Top 50 German-Language Films
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- DirectorHans-Jürgen SyberbergStarsHeinz SchubertPeter KernHellmut LangeDirector Hans-Jurgen Syberberg examines the rise and fall of the Third Reich in this brooding seven-hour masterpiece, which incorporates puppetry, rear-screen projection, and a Wagnerian score into a singular epic vision. Syberberg, who grew up under Nazi tyranny, ruminates on good and evil and the rest of humanity's complicity in the horrors of the holocaust.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsLotte EisnerWolfgang BüttnerManfred EigendorfFootage shot in and around the Sahara Desert, accompanied only by a spoken creation myth and the songs of Leonard Cohen.
- DirectorStephen DwoskinCarola RegnierStarsStephen DwoskinCarola RegnierThe film expresses the emotional feelings of a man with special needs, and a beautiful woman.
- DirectorJürgen ReblePASSION is a film diary in which Reble accompanies his unborn child through the year, following the seasons until his birth. Reble's unfamiliar chemistry generates slowly pulsating structures and colors. Micro and macroscopic imagery build a near abstract, hypnotic landscape - an intimate perception of creation.
- DirectorGustav DeutschFragments of several (mostly) silent films are shown. They're guided by quotes from, among others, Plato and Sappho and a soundtrack.
- DirectorWerner NekesAn experimental short film in which scenery and landscape are filmed from the viewpoint of secluded house.
- DirectorRainer Werner FassbinderStarsAnna KarinaMargit CarstensenBrigitte MiraBoth parents of a young teen who walks with crutches secretly meet their lovers, who both surprise each other at the family's country home. The daughter arrives and initiates a guessing game of "Chinese roulette."
- DirectorAlexander KlugeStarsAlexandra KlugeFranz BronskiBion SteinbornRoswitha is working to carry out illegal abortions, to support her husband and two children. The police discovers her and the husband is arrested. Roswitha gets involved in social work and politics.
- DirectorDanièle HuilletJean-Marie StraubStarsChristian HeinischNazzareno BianconiMario AdorfAfter making the domestic servant pregnant, a woman who doubles his age, a young man of only seventeen years from the German bourgeoisie is sent by his family to the United States in order to avoid a huge scandal.
- DirectorMichael PilzAn epic documentary in two parts about life in the Styrian mountain village of St. Anna.
- DirectorDietmar BrehmAfter an introductory sequence with the tip of a popular and a neo-gothic house one sees a horde of found-footage actors and actresses in gloomy sexual encounters.
- DirectorHarun FarockiStarsUlrike GroteHarun FarockiDocumentary examines the 'blind spot' of the evaluators of aerial footage of the IG Farben industrial plant taken by the Americans in 1944.
- DirectorValie ExportStarsSusanne WidlPeter WeibelJosef PlavecAnna, an artist, is obsessed with the invasion of alien doubles bent on total destruction. Her schizophrenia is reflected in the juxtapositions of long movie camera takes with violently edited montages: private with public spaces; black & white with colour, still photographs with video, earsplitting sounds with disruptive camera angles. Anna uses her body like a map; after a devastating quarrel with her lover, she paints red stitches on herself. Watching their scenes together, we realize how seldom, if ever before, the details of sexual intimacy have been shown in film from the point of view from a woman. Export privileges rupture over unity and never settles for one-dimensional solutions (Artforum, Nov. 1980)
- DirectorPeter TscherkasskyA woman goes to bed, falls asleep, and begins to dream. This dream takes her to a landscape of light and shadow, evoked in a form only possible through classic cinematography.
- DirectorMartin ArnoldStarsMickey RooneyJudy GarlandGrace HayesMickey Rooney and Judy Garland perform a hellish courtship in a nightmare of the American dream, created by manipulating old film.
- DirectorWerner SchroeterStarsMagdalena MontezumaChristine KaufmannCandy DarlingThis is about the life and myths about famous opera singer Maria Malibran (1808-1836). She died on the stage.
- DirectorHanns Walter KornblumStarsPaul BildtWilly Kaiser-HeylTheodor LoosDocumentary on physics and astronomy.
