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Essential German Cinema

M (1931)
Fritz Lang · 59 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, YouTube Free, Plex · Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 55 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.
Metropolis (1927)
Fritz Lang · 41 critic votes
Free on JustWatch TV, Darkroom, Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, fuboTV, FlixFling
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Werner Herzog · 30 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, YouTube Free, Pluto TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, fuboTV
A few decades after the destruction of the Inca Empire, a Spanish expedition led by the infamous Aguirre leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon River in search of the lost city of El Dorado. When great difficulties arise, Aguirre’s men start to wonder whether their quest will lead them to prosperity or certain death.
Paris, Texas (1984)
Wim Wenders · 23 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, Shout! Factory TV, Plex · Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel
A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.
Nosferatu (1922)
F. W. Murnau · 18 critic votes
Free on Public Domain Movies, FlixHouse, JustWatch TV · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Shudder, Kanopy
The mysterious Count Orlok summons a happily married real estate agent to his castle, located up in the Transylvanian mountains, to finalise a terrifying deal.
Wings of Desire (1987)
Wim Wenders · 16 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
The White Ribbon (2009)
Michael Haneke · 15 critic votes
An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.
The Last Laugh (1924)
F. W. Murnau · 13 critic votes
Free on JustWatch TV, DistroTV · Streaming on Hoopla, Kino Film Collection
An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel, is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.
Pandora's Box (1929)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst · 13 critic votes
Free on JustWatch TV, Darkroom, Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel
The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 12 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Werner Herzog · 12 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, fuboTV
Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
Lotte Reiniger, Carl Koch · 11 critic votes
Free on Darkroom · Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel, Cultpix
Taken from The Arabian Nights, a wicked sorcerer and the beautiful prince Achmed battle one against the other during a series of wondrous adventures.
In a Year of 13 Moons (1978)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 11 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Elvira Weishaupt, once a burly working-class butcher, has made an enormous sacrifice for love. She has undergone a sex change for a romantic interest who has abandoned her, and she now must struggle to reconcile her past life with her present identity.
Toni Erdmann (2016)
Maren Ade · 10 critic votes
Convinced that his daughter has forgotten how to laugh, a father shows up unannounced while she's living abroad and bombards her with outrageous jokes.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Robert Wiene · 9 critic votes
Free on Public Domain Movies, FlixHouse, JustWatch TV · Streaming on Shudder, Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel
Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.
Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
Leontine Sagan · 9 critic votes
Streaming on Hoopla, Kino Film Collection
A sensitive girl is sent to an all-girls boarding school and develops a romantic attachment to one of her teachers.
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 9 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
In late 1920s Berlin, Franz Biberkopf is released from prison and vows to go straight. However, he soon finds himself embroiled in the city’s criminal underworld.
People on Sunday (1930)
Curt Siodmak, Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Fred Zinnemann, Rochus Gliese · 8 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.
The Lives of Others (2006)
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck · 8 critic votes
Streaming on Sony Pictures Core Amazon Channel
In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.
The Blue Angel (1930)
Josef von Sternberg · 7 critic votes
Free on Darkroom, Tubi TV, Mometu · Streaming on Kanopy, Kino Film Collection, Fawesome
Prim professor Immanuel Rath finds some of his students ogling racy photos of cabaret performer Lola Lola and visits a local club, The Blue Angel, in an attempt to catch them there. Seeing Lola perform, the teacher is filled with lust, eventually resigning his position at the school to marry the young woman. However, his marriage to a coquette -- whose job is to entice men -- proves to be more difficult than Rath imagined.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Fritz Lang · 7 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum, he observes the professor's preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist. When Mabuse's notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor's whereabouts, and capture him for good.
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922)
Fritz Lang · 6 critic votes
Free on Public Domain Movies, Darkroom · Streaming on Kanopy, Fawesome
Dr. Mabuse and his organization of criminals are in the process of completing their latest scheme, a theft of information that will allow Mabuse to make huge profits on the stock exchange. Afterwards, Mabuse disguises himself and attends the Folies Bergères show, where Cara Carozza, the main attraction of the show, passes him information on Mabuse's next intended victim, the young millionaire Edgar Hull. Mabuse then uses psychic manipulation to lure Hull into a card game where he loses heavily. When Police Commissioner von Wenk begins an investigation of this mysterious crime spree, he has little to go on, and he needs to find someone who can help him.
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)
Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet · 6 critic votes
Streaming on Fandor, Hoopla
The life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach as presented by his wife, Anna.
Fox and His Friends (1975)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 6 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. He enters an abusive relationship with wealthy industrialist Eugen in an attempt to climb the social ladder. His desperation for love and affection soon spirals into tragedy.
Faust (1926)
F. W. Murnau · 5 critic votes
Free on JustWatch TV, Darkroom · Streaming on Kanopy, Kino Film Collection, Fawesome
God and Satan wager on the soul of a learned and prayerful alchemist as part of their eternal war over Earth.
Alice in the Cities (1974)
Wim Wenders · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
German journalist Philip Winter has a case of writer’s block when trying to write an article about the United States. He decides to return to Germany, and while trying to book a flight, encounters a German woman and her nine year old daughter Alice doing the same. The three become friends (almost out of necessity) and while the mother asks Winter to mind Alice temporarily, it quickly becomes apparent that Alice will be his responsibility for longer than he expected.
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
Werner Herzog · 5 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, Shout! Factory TV, Plex · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, Shout! Factory Amazon Channel
The film follows Kaspar Hauser, who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.
Heimat (1984)
Edgar Reitz · 5 critic votes
Spanning 1919 to 1982, in the fictional village of Schabbach, live Maria Simon and her family, whose lives and community are changed by historical events around them.
Klassenverhältnisse (1984)
Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub · 5 critic votes
Free on Fandor, Cineverse
A young man, recently arrived in New York from Europe, becomes swept up in a series of events that are beyond his knowledge or control.
Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989)
Harun Farocki · 5 critic votes
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
Farocki’s intriguing and troubling film explores the processes of visual perception and how they affect our understanding of history and society. In a work reminiscent of the writings of Paul Virilio and Michel Foucault, Farocki examines a range of phenomena including aerial reconnaissance photos of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Head-On (2004)
Fatih Akin · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Strand Releasing Amazon Channel
With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.
Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)
Werner Herzog · 4 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Fandor, Kanopy
Through examining Fini Straubinger, an old woman who has been deaf and blind since her teens, and her work on behalf of other deaf-blind people, this film shows how the deaf-blind struggle to understand and accept a world from which they are almost wholly isolated.
Kings of the Road (1976)
Wim Wenders · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Itinerant projection-equipment repairman Bruno Winter and depressed hitchhiker Robert Lander - a doctor who has just been through a break-up with his wife and a half-hearted suicide attempt - travel along the Western side of the East-German border in a repair truck, visiting worn-out movie theaters, learning to communicate across their differences.
Stroszek (1977)
Werner Herzog · 4 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Shout! Factory TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, Shout! Factory Amazon Channel
Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck and they join his neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin.
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 4 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel
Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.
Veronika Voss (1982)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 4 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
In Munich 1955, German film star Veronika Voss becomes a drug addict at the mercy of corrupt Dr. Marianne Katz, who keeps her supplied with morphine. After meeting sports writer Robert Krohn, Veronika begins to dream of a return to stardom. As the couple's relationship escalates in intensity, Veronika begins seriously planning her return to the screen -- only to realize how debilitated she has become through her drug habit.
Johanna D'Arc of Mongolia (1989)
Ulrike Ottinger · 4 critic votes
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
A group of cosmopolitan women passengers aboard the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian Railway are taken prisoner by Ulan Iga, a warrior princess.
Run Lola Run (1998)
Tom Tykwer · 4 critic votes
Free on YouTube Free · Streaming on Hulu, Sundance Now, Sony Pictures Core Amazon Channel
Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. She has 20 minutes to raise this amount and meet Manni. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.
The Dreamed Path (2017)
Angela Schanelec · 4 critic votes
Streaming on DocAlliance Films, Film Movement Plus Amazon Channel
Theres and Kenneth are both young when they first meet whilst on holiday. They fall in love but are unable to prevent themselves from losing each other. Thirty years later, in another country, another couple: Ariane leaves her husband David because she no longer loves him. The paths they both take lead them to Kenneth and Theres.
Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927)
Walter Ruttmann · 3 critic votes
Free on Darkroom · Streaming on GuideDoc, Kanopy, IndieFlix
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
Spies (1928)
Fritz Lang · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Philo, Fawesome
The mastermind behind a ubiquitous spy operation learns of a dangerous romance between a Russian lady in his employ and a dashing agent from the government's secret service.
Olympia (1938)
Leni Riefenstahl · 3 critic votes
Free on FlixHouse, Mometu · Streaming on Criterion Channel, FlixFling
Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959)
Fritz Lang · 3 critic votes
Free on The Roku Channel, Plex, Plex Channel · Streaming on Kanopy
In Eschnapur, a German architect saves the life of the Maharajah's favorite temple dancer and becomes Maharajah's friend but their friendship is tested when the architect and the dancer fall in-love, triggering the Maharajah's vengeful ire.
Fata Morgana (1970)
Werner Herzog · 3 critic votes
Free on Fandor, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, Philo
Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing for the camera something which is not there. It is about the mirages of nature—and the nature of mirage.
Hitler: A Film from Germany (1977)
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg · 3 critic votes
A structure-free, four-part examination of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Each part explores a different topic, from Hitler's cult of personality in propaganda to how said propaganda was associated with pre-Nazi German cultural, spiritual, and national heritage to the Holocaust and the ideology behind it, particularly from Himmler's point of view.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Werner Herzog · 3 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel
A real estate agent leaves behind his beautiful wife to go to Transylvania to visit the mysterious Count Dracula and formalize the purchase of a property in Wismar.
Ticket of No Return (1979)
Ulrike Ottinger · 3 critic votes
Streaming on MUBI Amazon Channel, DocAlliance Films
A sartorially resplendent woman of few words arrives in Berlin with plans to live out the rest of her days as a drunkard.
Marianne and Juliane (1981)
Margarethe von Trotta · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
Germany, 1968: The priest's daughters Marianna and Juliane both fight for changes in society, like making abortion legal. However their means are totally different: while Juliane's committed as a reporter, her sister joins a terroristic organization. After she's caught by the police and put into isolation jail, Juliane remains as her last connection to the rest of the world. Although she doesn't accept her sister's arguments and her boyfriend Wolfgang doesn't want her to, Juliane keeps on helping her sister. She begins to question the way her sister is treated.
How to Live in the German Federal Republic (1990)
Harun Farocki · 3 critic votes
A series of 32 short scenes, uniformly set in West German instructional and training classes, that show various tasks among the citizenry being done solely as the result of exhaustive preparation - everything from women preparing to give birth, to strippers stripping, to policemen making arrests. Farocki uses the material to savagely dissect the West German mode of life.
Die zweite Heimat – Chronik einer Jugend (1992)
Edgar Reitz · 3 critic votes
The movie consist of 13 separate episodes each handling a period between 1960 and 1970. It tells the story of a group of people in Munich (mostly music and film students). The movie tells a story in many different levels about love, friendship, misfortune, loss, art, politics, history with important historic events of the decennium in the background.
Videograms of a Revolution (1992)
Andrei Ujică, Harun Farocki · 3 critic votes
A minute-by-minute chronology of the Romanian revolution in December 1989 in Bucharest. This cinematic montage of live footage from the state television company TVR and video taken by numerous amateurs becomes a new media-based form of historiography.
Western (2017)
Valeska Grisebach · 3 critic votes
A group of German construction workers set out for a foreign construction site in the Bulgarian province. The strange country awakens adventure feelings among the men. At the same time, they are confronted with their prejudices and mistrust. For two of the men, a nearby village becomes the stage for a competition for the recognition and favor of the village.
Die Nibelungen (1924)
Fritz Lang · 2 critic votes
Free on JustWatch TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Fawesome
Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.
Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World? (1932)
Slatan Dudow · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”
The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960)
Fritz Lang · 2 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, Plex, Plex Channel
A reporter is murdered while driving to his job. The Police are contacted by a clairvoyant who saw the death in a vision, but some dark force is preventing him from seeing the man behind the crime...
