
The film that made Douglas Fairbanks a superstar — and invented the swashbuckler genre as we know it. Fairbanks plays Don Diego Vega, a foppish California aristocrat who secretly moonlights as the masked vigilante Zorro, defending the oppressed against a corrupt governor. The dual-identity structure (feckless nobleman by day, dashing hero by night) became the template for every superhero from Batman to Spider-Man, and Fairbanks attacks the role with irresistible athletic charisma: leaping over tables, carving his signature "Z" into walls, and grinning his way through swordfights with the pure joy of a man doing exactly what he was born to do. The film moves like lightning, and Fairbanks' physical prowess is genuinely astonishing. The prototype for a century of adventure cinema.
The film that made Douglas Fairbanks a superstar — and invented the swashbuckler genre as we know it. Fairbanks plays Don Diego Vega, a foppish California aristocrat who secretly moonlights as the masked vigilante Zorro, defending the oppressed against a corrupt governor. The dual-identity structure (feckless nobleman by day, dashing hero by night) became the template for every superhero from Batman to Spider-Man, and Fairbanks attacks the role with irresistible athletic charisma: leaping over tables, carving his signature "Z" into walls, and grinning his way through swordfights with the pure joy of a man doing exactly what he was born to do. The film moves like lightning, and Fairbanks' physical prowess is genuinely astonishing. The prototype for a century of adventure cinema.

Douglas Fairbanks
Don Diego Vega / Señor Zorro

Noah Beery
Sgt. Pedro Gonzales

Charles Hill Mailes
Don Carlos Pulido

Claire McDowell
Dona Catalina Pulido

Marguerite De La Motte
Lolita Pulido

Robert McKim
Capt. Juan Ramon

George Periolat
Gov. Alvarado

Walt Whitman
Fray Felipe

Sidney De Gray
Don Alejandro (as Sydney De Gray)

Tote Du Crow
Bernardo

Noah Beery Jr.
Boy (uncredited)

Milton Berle
Boy (uncredited)
Gilbert Clayton
Soldier with 'Z' Carved on His Face
Manuel Caballero
Villager

John George
Prisoner in Jail