- DirectorRichard OswaldStarsHans StüweRenée HéribelAlfred AbelCagliostro, an Italian adventurer rises through the French aristocracy on account of his magical tricks, medical knowledge and ability to foretell the future. When he falls from grace after a divination that predicts a dire future for Marie Antoinette, he sets in motion a plan that will result in revenge, but at a great price.
- DirectorUrsula PuerrerA. Hans ScheirlDietmar SchipekStarsSusana HelmayrUrsula PuerrerA. Hans ScheirlFlaming Ears is a pop sci-fi lesbian fantasy feature set in the year 2700 in the fictive burned-out city of Asche. It follows the tangled lives of three women - Volley, Nun and Spy.
- DirectorPeter KubelkaStarsArnulf RainerArnulf Rainer contorts his mind and body before the camera.
- DirectorSiegfried A. Fruhauf
- DirectorF.W. MurnauStarsEmil JanningsMaly DelschaftMax HillerAn aging doorman is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbors and society after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel.
- DirectorUlrike OttingerStarsTabea BlumenscheinLutzeMagdalena MontezumaA woman presented as a "trinkerin" is having a special tour in Berlin. She bought herself a single-way ticket and will drink everywhere she can.
- DirectorHeinz Emigholz
- DirectorSlatan DudowStarsHertha ThieleErnst BuschMartha WolterDuring Great Depression, a family is evicted from their apartment and with no other option they move to a tent camp called Kuhle Wampe.
- DirectorMichael HanekeStarsBirgit DollDieter BernerLeni TanzerA European family who plan on escaping to Australia seem caught up in their daily routine, only troubled by minor incidents. However, behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, they are actually planning something sinister.
- DirectorUlrich KöhlerStarsIsabelle MenkeHans-Jochen WagnerAmber BongardFrieder and his wife Nina, a doctor, are fixing up their house, though their relationship is obviously strained. Instead of picking up their young daughter Charlotte, Nina drives off to visit her brother Christoph in an isolated cabin. From there, she cycles to a sports hotel in the woods where she stays. Aimlessly wandering around the hotel, she has a brief encounter with an old tennis pro who has been giving demonstrations. Her brother, Frieder, and Charlotte find her, but she does not come home with them. After all the old windows have been removed, Frieder rejects the replacement ones that are delivered. Frieder has a liaison an old girlfriend Maria, who is now Charlotte's nursery school teacher. Nina returns to the house without windows.
- DirectorGerald KarglStarsErwin LederRobert Hunger-BühlerSilvia RyderA troubled man gets released from prison and starts taking out his sadistic fantasies on an unsuspecting family living in a secluded house.
- DirectorChristoph SchlingensiefStarsMargit CarstensenPeter KernSusanne BredehöftGermany, right after the re-unification. The people are out of control, blind hatred towards immigrants is common sense. In this time, a social-worker, with the mission to bring a Polish family to their destination (an immigration camp in a little provincial town called Rassau), gets kidnapped just as the family. Chief inspector Koern and his girl-friend start to investigate in this matter in Rassau, exploring a world of obsessive sex, mislead lust and an over-whelming irrational love to the German nation, infiltrating anyone's mind. Rascism doesn't start with shaved hair and boots but rather in the middle of society itself... origins unknown??
- DirectorPeter Gidal
- DirectorCurtis BernhardtStarsMarlene DietrichFritz KortnerFrida RichardOn his honeymoon with a bride he has wed for business reasons, a man falls for a woman who is in the clutches of a sinister character.After this woman begs him to help her escape, he plots to do so using the opportunity of a masked ball.
- DirectorAngela SchanelecStarsUrsina LardiAndreas PattonAnne TismerA woman faces a variety of emotional crises as she spends the summer interacting in various ways with friends, family, and lovers.
- DirectorHelma Sanders-BrahmsStarsEva MattesErnst JacobiElisabeth StepanekGermany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.
- DirectorMaren AdeStarsLars EidingerBirgit MinichmayrHans-Jochen WagnerWhile on a Mediterranean vacation, a seemingly happy boyfriend and girlfriend find their connection to one another tested as they bond with another couple.