Not Reconciled (1965)
Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet · 2 critic votes
A story about the continuity and collapse of history, the power of suppression, and the terror of reconciliation; loyalty, treason and revenge. In a brave cinematic game, Heinrich Böll’s story Billiards at Half-Past Nine is split up into cracks, blocks, breaks and sudden turns, as the life story of a German family, covering numerous generations, is propelled forward.
Eika Katappa (1969)
Werner Schroeter · 2 critic votes
Collage of dramatic scenes, some exaggerated to comic effect, with asynchronous sound from well known classic, operatic, and rock and roll music – with different approaches to love, suffering, and death.
Beware of a Holy Whore (1971)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Film director Jeff and his lead actor are taking their time getting to set. In their absence, the crew lack a purposeful way to spend their time waiting, so they drink heavily. However, as booze is downed and frustration sets in, morale hits rock bottom.
Sylvie (1973)
Klaus Lemke · 2 critic votes
Fashion model Sylvie falls asleep drunk in the cab of Munich taxi driver Paul, and an impossible love affair beckons.
World on a Wire (1973)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
In the future, Simulacron, a computer project simulating reality, encounters strange occurrences after its leader's death. Dr. Stiller questions the sudden disappearance of a friend and wonders if Simulacron holds the answers.
Martha (1974)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
After the death of her abusive father, lonely librarian Martha finds herself caught up in a strange, sadomasochistic relationship with a monstrous husband whom she begins to suspect may be trying to murder her.
Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven (1975)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Frau Emma Küsters prepares dinner late one seemingly-ordinary afternoon in her seemingly-ordinary Frankfurt kitchen. She wants to add canned sausages to the stew; her irritating daughter-in-law thinks otherwise. But the point is moot: Ernst Küsters has not only murdered the personnel director at the soap factory where he's employed but succeeded that by committing suicide.
The American Friend (1977)
Wim Wenders · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.
The All-Around Reduced Personality: Outtakes (1978)
Helke Sander · 2 critic votes
Edda Chiemnyjewski, a freelance press photographer and single mother living in 1970s West Berlin, is confronted with the fact that "a cook has no time for affairs of state". She also fails to find a market for the project she has been working on with her women′s photography group that seeks to document the city. While from today′s perspective the city, which becomes one of the film′s protagonists, looks like post-war Berlin, little has actually changed as regards the precarious existence of free-lancers. With a heavy dose of self-irony Helke Sander, who also plays the leading role, tells of a divided life in a divided city.
The Third Generation (1979)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
A wildly anarchic satire of guerrilla terrorism in which a band of leftist radicals inadvertently become puppets of the West German government, which uses them to justify its authoritarian policies.
The Tin Drum (1979)
Volker Schlöndorff · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
Das Boot (1981)
Wolfgang Petersen · 2 critic votes
Free on YouTube Free · Streaming on fuboTV, Howdy Amazon Channel
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
Parsifal (1982)
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Bernard Sobel · 2 critic votes
A psychological interpretation of the opera mixing in references to the history of Germany, Wagner’s life, German literature and philosophy. The action is centered on Wagner’s death mask. Kundry is the main character – one might read the film as the story of her redemption rather than that of Amfortas.
Johnny Flash (1987)
Werner Nekes · 2 critic votes
Jurgen is an unknown electrician with a dream of pop stardom. His mother browbeats him into fame, while two managers compete for his contract. All Johnny really wants to do is get some sleep.
After Winter Comes Spring (1988)
Helke Misselwitz · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
A locomotive journey traversing the North to the South of the German Democratic Republic on the eve of its dissolution. Labourers, punks, mothers, intellectuals, young and old are implored to reflect on their life choices, the sacrifices they've made, and their place in the world. Despite everything, hope persists.
Material (2009)
Thomas Heise · 2 critic votes
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
"Pictures from the late eighties in the GDR on up to the immediate present in the year 2008 in Germany. What has been left over besieges my mind. All these pictures keep reassembling themselves to make up something which they were originally not made for. They are still in motion. They are becoming history." (Thomas Heise)
¡Vivan las Antipodas! (2011)
Victor Kossakovsky · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Fandor
What would be the shortest route between Entre Rios in Argentina and the Chinese metropolis Shanghai? Simply a straight line through the center of the earth, since the two places are antipodes: they are located diametrically opposite to each other on the earth's surface. During his visits to four such antipodal pairs, the award-winning documentary filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky captured images that turn our view of the world upside down.
Barbara (2012)
Christian Petzold · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Kino Film Collection
In 1980s East Germany, Berlin doctor Barbara is banished to a country medical clinic for applying for an exit visa. Deeply unhappy with her reassignment and fearful of her co-workers as possible Stasi informants, Barbara stays aloof, especially from the good-natured clinic head, Andre.
Phoenix (2014)
Christian Petzold · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Sundance Now, Kanopy, MUBI Amazon Channel
In the aftermath of WWII, German-Jewish cabaret singer Nelly has to undergo facial reconstructive surgery following her survival from Auschwitz. Without recognising Nelly, her former husband Johnny asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. To see if he's betrayed her, she agrees, becoming her own doppelgänger.
The Flying Train (1902)
· 1 critic vote
The Flying Train depicts a ride on a suspended railway. The footage is almost as impressive as the feat of engineering it captures. For many years our curators believed our Mutoscope rolls were slightly shrunken 70mm film, but they were actually shot on Biograph’s proprietary 68mm stock. Formats like Biograph’s 68mm and Fox’s 70mm Grandeur are of particular interest to researchers visiting the Film Study Center because the large image area affords stunning visual clarity and quality, especially compared to the more standard 35mm or 16mm stocks.
The Oyster Princess (1919)
Ernst Lubitsch · 1 critic vote
Free on Darkroom · Streaming on Kino Film Collection
A pampered American oyster tycoon decides to buy a husband for his daughter, but things don’t go quite as planned. Along the way there are mishaps, misunderstandings and a foxtrot sequence that must be seen to be believed.
Cinderella (1922)
Lotte Reiniger · 1 critic vote
Lotte Reiniger's interpretation of Grimm's recorded version of Aschenputtel (Cinderella) from 1922.
Sylvester (1923)
Lupu Pick · 1 critic vote
A man must choose between his mother and his wife as the rivalry ratchets up throughout New Year's Eve. Like Pick's previous films, New Year's Eve does not use intertitles.
The Hands of Orlac (1924)
Robert Wiene · 1 critic vote
Free on JustWatch TV, Darkroom, Bloodstream · Streaming on Kanopy, Fawesome, Bloodstream
A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he is horrified to learn they once belonged to a murderer.
Joyless Street (1925)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst · 1 critic vote
Free on JustWatch TV, Cineverse, Mometu · Streaming on Fandor Amazon Channel, Fawesome
In 1921, we follow two women - Marie and Grete - from the same poor Viennese neighborhood, as they try to better the lives of themselves and their families during the period of Austrian postwar hyperinflation.
München-Berlin Wanderung (1927)
Oskar Fischinger · 1 critic vote
In 1927, motivated by a longing for freedom, Fischinger set off on a walking trip from Munich to Berlin. Covering the distance in nearly four weeks, he captured the country’s hidden beauty. His voyage serves as a symbolical transition and underlines a belief that people are the same everywhere.
Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928)
Hans Richter · 1 critic vote
Hans Richter, noted for his abstract shorts, has everyday objects rebelling against their daily routine.
Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Kino Film Collection
Thymian Henning, an innocent young girl, is raped by the clerk of her father's pharmacy. She becomes pregnant, is rejected by her family, and must fend for herself in a harsh, cruel world.
Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness (1929)
Phil Jutzi · 1 critic vote
Mutter Krause, her daughter Erna and her son Paul live in a tenement in the poorer section of Berlin's Wedding district. Along with them lives "the Tenant", his soon-to-be bride Friede, who works as a prostitute, and her child whose name isn't revealed in the film. Mutter Krause is a quiet, long-suffering old woman who earns what little she can delivering newspapers. However, Paul is an alcoholic and spends all her money on drink. Mutter Krause can't pay back the money she owes the man whose newspapers she delivered and he accuses her of stealing and threatens her with arrest. Mutter Krause must then pawn her last valuable possession, a treasured memento of her late husband. Paul then breaks into the same pawn shop. He gets away but is later arrested. Meanwhile, Erna begins dating a young man with Communist views, who turns Erna to Communism and also helps her earn the money her mother needs by more honest means.
The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna (1929)
Hanns Schwarz · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV
This silent-screen classic, like many others produced near the end of the silent era, was both a theatrical extravaganza boasting an original orchestral score and an item which languished in obscurity for many years. When Carlo Piccardi took what was left of the score by Maurice Jaubert and re-created it, the existing footage was restored and paired with a new orchestral performance which was shown in Paris in 1988. The film's story concerns the travails of a woman who has been living quite comfortably as the mistress of a colonel in the Tsar's army in Russia. However, she eventually encounters a penniless young lieutenant and falls madly in love with him, as he does with her. Despite her best intentions of remaining with the colonel, and his intention to avoid trouble with his fellow soldiers, they cannot forswear this relationship, and tragedy is the inevitable result. The title refers to a moving incident in the story, and translates as "the wonderful lie of Nina Petrovna."
Weekend (1930)
Walter Ruttmann · 1 critic vote
Wochende (Weekend) is a film initially commissioned by the Berlin Radio Hour. Prior to Weekend, Ruttmann had made numerous celebrated avant-garde films, namely Opus I-IV, and the spectacular Berlin: Symphony of a City (1927). The advent of sound films dawned, and, interested in how spectators perceive sound, he premiered a film without pictures. On June 13th, 1930, the audience took their seats, the lights went down, and the sound of the film was heard. But the screen was completely blank.
Comradeship (1931)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
At a mine on the shared edge of France and Germany, an underground explosion leads to the entrapment of a group of French miners. In an effort to save the trapped Frenchmen, German miners Wittkopp and Kasper take it upon themselves to traverse a crumbling war tunnel leading down into the mines. Yet, though the workers harbor no political biases against one another, their callous, less tolerant bosses hope to halt this cross-cultural rescue mission.
The Threepenny Opera (1931)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel
In London at the turn of the century, underworld kingpin Mack the Knife marries Polly Peachum without the knowledge of her father, the equally enterprising 'king of the beggars'.
Liebelei (1933)
Max Ophüls · 1 critic vote
Vienna in the beginning of the twentieth century. Cavalry Lieutenant Fritz Lobheimer is about to end his affair with Baroness Eggerdorff when he meets the young Christine, the daughter of an opera violinist. Baron Eggerdorff however soon hears of his past misfortune...
Triumph of the Will (1935)
Leni Riefenstahl · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, FlixFling, Cultpix
A showcase of German chancellor and Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.
The Great Sacrifice (1944)
Veit Harlan · 1 critic vote
Äls, a young woman from Sweden living in Hamburg in the summer months attracts a newly married explorer, Albrecht Froben who has just returned to his native city. But although Äls seems to be 'life itself', she suffers from a tropical disease which is slowly killing her. Froben is torn between Äls and his wife Octavia, who he seen as a kind of 'heavenly' counterpart to the earthy and beguiling Äls.
Motion Painting No. 1 (1947)
Oskar Fischinger · 1 critic vote
Motion Painting No. 1 is a 1947 experimental short animated film in which film artist Oskar Fischinger put images in motion to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, BWV 1048. It is a film of a painting (oil on acrylic glass); Fischinger filmed each brushstroke over the course of 9 months. In 1997, this film was selected for inclusion in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2000.
Der Verlorene (1951)
Peter Lorre · 1 critic vote
A German scientist murders his fiancée during World War II when he learns that she has been selling the results of his secret research to the enemy.
The Last Ten Days (1955)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst · 1 critic vote
Albin Skoda embodies a frantic Adolf Hitler in his last days, scrambling to keep the Third Reich alive as morale within the bunker wanes and Berlin is encircled by enemy troops. Based on Michael A. Musmanno's book Ten Days to Die, Oscar Werner costars as fictional Nazi Hauptmann Wüst, a disillusioned middleman.
