Shadows and Fog is a 1991 American black-and-white comedy film directed by Woody Allen and based on his one-act play Death (1975).

Shadows and Fog is an homage to German Expressionist filmmakers Fritz Lang, G. W. Pabst and F. W. Murnau in its visual presentation, and to the writer Franz Kafka in theme.

Together they start exploring the city, seeing its different scenes — a man peeping into a woman's room, a starving mother and child, a church — and decide to go back.

After its premiere in 1991, Shadows and Fog opened to wide release on March 20, 1992 in 288 North American cinemas.

The critical consensus reads: "Shadows and Fog recreates the chiaroscuro aesthetic of German Expressionism, but Woody Allen's rambling screenplay retreads the director's neurotic obsessions with derivative results.

It's unpredictable, with its own tone and rhythm, even though, like all of the director's work, it's a mixture of the sincere, the sardonic and the classically sappy.

"[8] Variety similarly wrote, "Exquisitely shot in black & white, Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog is a sweet homage to German expressionist filmmaking and a nod to the content of socially responsible tales since narrative film began.

"[9] Desson Thomson of The Washington Post wrote:There's nothing particularly objectionable about Woody Allen's "Shadows and Fog."

This black-and-white seriocomedy, set in the 1920s, is an amiable ramble through some of Allen's favorite themes and European film movements.

[10]In 2016 film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey ranked Shadows and Fog as one of the worst movies by Woody Allen.

[11] Recalling the film’s critical and commercial failure in his 2020 memoir, Apropos of Nothing, Allen joked that “the filming of Shadows and Fog went off without a hitch except for the movie.”[12] Allen also states in his memoir that he "knew the film was destined for commercial doom," but made the movie regardless, disdaining artistic fear he says would yield "safe middle-of-the-road projects," and, summarizing the finished product, added: "It’s not a bad idea but you have to be in the mood for it, and marketing tests showed it did not appeal to homo sapiens.