- DirectorOtto RippertStarsOlaf FønssErnst LudwigAdolf PaulFoenss, a Danish star, is the perfect creature manufactured in a laboratory by Kuehne. Having discovered his origins, that he has no 'soul' and is incapable of love, he revenges himself on mankind, instigating revolutions and becoming a monstrous but beautiful tyrant, relentlessly pursued by his creator-father who seeks to rectify his mistake.
- DirectorManfred NeuwirthA personal audio-visual notebook from Tibet (1988 - 1995). The everyday things, the breathtaking light, the enoyment of the common, the second look, the love for the detail, memories.
- DirectorMara MattuschkaStarsMara MattuschkaMax MinusAutobiographical notes about bringing up children. A birth, the bite in the umbilical cord, a baby between sheets of music. Mimi fiddles educationally on a violin without strings, offers her breast and enjoys the little king with an improvised hysterical performance, and suddenly starts with Dadaistic oracles, letting the blead dance and carrying the child out into big wide world.
- DirectorLisl PongerA woman stands alone at the railing of a passenger liner and gazes into the blue. She will remember for us an arrival in New York, the walk of a young couple through Chinatown, the house boats in Shanghai and the excited children who gather round the visitor with the obscure picture machine. Beneath the pictures the sounds of distant lands can be heard and, in parallel, a montage of various memories and people unfolds. People who at some time either left or arrived in Vienna involuntarily. (Christa Blümlinger)
- DirectorManfred NoaStarsFritz GreinerCarl de VogtLia EibenschützOne of the main works of the Age of Enlightenment, a powerful plea in favour of tolerance, humanity and freedom of opinion. Set in the age of the crusades, it deals with the relations between the three monotheistic religions. Lessing includes the historical figure of Sultan Saladin, the Jewish merchant Nathan is a portrait of his friend, the renowned philosopher Moses Mendelssohn - when the play was published in 1779, this was considered breaching a taboo.
- DirectorLinda Christanell
- DirectorRichard OswaldStarsConrad VeidtLeo ConnardIlse von Tasso-LindTwo male musicians fall in love, but blackmail and scandal makes the affair take a tragic turn.
- DirectorAleksandr SokurovStarsJohannes ZeilerAnton AdasinskyIsolda DychaukA despairing scholar sells his soul to Satan in exchange for one night with a beautiful young woman.
- DirectorCurt GoetzStarsTheodor LoosHermann VallentinIsabel HeermannDespite his wish to become a pastor, Friedrich Schiller is ordered to join a military school. There, he begins to write poetry...
- DirectorAlexandre VolkoffStarsIvan MozzhukhinLil DagoverBetty AmannHis son and mother in peril at the hands of his enemies, a banished Caucasian warrior is forced to make an alliance with the Russians.
- DirectorFerdinand KhittlStarsFriedrich JoloffErnst MarbeckWilfried SchröpferFeature-documentary "pointing up a thousand facets of this world and probing to determine what may lie beneath the surface".
- DirectorKarl GruneStarsAnton EdthoferAud Egede-NissenLeonhard HaskelPresents two distinct plot lines until the two eventually merge: the first is that of the bored middle-aged man seeking a departure from monotony in his life; the second is that of the blind man and the little boy, his grandson, who are interdependent. None of the characters have been given names and are therefore referred to only by description. The city is an expressionistic nightmare, a dangerous and chaotic place.
- DirectorVictor TrivasStarsHorst FrankKarin KernkeHelmut SchmidA scientist invents a serum that keeps a dog's head alive after its body dies.
- DirectorRoland KlickStarsMario AdorfMarquard BohmAnthony DawsonIn a deserted mining town at the end of nowhere three desperate men fight over a suitcase full of cash.
- DirectorWalter RuttmannStarsPaul von HindenburgThis movie shows us one day in Berlin, the rhythm of that time, starting at the earliest morning and ends in the deepest night.
- DirectorElla Bergmann-MichelStarsRobert Michel