The Glass Tower (1957)
Harald Braun · 1 critic vote
Katja Fleming has given up her job as an actress and married the business man Robert Fleming. But the cold that surrounds her in her modern, luxurious high-rise makes her lonely. Then she meets the author John Lawrence, who wants to convince her to perform in his new play.
The Indian Tomb (1959)
Fritz Lang · 1 critic vote
Free on The Roku Channel · Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla
Seetha and Harold Berger are rescued from the desert by a caravan and brought to a small village. However, the greedy owner of the house where they are lodged betrays the law of hospitality and reveals their location to Prince Ramigani. The couple tries to escape but is hunted and captured by Ramigani and his men. Meanwhile Irene Rhode and her husband Walter Rhode suspect that Maharaja Chandra is not telling the truth about Harold's destiny. The conspirator Ramigani forces Seetha to accept to get married with Chandra to provoke the wrath of the priests and get the alliance of Prince Padhu and his army. In the meantime, Harold succeeds in escaping from the dungeon and seeks out Seetha to save her.
Die Parallelstrasse (1962)
Ferdinand Khittl · 1 critic vote
Feature-documentary "pointing up a thousand facets of this world and probing to determine what may lie beneath the surface".
Ödenwaldstetten (1964)
Peter Nestler · 1 critic vote
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
Portrait of a small south German village and its residents in the early sixties. Rural culture is undergoing a transformation caused by the intrusion of the industrial world. Gestures at work and words of its inhabitants.
In der Fremde (1967)
Klaus Wildenhahn · 1 critic vote
Over two months of a 1967 recession, Klaus Wildenhahn's camera follows a crew of itinerant workers building a grain silo in rural Oldenburg, working round the clock in two shifts, far from home.
Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (1968)
Alexander Kluge · 1 critic vote
A young circus director ends up going into television after her father, a trapeze performer, dies in a circus accident.
How to Build a Molotov Cocktail? (1968)
Holger Meins · 1 critic vote
Instructions on how to make a Molotov Cocktail
The Inextinguishable Fire (1969)
Harun Farocki · 1 critic vote
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
An austere treatise on the military-industrial complex that produces napalm.
Deadlock (1970)
Roland Klick · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on myfilmfriend
After pulling off a bank robbery two bandits meet in a deserted mining town to divide their loot but an old miner tries to steal it from them.
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
Werner Herzog · 1 critic vote
Free on Fandor, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, Shout! Factory Amazon Channel
A group of tormented patients stage a coup at an oppressive, dismal asylum after they're not allowed out on an excursion.
Kaldalon (1971)
Dore O. · 1 critic vote
Attracted to Nordic landscapes, [Dore O.] filmed KALDALON (1970/71) in Iceland where images of water, rocks, steam and smoke were technically enhanced to appear blue-tinged.
Der Tod der Maria Malibran (1972)
Werner Schroeter · 1 critic vote
A series of tableaux illustrating the life and death of a celebrated 19th century German opera singer.
The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Hans is a street fruit peddler and born loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However, the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.
Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland (1975)
Günter Peter Straschek · 1 critic vote
Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publish a three-volume book, encompassing all available data about 3,000 emigrants originating from the centre and peripheries of film production, but the book never materialised.
Hitlerpinochet (1975)
Juan Forch, Jörg Herrmann · 1 critic vote
This silhouette-animated short exposes the Pinochet government through comparisons to Hitler's Nazi regime.
Moses and Aaron (1975)
Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Hoopla
A familiar Biblical tale transformed into a cinematic opera of seemingly endless possibility. In expressive, melodic tones, the fraternal pair debate God’s true message and intent for His creations, a conflict that leads their followers towards chaos and sin. Set almost entirely within a Roman amphitheater whose history lends every precise line-reading and gesture, every startling camera move and cut, a totalizing force.
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975)
Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel, HBO Max
After a chance encounter with a wanted man, a woman is harassed by the police and press until she takes violent action.
Chinese Roulette (1976)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Ariane and Gerhard Christ, a wealthy Munich couple, plan for the weekend on separate trips, lying to the other about their trysts. However, their itineraries are complicated when they both arrive at the family's country home with their respective lovers.
I Only Want You to Love Me (1976)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 1 critic vote
Peter grew up during the economic miracle, bereft of parental care and love. Learning early on that interpersonal relationships are based on the principles of exchange or purchase, he abides by these rules and gives generous presents to his family and his wife, Erika. But when he is unable to keep up this lifestyle, his story takes a horrendous turn...
Materialfilme (1976)
Birgit, Wilhelm Hein · 1 critic vote
For their 35mm Materialfilme (1976), the Heins randomly spliced together a mix of colour and black and white material taken from the header and footer of commercial films. The scratches, scribbles, hand-written and commercially printed numbers and dots that adorn such footage rush past the eye until they are replaced by images consisting only of washed-out colours or scratched black and white frames.
Satan's Brew (1976)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
A famous poet who hasn't written a word in two years unconsciously plagiarizes the work of Stefan George, while dealing with several mistresses, his dimwitted brother, and a murder investigation.
In the Quarry (1977)
Jürgen Böttcher · 1 critic vote
Sculptor Makolies is filmed working on a sculpture in the middle of a quarry in Swiss Saxony. The quarry workers go about their work around him. Both the work in the quarry and the work on the large figure in sandstone require strenght and conscientiousness. This film observers both types of work, without comparing them.
The Left-Handed Woman (1977)
Peter Handke · 1 critic vote
Mourning for a lost relationship can be every bit as devastating as mourning for someone who has died. In this drama based on the director's own novel, a couple with an unhappy marriage agree to a trial separation. They try to patch things up, and at the same time other relationships begin to develop for them.
Vanessa (1977)
Hubert Frank · 1 critic vote
Following her parents' death, Vanessa was raised in a convent. Due to an inheritance, she travels to Hong Kong to learn that she inherited a chain of bordellos. Soon, Vanessa has trouble coping as she's thrust into her new world of carnal delights.
