Freaks is a 1932 horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning.

The film was based on Tod Robbins' short story Spurs. Tod Browning took the exceptional step of casting real people with deformities as the eponymous sideshow "freaks," rather than using costumes and makeup. Director Browning had been a member of a traveling circus in his early years, and much of the film was drawn from his personal experiences. He intended to portray the classic moral of how outer beauty does not necessarily equate to inner beauty. In the film, the physically deformed "freaks" are inherently trusting and honorable people, while the real monsters are two of the "normal" members of the circus who conspire to murder one of the performers to obtain his large inheritance.

Reaction to this film was so intense that the studio was forced to cut the film from a length of approximately ninety minutes to just over an hour. Today, the parts that were removed from the film are considered lost. Browning, famed at the time for his collaborations with Lon Chaney, Sr. and for directing Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931) had trouble finding work afterwards, and this in effect brought his career to an early close. Because its deformed cast was shocking to moviegoers of the time, the film was banned in the United Kingdom for thirty years. Beginning in the early 1960s, Freaks was rediscovered as a "counter culture" cult film. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the film was regularly shown within the scope of so called midnight movie screenings at several movie theaters in the U.S..

In 1994, Freaks was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

A carnival barker displays a sideshow freak called the Feathered Hen and tells her story. Cleopatra, a trapeze artist with the carnival, is adored by a midget named Hans. Frieda, Hans' fiancée (also a midget), warns Hans that Cleopatra is only interested in him so that he will give her money. Cleopatra has an affair with Hercules, and when Frieda lets it slip that Hans is to come into an inheritance, Cleopatra and Hercules plan to get the money be having Cleopatra marry Hans. During the wedding reception, Cleopatra, although openly romantic with Hercules, is accepted by the freaks, but is revolted and mocks them. The freaks decide that they no longer need Hercules in their carnival and have a new career for Cleopatra all lined up, and make sure she doesn't "chicken" out. Written by Rick Gregory

In a side-show circus, where the greatest attractions are deformed people, the gorgeous trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) is the lover of the strong Hercules (Henry Victor). She plays as if she liked the German midget Hans (Harry Earles), who is in love with her, to borrow his money and get expensive gifts he gives to her. When the jealous German midget Frieda (Daisy Earles), who loves Hans, asks Cleopatra to spare Hans from a great deception, she accidentally discloses that he is an heir of a great fortune. Cleo decides to get married with Hans to poison him and get his inheritance. In the wedding feast, Cleopatra openly flirts with Hercules and mocks the side-show performers. When a very ill Hans is saved by a doctor that tells that he has been cruelly poisoned, the other freaks snoops in Hans trailer and they find what Cleopatra is doing with him. In a stormy night, all the freaks join forces and transform Cleopatra in the Feathered Hen. Although not shown in the DVD, which has the commercial alternative version, in the original story Hercules is castrated and becomes a soprano singer. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil