made the Count Legendary

Apparently we just can’t quit the Count. With Luc Besson’s 'Dracula' hitting theaters in February and fresh takes like 'Nosferatu', 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter', and 'Renfield' still in recent memory, it feels like vampire season never ended. While we wait to see how Caleb Landry Jones tackles the cape in Besson’s movie, here’s my rundown of the best on-screen Draculas so far — the ones who seduced, scared, and straight-up weirded us out in all the right ways.

The lineup

• Christian Camargo — Penny Dreadful (2016)

  While Universal was trying to birth its Dark Universe, 'Penny Dreadful' was already doing the interconnected-monsters thing on TV — Frankenstein’s creature, the Wolf Man, Dorian Gray, and eventually the Big Bat himself. Camargo shows up in season three as Dr. Alexander Sweet, charming Eva Green’s Vanessa Ives before the reveal: surprise, the doctor is Dracula. It’s an unconventional take that leans on seduction first, then flips the switch to lethal when it counts. Understated, sly, and dangerous.

• Duncan Regehr — The Monster Squad (1987)

  Kids’ movie, sure. But Regehr’s Dracula? Mean. He rolls into town with the Universal-adjacent crew (Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Gill-Man) hunting for Van Helsing’s diary and has zero qualms about collateral damage. He literally dynamites a treehouse and is absolutely fine with the idea of a few dead kids if that gets him what he wants. He terrified a generation — Ashley Bank reportedly screamed for real during their face-to-face. Nic Cage’s 'Renfield' Dracula is darker and funnier in a different key, but Regehr is the one who gave little kids nightmares.

• Klaus Kinski — Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

  Werner Herzog remakes the silent classic and casts Kinski in a stroke of chaotic genius. This Dracula is more animal than seducer — he feeds on sleepers, barely pretending to be human. The design nods to Max Schreck’s ratlike Count but strips away even more warmth: those swollen lips and razor teeth make him feel like a walking leech. It’s a strange, unsettling performance (of course it is), and one of the most indelible. Safe bet Cage didn’t pull much inspiration from this one for 'Renfield'.

• Jack Palance — Dracula (1974)

  Producer-director Dan Curtis (of 'Dark Shadows' and the 'Kolchak' TV movies) teamed with writer Richard Matheson for a small-screen 'Dracula' with an unexpected wrinkle. Palance plays the Count with bruised longing: he fixates on a woman who recalls his long-dead wife, adding a measure of tragic humanity you don’t always get. He’s still a killer — he’ll do whatever it takes to reclaim that feeling — but there’s a pulse under the pallor.

• Willem Dafoe — Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

  A delicious what-if: what if Max Schreck, star of 'Nosferatu', was an actual vampire? Director F.W. Murnau hires a too-perfect actor and chaos ensues. Dafoe disappears into the pointed ears and predatory awkwardness, playing murderous method actor to a frazzled crew while Murnau tries to keep the film on track despite, you know, the murders. It’s meta, but Dafoe’s so good it still belongs in the Dracula pantheon, technicality be damned.

• Gary Oldman — Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

  Francis Ford Coppola went big — operatic sets, practical effects, the whole maximalist vibe — and Oldman matched it beat for beat. His Dracula starts as a shriveled ancient and literally feeds his way backward into youth, with elegant costume and makeup work doing the heavy lifting while Oldman supplies the soul: seductive one moment, predatory the next. The danger seeps through even when he’s playing lover.

• Carlos Villarias — Dracula (Spanish-language version, 1931)

  Back when talkies were new, studios shot alternate-language versions on the same sets. So while Bela Lugosi and Todd Browning filmed 'Dracula' by day, a Spanish-language crew took over at night. Villarias’ Count is looser and less stiff than Lugosi’s — more expressive, more movement — and because censorship abroad was different, the female leads got a sexier presentation. Some folks even prefer this cut to the famous English version. Curious to see whether Cage’s 'Renfield' performance felt closer to this freer approach.

• Max Schreck — Nosferatu (1922)

  Even if you haven’t watched it, you know the image: the bald head, talon fingers, shadow climbing the stairs. German Expressionism did the rest, using light and silhouette to turn Count Orlok (we all know it’s Dracula in everything but legal clearance) into pure nightmare fuel. Stoker’s estate sued, won, and ordered prints destroyed; a few survived, thankfully, because this might still be the creepiest cinematic version of the Count ever put on film.

• Christopher Lee — Horror of Dracula (1958) and beyond

  Hammer Films revived the classics in color and blood, and Lee’s Dracula was a revelation: polished and aristocratic until the hunger hit, then feral. The fangs flash, the hiss lands, the eyes go bloodshot, and suddenly you’re in a room with a rabid thing wearing a tux. That whiplash turn is the secret sauce. Lee wore the cape a lot, too — ten films total: 'Horror of Dracula' (1958), 'Dracula: Prince of Darkness' (1966), 'Dracula Has Risen from the Grave' (1968), 'Taste the Blood of Dracula' (1970), 'Scars of Dracula' (1970), 'Dracula A.D. 1972' (1972), 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' (1973), plus Jess Franco’s 'Count Dracula' (1970), Jerry Lewis’s 'One More Time' (1970), and Édouard Molinaro’s 'Dracula and Son' (1976).

• Bela Lugosi — Dracula (1931)

  The template. Lugosi’s measured walk and hypnotic stare got imprinted on the character so completely that every parody and reinvention since has been reacting to him. Even when he popped back in the Abbott and Costello crossovers, the chill he brought cut through the jokes. One line, delivered with that velvet menace, is basically the franchise’s calling card:

  "Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!"

  Smiling or not, there’s a darkness in his performance that never stops humming. I’m very curious what pieces of Lugosi Nic Cage chose to remix for 'Renfield'.

That’s my batch. Who’s your king of the night? Would you slide in Frank Langella, Gerard Butler, John Carradine, or Richard Roxburgh? Maybe George Hamilton in 'Love at First Bite'? Adam Sandler’s animated Count in 'Hotel Transylvania'? Lon Chaney Jr. in 'Son of Dracula'? Drop your favorites — I’ll bring the garlic, you bring the hot takes.