Amore (1978)
Klaus Lemke · 1 critic vote
The inconspicuous greengrocer's daughter Maria had to watch as the adored Italian Pietro broke her best friend's heart. Dressed up as a vamp, the vengeful Maria now sets a cunning trap for the attractive Papagallo. Maria is the daughter of a small German fruit and vegetable dealer, Pietro is the son of a large Italian fruit and vegetable dealer. Both live in Munich and both meet every morning at six o'clock in the Grossmarkthalle. Maria looks inconspicuous, while Pietro looks extremely attractive. Maria is hardly interested in men, whereas Pietro is interested in all girls. Maria doesn't care until Pietro first seduces Maria's best friend and then leaves her unhappy. Now Maria starts a campaign of revenge against the light-footed Casanova, in the name of her best friend and in the name of all the girls who have been seduced by Pietro. Maria lures Pietro, who is now madly in love with her, to his native Italy, where Pietro, blinded by love and jealousy, proposes to Maria.
Despair (1978)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 1 critic vote
Berlin, 1930, during the rise of Nazism. Hermann Hermann, a Russian emigrant and chocolate manufacturer, married to the capricious Lydia, loses his temper more and more every day when dealing with his workers and other businessmen; until he meets Felix, a vagrant, who seems to be physically identical to him; a disconcerting fact that leads Hermann Hermann to plot a particular way out of a fake world he actually hates.
Germany in Autumn (1978)
Alexander Kluge, Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Edgar Reitz, Alf Brustellin, Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus, Bernhard Sinkel, Katja Rupé, Hans-Peter Cloos, Peter Schubert, Maximiliane Mainka · 1 critic vote
Nine fictitious documentaries and films reflect the mood of late 1970s Germany, particularly the two-month period in 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped by the RAF (Red Army Faction). The kidnap had been made to orchestrate the release of the original leaders of the RAF, aka the Baader-Meinhof.
Madame X: An Absolute Ruler (1978)
Ulrike Ottinger · 1 critic vote
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
The notorious pirate ruler Madame X places a print ad, calling on women to escape their boring lives and promising "gold, love and adventure" to all who come aboard her ship, the Orlando. A motley crew including a housewife, diva and artist (played by Yvonne Rainer) embark on a quest for self-transformation, which quickly heads towards destruction as they are subjected to Madame X's sadistic, erotic escapades.
Neapolitan Siblings (1979)
Werner Schroeter · 1 critic vote
Thirty years of Neapolitan history (from 1942 to 1972) through the ups and downs of the Cavioli and Pagano families.
Germany, Pale Mother (1980)
Helma Sanders-Brahms · 1 critic vote
Streaming on myfilmfriend
Germany 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.
Hunger Years (1980)
Jutta Brückner · 1 critic vote
Streaming on myfilmfriend
Hungerjahre is a movie about adolescence in 1950s West Germany, in which director and scriptwriter Jutta Brückner comes to terms with her own memories.
Blind Spot (1981)
Claudia von Alemann · 1 critic vote
Streaming on myfilmfriend
The young historian Elisabeth is traveling to Lyon on her own in order to explore the city tracing the life of Flora Tristan. Tristan, whose diary Elisabeth is carrying, was a 19th century socialist and feminist who influenced many contemporary activists and intellectuals yet fell into oblivion herself. Elisabeth tries to put together the clues she can find in Lyon wanting to reconstruct Tristan's life in the most sensual way.
Christiane F. (1981)
Uli Edel · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
A teen girl in 1970s Berlin becomes addicted to heroin. Everything in her life slowly begins to distort and disappear as she befriends a small crew of junkies and falls in love with a drug-abusing male prostitute.
Freak Orlando (1981)
Ulrike Ottinger · 1 critic vote
Streaming on MUBI, MUBI Amazon Channel, DocAlliance Films
Five more-or-less distinct sections, all featuring "Freak" Orlando, a woman played by the late Magdalena Montezuma, who appears in various guises and deformities throughout.
The Angkar (1981)
Walter Heynowski, Gerhard Scheumann · 1 critic vote
The Khmer word “angkar” signifies “organization”. The angkar of the Pol-Pot regime acted upon their own, unwritten laws. Records were discovered in the central interrogation and extermination camp “S21”, the former high school Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh that document the death of 20.000 people.
Der Depp (1982)
Herbert Achternbusch · 1 critic vote
Voted for in Sight & Sound's 2022 Greatest Films of all time poll.
Der Fan (1982)
Eckhart Schmidt · 1 critic vote
The hero-worship that Simone has for a pop singer is built to a crescendo until she passes out when she finally sees him up-close in a crowd of fans. She is later shocked when he lets her know that he does not love her.
Family Tomb: A Love Poem to My Mother (1982)
Maria Lang · 1 critic vote
Streaming on myfilmfriend
A portrait of Maria Lang's mother, which is also a family portrait of the filmmaker. The film shows an excerpt from the Lang family's everyday life. It follows the parents as they go about their daily chores and small rituals.
Gedächtnis (1982)
Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander · 1 critic vote
Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander's tribute to two elders of the German stage, Curt Bois and Bernhard Minetti, who look back on their lives and their craft.
Querelle (1982)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Criterion Channel, HBO Max Amazon Channel
French sailor Querelle arrives in Brest and starts frequenting a strange whorehouse. He discovers that his brother Robert is the lover of the lady owner, Lysiane. Here, you can play dice with Nono, Lysiane's husband: if you win, you are allowed to make love with Lysiane; if you lose, you have to make love with Nono... Querelle loses on purpose.
City of Lost Souls (1983)
Rosa von Praunheim · 1 critic vote
A fictionalized account about the lurid lives of a group of eccentric cabaret artists who have come from America to Berlin looking for social acceptance and a place to give full reign to their creative nature.
The Trial (1984)
Eberhard Fechner · 1 critic vote
In over eight years of research, "Der Prozess" follows the longest criminal proceedings in Germany′s legal history - the "Majdanek Trial". In interviews with judges, the accused, victims and eye witnesses, and with the use of documentary footage and reports, the film recounts (in three parts) the legal trials against the workers and perpetrators of the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp from the first day to the pronouncement of the judgment.
Kurzer Besuch bei Hermann Glöckner (1985)
Jürgen Böttcher · 1 critic vote
This film portraits the artist and model-builder Hermann Gloeckner, who was born in Dresden in 1889. Even at the age of 96 he is still drawing with undiminished creative energy.
