Based on the stage-play the Universal Studios produced the first Dracula-movie in 1930 directed by Tod Browning, Bela Lugosi once again as Dracula and Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing, who already played this role on stage.
This movie has a little to much dialog and to less acting, but nevertheless the slowly moving actors and the theatrical overacting Bela Lugosi gave him his own charme and its own mystic atmospehre. The movie was very succesfull and Bela Lugosi received a lot of female fanmail. He played in a lot of other classic-horror-movies but none of these movies ever reached the success of Dracula. Poor and disregarded he died in 1956  and was buried in his satin Dracula-cape.

It last 28 years until the next true Dracula-movie was produced.
In 1958 the british Hammer-studios, experst for gothic-horror, produced the first movie of a very successful series of Dracula- and Vampirefilms.
Christopher Lee was  more than a graceful successor of Bela Lugosi. Like no one else before and after him he created our pictures of the aristocratic, dominating Count Dracula with this certain erotic charisma.

Directed by Terence Fisher annother Hammer-star appeared in this film as the ascetic Van Helsing, who`s only passion is vampirhunting: the unforgetable Peter Cushing.
Hammer`s Dracula contains a lot of details from Bram Stroker`s novel, for example: Van Helsing uses a modern dictaphone instead of a notebook to fix his sciencetific findings, but the main-plot has many differences to the novel. Also the finale is different and very impressive. In his dark castle Count Dracula and his counterpart Van Helsing are fighting a duel on life and death. Van Helsing runs on the diningtable and jumps onto the closed curtains. The curtains fall down and the beams of the rising sun burnes the Vampire-Count to ashes.
Animated by the success of their first Dracula-movie, the Hammer Studios decided to bring one continuation after the other onto the screen.
In the first Continuation "The Brides of Dracula" we have to dispense with Dracula himself. The evil vampire is now Baron Meinster who transforms the girls of a young ladies boarding school into his brides. His counterpart is once again Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing. Peter Cushing has two very heroic scenes, which makes this film unforgetable: bit by the Baron he prevents himself of becoming a vampire, he uses a red-hot iron to burn out the wound on his throat and heals her with holy water. In the showdown of the film, he jumps onto the wings of a burning windmill and let the shadows of the wings form a giant cross, which destroys the vampire-Baron.
Count Dracula celebrates his resurrection in "Dracula, Prince of Darkness" (1966). Without a  line of text he nevertheless impresses the audience with his charismatic appearance. In this movie he dies a very unusual vampire-death: immersion in running water, there he rests under the ice of a river until his next resurrection in the year 1968 in "Dracula has risen from the grave".

Our Count is released out of his icy grave by the clumsiness of a drunken monk. But he cannot return into his castle because the gates are blocked up by a big crucifix.
In this film we find an interesting variation of the destruction of a vampire by a wooden plug. This method only works when the vampire-killer truely believes in god. As usual the Count is killed at the end of the film to return only one year later in "Taste the Blood of Dracula"(1969). Lord Courtley, a servant of Dracula, seduces 3 victorian gentlemen to a satanic mass to bring back his master once again. Dracula sucks the blood of the children of the 3 gentlemen. At the end, Dracula is not  destroyed by a vampirhunter but the church he uses as his sanctuary.
The last Dracula-Hammermovie which takes place in the 19th century was "The scars of Dracula"(1970).
The next film "Dracula A.D. 1972" is settled in the present London but has a short flashback into the 19th century in the begining. In this flashback Dracula is killed by his traditional counterpart Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). 100 years later, Johnny Alucard, a servant of the Count, is the leader of a hippie-clique. He instigates his friends to a satanic mass in which Dracula is resurrected.
The Count wants to revenge on the Van Helsing family and carries off Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham), the great-great-grand-daughter of his former enemy to allure her grandfather into a decayed church to the finale confrontation. Here Dracula is staked again.
"Satanic Rites of Dracula"(1973) is the direct continuation. The Van Helsing of the 20th century is once again accompanied by his grand-daughter Jessica (now played by Joanna Lumley). For the last time we can enjoy the counterparts Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Scotland Yard inspector Murray asks Van Helsing for help while investigating in a strange case. They discover that several renowed men are participating in devilish rites. The leader of this secret society is no one else than Count Dracula himself.
This time the Count finds a very interesting end. While hunting his arch-enemy Van Helsing, he is entrapped in a hawthorn bush. Remember that Jesus Christ crown of thorns was made out of hawthorn bush.

The last time Peter Cushing gives us the honour to enjoy his Van Helsing is 1974 in "Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires". This film is a bizzare combination of vampir- and Kung Fu-movie.
Dracula takes on the physical appearance of a chinese warlord and travels back to china to head a ring of vampires in the city of Ping Kuei. At the same time Van Helsing helds lectures on a chinese university and is asked for help against the vampire-ring. during his journey to Ping Kuei his accompanied by Kung-Fu fighters. This time Van Helsing kills the chinese Dracula by plunging an iron shaft into the Counts body.
Christopher Lee appears for the last time as Count Dracula in the french comedy "Dracula père et fils"(1976). Dracula produces a son with the mortal Herminie. But this son Ferdinand isn`t a typical vampire. He dislikes blood and isn`t able to hunt for his food himself. His father has to feed him with blood-bottles. Father and son are rivals in the love for a young lady. At the end, the lady kills Dracula and makes Ferdinand mortal again. But in the next generation the vampire-genes break through again.

Christopher Lee has imprinted his appearance as Dracula so deeply in our minds that we could hardly imagine another actor in the role of Dracula. But nevertheless at the end of the seventies Christopher Lee`s great time was over.
In the american Universal-production "Dracula"(1978) Frank Langella is a young and handsome Dracula with erotic charisma.

The movie is based on the Broadway-play we already know from the begining.
Van Helsing is played by the famous Laurence Olivier.
One of the most effective scene shows Dracula climbing up the wall of Dr. Sewards mental hospital.
One of the most symphatic Dracula-movies is the comedy "Love at First Bite" with the handsome George Hamilton as Dracula.
The aristocratic Count has political problems with the communistic government in Romania. He emigrates into the USA where he falls in love with the model Cindy. Her psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Rosenberg is an offspring of Van Helsing and also interested in Cindy. But against Dracula`s charme and humor Rosenberg has no chance.
At the end Cindy is bit the third time and becomes a vampire herself. In the finale scene the lovers fly as bats into the night.
The most opulent and newest Dracula movie is "Bram Stoker`s Dracula" directed by the famous Francis Ford Coppola. The title indicates it: Coppola tried to held the movie-plot very close to Bram Stoker`s novel. But he also supplemented the plot with a prolog and his own interpretation of how Vlad Tepes became Dracula.
Full of pain and despair over the dead of his beloved wife Vlad is turning away his soul from his christian believe, this unholy act let him become a vampire. 4 centuries later he believes that Mina Murray is the reincarnation of his wife. This prolog declares Dracula`s obsession to possess this woman.
Dracula`s appearance in the begining of the movie is very close to Bram Stoker´s description.
With his 33 years Gary Oldman was the youngest Dracula-actor. He looks very different to the arrogant and  cold Dracula of Christopher Lee.