[citation needed] Richter made his film debut right before World War I in Der Sterbewalzer (1914), directed by Fritz Freund.

[citation needed] With Joe May's The Indian Tomb (1921) Richter became famous to a wide public for the first time, but it was only with the advent of Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), and especially with Die Nibelungen (1924) – both directed by Fritz Lang – that he became a sex symbol for the 1920s: Germany's answer to male stars of American films such as Ramon Novarro and Rudolph Valentino.

This reached a climax when Richter refused to appear nude in a scene where the character of Siegfried bathes in the blood of a dragon he has slain.

Lang deemed it important to emphasize Richter's body, because the dragon blood is supposed to render Siegfried invulnerable everywhere but one spot on his upper back where a linden leaf happens to adhere to him.

[citation needed] The success of his Siegfried performance led to offers of other heroic parts for Richter in Peter the Pirate (1925) and Dagfin (1926).