Atletico were simply blown away by the speed of Dortmund's counter attacks, and they had no answer.
The game enjoyed a low-key start, with both teams working hard to dominate posession. Antoine Griezmann had an early snapshot deflected wide for a corner.
The first big chance of the first half fell to the young American Christian Pulisic. After a lightning-fast Dortmund counter attack, Pulisic's curled effort from just inside the box flew disappointingly far over.
However, it wouldn't be long before Axel Witsel opened the scoring for BVB, albeit in fortunate circumstances.
The Belgian collected the ball on the edge of the box in the 38th minute, before firing a low shot in Jan Oblak's general direction.
However, a wicked deflection off of Saul meant that Oblak could do nothing but watch as the ball trickled across the line.
24 October 2018
Circumstances aside, the goal changed the direction of the first half. Dortmund were spurred on by the goal, and Dan-Axel Zagadou might have doubled their lead before the break.
From a corner, the centre-back's powerful run allowed him to beat everybody to the ball, but when he got there he could only divert his header wide.
After the break, Atletico though they had pulled the game level through Diego Costa, when he put the ball in the net in the 52nd minute after Saul's shot rebounded off the upright of the goal.
However, he was rightly denied by the offside flag.
A late flurry of Dortmund goals was started by substitute Raphael Guerreiro, when he doubled Dortmund's lead.
Achraf Hakimi fired an inch-perfect cross into Guerreiro's feet, who had the simplest of tasks to put the ball past Oblak.
24 October 2018
The next man on the scoresheet was English starlet Jadon Sancho, another substitute for Dortmund, ten minutes later.
A rapid counter-attack from BVB left Atletico's defence totally exposed, and after Hakimi played the ball across to Sancho, he only had to fire into an empty net.
24 October 2018
By now Atletico were coming part at the seams, stunned by an extraordinary Dortmund performance. Captain Diego Godin had to be pulled away from Mario Gotze as the two squared off in the closing minutes.
There was still time for Dortmund to deal Atletico one final blow - not a fatal one, for the Rojiblanco were already dead, but one final humiliation nonetheless.
Filipe Luis played an awful, lazy ball across his own penalty area, and Raphael Guerreiro was in the right place to slot past a blameless Oblak to make it four, and two for him.
24 October 2018
Atletico will take some time to recover from this drubbing. It's rare that they concede at all, let alone four in one game in the Champions League.
However, Dortmund can be hugely proud of a result that will signal their intent in the competition, and mark them out as serious contenders for the trophy.