The Cat and the Canary is a 1927 American silent comedy horror film directed by the German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni. An adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black-comedy play of the same name, the film stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley as Charlie Wilder, and Creighton Hale as Paul Jones. The plot revolves around the death of Cyrus West, who is Annabelle, Charlie, and Paul's uncle, and the reading of his will twenty years later. Annabelle inherits her uncle's fortune, but when she and her family spend the night in his haunted mansion, they are stalked by a mysterious figure. Meanwhile, a lunatic mainly known as the Cat escapes from an asylum and hides in the mansion.

Paul Leni was a German filmmaker and a key figure in German Expressionism, making Hintertreppe (1921) and Waxworks (1924) in Germany, and The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Chinese Parrot (1927), The Man Who Laughs (1928), and The Last Warning (1928) in the United States.