Rosa Luxemburg (1986)
Margarethe von Trotta · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Polish socialist and Marxist Rosa Luxemburg works tirelessly in the service of revolution in early 20th century Poland and Germany. While Luxemburg campaigns for her beliefs, she is repeatedly imprisoned as she forms the Spartacist League offering a new vision for Germany.
Bagdad Café (1987)
Percy Adlon · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Fandango at Home Free · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Night Flight Plus
A German woman named Jasmin stumbles upon a dilapidated motel/diner in the middle of nowhere. Her unusual appearance and demeanor are at first suspicious to Brenda, the exasperated owner who has difficulty making ends meet. But when an unlikely magic sparks between the two women, this lonely desert outpost is transformed into a thriving and popular oasis.
Cobra Verde (1987)
Werner Herzog · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, YouTube Free · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, Shout! Factory Amazon Channel
A fearsome 19th century bandit, Cobra Verde cuts a swath through Brazil until he arrives at the sugar plantation of Don Octávio Countinho. Not knowing that his new guest is the notorious bandit and impressed by his ruthless ways, Don Octávio hires Cobra Verde to oversee his slaves. But when Cobra Verde impregnates Don Octávio’s three daughters, the incensed plantation owner exiles the outlaw to Africa where he is expected to reopen the slave trade. Following his trans-Atlantic journey, Cobra Verde exploits tribal conflicts to commandeer an abandoned fortress and whips an army of naked warriors into a frenzied bloodlust as he vies for survival.
Fascinating Dollhouse (1987)
Uli Versum · 1 critic vote
Short experimental film about family and childhood. Features intertitles and a soundtrack of music and effects.
Nekromantik (1987)
Jörg Buttgereit · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Shudder, Night Flight Plus, AMC+
A necrophilic street sweeper who cleans up after grisly accidents brings home a corpse for him and his girlfriend to enjoy sexually, but is dismayed to see that she prefers the corpse over him.
New Angel Westward (1987)
Gerhard Theuring · 1 critic vote
“The principle of angels is that they appear and disappear in one and the same moment…now…here….at this moment…salvation…That is what I call the truth of this film, or to put it differently, its structure. There is nothing in it which wasn’t produced at that moment itself.“
The Death of Empedocles (1987)
Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet · 1 critic vote
Film adaptation by Straub and Huillet of Hölderlin’s 1798 tragedy on the symbolic death of Empedocles, the legislator in Ancient Greece.
Survival in New York (1989)
Rosa von Praunheim · 1 critic vote
Rosa von Praunheim follows the lives and existential struggles of three contrasting German emigrant women in New York City. The protagonists not only tell of their exciting lives in the hectic metropolis, but many dramatic events also take place during filming.
Nordkalotte (1991)
Peter Nestler · 1 critic vote
A documentary about the Sami people across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, and about the environmental devastation in that area throughout the 20th century.
Lessons of Darkness (1992)
Werner Herzog · 1 critic vote
Free on Fandor, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel · Streaming on Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel, Shout! Factory Amazon Channel
Shortly after the Gulf War, oil fires were raging all through Kuwait. In the week before this sea of fire would be extinguished, Werner Herzog filmed this apocalyptic landscape with its murky skies, scorched earth and capricious flames.
Baby I will Make you Sweat (1994)
Birgit Hein · 1 critic vote
In this highly personal and intimate travel diary, Birgit Hein has filmed with great candour her problems with aging, her need for tenderness, the frustration for being alone and her experiences in Jamaica.
Workers Leaving the Factory (1995)
Harun Farocki · 1 critic vote
Using one of the Lumière Brothers' first films of workers leaving the Factory as his starting point, Farocki provides an insight to changes in industrial production, workers' strikes and motion pictures-- via images of workers leaving factories throughout the years.
From Today Until Tomorrow (1997)
Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub · 1 critic vote
Based on a rarely performed Schoenberg opera from 1929, From Today Until Tomorrow explores one night in a marriage. A husband and wife return from a party where she has flirted with another man while he has cast an appraising eye toward one of her acquaintances. Each dreams, briefly, of leaving the marriage for the excitement and mystery of a new lover.
Herr Zwilling und Frau Zuckermann (1999)
Volker Koepp · 1 critic vote
In the west of Ukraine, not far from the border to Romania, there is a faraway European city: Chernivtsi. It was once the centre of Jewish culture in the Bukowina, a border area characterized over centuries by a multi-cultural mixture of peoples. Here, Ukrainians, Poles, Romanians, Germans and Jews lived side by side. Volker Koepp’s film focuses on Mr. Zwilling and Mrs. Zuckermann, two of the last few Jews born in the old Chernivtsi/Czernowitz. They share a friendship but also their love for the German language. Mr. Zwilling visits 90-year-old Mrs. Zuckermann daily in the early hours of the evening. They talk about old times, about shared events, about politics and literature and the worries of everyday life.
Nightfall (1999)
Fred Kelemen · 1 critic vote
A largely plotless, fado-scored journey through the gloomy cobblestone streets, zombie bars, and fetid basements of a sordid harbor town populated by German-speaking sots and Portuguese guest workers. An unhappy young couple, Leni and Anton, quarrel and split separately into the rat’s ass of the evening. Everyone is looking for love, but no one finds any—although Leni does pick up a trick.
Das Experiment (2001)
Oliver Hirschbiegel · 1 critic vote
20 volunteers agree to take part in a seemingly well-paid experiment advertised by the university. It is supposed to be about aggressive behavior in an artificial prison situation. A journalist senses a story behind the ad and smuggles himself in among the test subjects. They are randomly divided into prisoners and guards. What seems like a game at the beginning soon turns into bloody seriousness.
Two (2002)
Werner Schroeter · 1 critic vote
After reading a postcard that her mother let go in the wind, a woman learns that she has a twin.
Good Bye Lenin! (2003)
Wolfgang Becker · 1 critic vote
Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.
Mein Leben Teil 2 (2003)
Angelika Levi · 1 critic vote
By means of objects, photos, tapes and films, director Angelika Levi, half-German, half-Jewish, examines the story of her family. The film deals with trauma and the way history is produced, filed away, turned into discourse and ordered on macro and micro levels.
Créationnisme (2004)
Helge Schneider · 1 critic vote
A musician tries to get by working several jobs.
Die Nacht singt ihre Lieder (2004)
Romuald Karmakar · 1 critic vote
A young couple in Berlin's 'Mitte' district. He, a writer, is lying on the sofa, reading. She can't stand it anymore. In the afternoon the parents come to see the baby. She goes out in the evening. The young man waits. She comes back - but not alone.
Marseille (2004)
Angela Schanelec · 1 critic vote
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
A young Berlin photographer participates in an apartment swap with a stranger in Marseille to briefly explore the French city.
News from Ideological Antiquity: Marx-Eisenstein-Capital (2008)
Alexander Kluge · 1 critic vote
Alexander Kluge’s News from Ideological Antiquity begins with Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s ambitious but unrealized plan to combine Karl Marx’s Capital and James Joyce’s Ulysses. For over nine hours, the film expands in concentric circles as Kluge, his guests, interlocutors and monologists make associative links on a range of topics that starts from a filmic discussion of Eisenstein’s notes.
Everyone Else (2009)
Maren Ade · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, Metrograph
While on a Mediterranean vacation, a seemingly happy boyfriend and girlfriend find their connection to one another tested as they bond with another couple.
Assemblages (2010)
Angela Melitopolous · 1 critic vote
A visual research project reexamining the ideas of the philosopher and psychiatrist Félix Guattari on animismic culture as a form of collective subjectivity (collective assemblages of enunciation), as well as the time in his life when he tried to lay a foundation for a fundamental critique of modernist concepts. In an interview recorded during the Gulf War (1991), Guattari spoke of the emergence of a geography of resistance that arises especially where postcolonial systems are declining. A new de-centered, animistic subjectivity is central for rethinking “the Object, the Other as a potential bearer of dimensions of partial subjectivity, if need be through neurotic phenomena, religious rituals, or aesthetic phenomena."
Pina (2011)
Wim Wenders · 1 critic vote
Free on Plex, Plex Channel · Streaming on Sundance Now, Kanopy, AMC+ Amazon Channel
Pina is a feature-length dance film in 3D with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009.
Under Snow (2011)
Ulrike Ottinger · 1 critic vote
In Echigo, Japan, the snow often lies several feet deep well into May, covering landscapes and villages. Over the centuries, the inhabitants have organised their lives accordingly. In order to record their very distinctive forms of everyday life, their festivals, and religious rituals, Ulrike Ottinger journeyed to the mythical snow country – accompanied by two Kabuki performers. Taking the parts of the students Takeo and Mako, they follow in the footsteps of Bokushi Suzuki, who in the mid-19th century wrote his remarkable book “Snow Country Tales”.
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski · 1 critic vote
Streaming on YouTube TV
A set of six nested stories spanning time between the 19th century and a distant post-apocalyptic future. Cloud Atlas explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Action, mystery and romance weave through the story as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. Based on the award winning novel by David Mitchell. Directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis.
Lore (2012)
Cate Shortland · 1 critic vote
Free on JustWatch TV, Darkroom, YOW.tv · Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, Fandor Amazon Channel
After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.
Cut (2013)
Christoph Girardet, Matthias Müller · 1 critic vote
The body as a wound that never heals.
Let There Be City! (2014)
Dominik Graf · 1 critic vote
An overview of the interconnecting relationship between the most important TV award in Germany, the Grimme-Preis, and the town Marl where it is handed out once a year.
Seven Times a Day We Bemoan Our Lot and at Night We Get Up to Avoid Our Dreams (2014)
Susann Maria Hempel · 1 critic vote
A cinematic devotional book. Based on interviews with an unemployable sufferer (and his fellows), living in the East German countryside. Who lost his memory in 1989 and woke up into several nightmares.
Configuration in Black and White (2017)
Helga Fanderl · 1 critic vote
A quartet of four black-and-white miniatures edited in-camera, Helga Fanderl's Configuration in Black and White captures fleeting moments of visual poetry: glimmers from a canal, snowfall, flowers for Peter Hutton, and birds in flight.
The Lobby (2020)
Heinz Emigholz · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Film Movement Plus Amazon Channel
A character simply named Old White Male holds court in the lobbies of various apartment buildings in Buenos Aires and expounds with measured disgust on death, consciousness, and the state of contemporary human relations. The man’s mostly unsolicited remarks form an unsparing, stitched-together modern-day monologue that alternates between absurd and chilling, reasonable and grotesque. Filmed in Buenos Aires in October 2019, Heinz Emigholz’s spare continuation—and sardonic distillation—of certain themes explored in The Last City is morbid, confrontational, and hilarious.
Fabian: Going to the Dogs (2021)
Dominik Graf · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Kino Film Collection
In 1930s Berlin, Dr. Jakob Fabian, who works by day in advertising for a cigarette company and by night wanders the streets of the city, falls in love with an actress. As her career begins to blossom, prospects for his future begin to wane.
I'm Your Man (2021)
Maria Schrader · 1 critic vote
Free on Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Fandango at Home Free · Streaming on Netflix, Kanopy, Hoopla
Alma is a scientist coerced into participating in an extraordinary study in order to obtain research funds for her work. For three weeks, she has to live with a humanoid robot tailored to her character and needs, whose artificial intelligence is designed to be the perfect life partner for her. Enter Tom, a machine in human form in a class of its own, created solely to make her happy.
Mr. Bachmann and His Class (2021)
Maria Speth · 1 critic vote
Mr. Bachmann And His Class explores the close bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.
Afire (2023)
Christian Petzold · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel
Self-important author Leon joins his best friend on a summer holiday near the Baltic Sea to complete his novel. When they arrive, they find their house is already occupied by a carefree woman who challenges Leon to open up. Meanwhile, forest wildfires rage around them and impending disaster looms.
Perfect Days (2023)
Wim Wenders · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy
Hirayama is content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, books, and taking photos of trees. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.
Sound of Falling (2025)
Mascha Schilinski · 1 critic vote
Streaming on MUBI, MUBI Amazon Channel
Four adolescent girls each spend their youth in the same farmhouse over the last century. Though separated by decades, resonances between their lives emerge: their desires and distress, secrets and truths, encounters with another’s gaze and defiant gaze in return.

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