The other side of german cinema - some "lost" masterpieces
Germany is often derided (especially by its own inhabitants) for its lackluster cinematic efforts. While maybe true in regard of the "blockbusters" of the recent future, germany has an amazing past when it comes to great, weird, surreal and unique films. This list collects some films I have seen, some I've yet to see but heard great things about and some classics to re-visit.
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- DirectorFerdinand KhittlStarsFriedrich JoloffErnst MarbeckWilfried SchröpferFeature-documentary "pointing up a thousand facets of this world and probing to determine what may lie beneath the surface".
- DirectorHerbert VeselyStarsChristian DoermerKaren BlanguernonVera TschechowaA young electrical engineer, engaged to his boss's daughter and on the way to a secure existence, breaks out of his usual life when he meets a childhood friend.
- DirectorAlexander KlugeStarsHannelore HogerSigi GraueAlfred Edel"Neues Kino movie" about life in the circus dome narrated in Brechtian spirit; deceptively illusionist grip is broken violently by aloofness and sweeping subjective tracking shots.
- DirectorRoland KlickStarsMario AdorfMarquard BohmAnthony DawsonIn a deserted mining town at the end of nowhere three desperate men fight over a suitcase full of cash.
- DirectorTom ToelleStarsJörg PlevaSuzanne RoquetteDieter Thomas HeckA candidate in a game show is hunted by three men. He will get a Million DMark, if he survives for a week; the hunters will get the money, if they can kill the candidate. The audience of the show is watching the transmissions of twenty camera teams filming the hunt. The showmaster appeals to the TV-viewers to help either the candidate or the hunters, whomever they want.
- DirectorRudolf ThomeStarsUschi ObermaierMarquard BohmSylvia KekuléThomas hitchhikes from Hamburg to Munich where he runs into his ex-girlfriend Peggy. As Thomas doesn't have a bed, he lets Peggy take him home, not knowing that she and her four roommates have all made a strange pact.
- DirectorZbynek BrynychStarsSusanne UhlenJan KoesterEllen UmlaufMunich at night: Robert Susmeit, a 16-year-old teenager who is jealously obsessed with his mother Hilde, traces her and her latest lover at a mundane apartment building where he kills the man in the heat of the moment at a swimming pool. His fatal outburst is secretly witnessed by Moni Dingeldey, a girl of the same age as his. Fascinated by the shaken and devastated strange boy who she hopes to be a soul-mate, she hides Robert in her mother's apartment. Meanwhile, a crowd of policemen and reporters frantically comb through the building in search a murderer whose identity is known only to Robert's parents who are searching as well...
- DirectorHans W. GeissendörferStarsJürgen JungHans-Dieter JendreykoPaul Albert KrummIn a apocalyptic 19th century landscape where wealthy vampires have taken over the world, a group of humans prepare an uprising, and select an adventurous young man to track down the leader of the undead and destroy him.
- DirectorZbynek BrynychStarsUschi GlasIrina DemickFrançoise FabianA young woman joins an exclusive women's health clinic only to discover it's run by feminist cannibals.
- DirectorWerner SchroeterStarsMagdalena MontezumaChristine KaufmannCandy DarlingThis is about the life and myths about famous opera singer Maria Malibran (1808-1836). She died on the stage.
- DirectorJohannes SchaafStarsPer OscarssonRosemarie FendelOlimpiaA married couple of artists move to a utopian town known for its absolute freedom, but behind the surface perversion and violence are spreading.
- StarsKlaus LöwitschBarbara ValentinMascha RabbenSomewhere in the future there is a computer project called Simulacron one of which is able to simulate a full featured reality, when suddenly project leader Henry Vollmer dies. His successor Dr. Fred Stiller experiences odd phenomena. A good friend, Guenther Lause, disappears in the middle of a conversation and a week later nobody has ever heard of him. And those fits of dizzyness - Stiller cannot believe himself to be fool. There has to be an explanation for all this. Could Simulacron have something to do with it?
- DirectorRainer Werner FassbinderStarsBrigitte MiraEl Hedi ben SalemBarbara ValentinA lonely widow meets a much younger Moroccan worker in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love, to their own surprise and to the outright shock of their families, colleagues, and drinking buddies.
- DirectorVolker SchlöndorffMargarethe von TrottaStarsAngela WinklerMario AdorfDieter LaserA young woman's life is scrutinized by police and tabloid press after she spends the night with a suspected terrorist.
- DirectorHans W. GeissendörferStarsBrigitte FosseyHelmut GriemDieter LaserA man is wrongfully imprisoned for five years. Once out, he hears about his wife's supposed adventures outside of their marriage and becomes increasingly jealous.
- DirectorRainer Werner FassbinderStarsVolker SpenglerIngrid CavenGottfried JohnA transgender woman tries to salvage something from the wreckage love has made of her life by confronting her anguished past, hoping to find ultimate acceptance among former acquaintances and herself.
- DirectorPeter HandkeStarsEdith CleverMarkus MühleisenBruno GanzAfter returning from a business trip in Finland, Bruno (Bruno Ganz) find that his wife Marianne (Edith Clever) wants her husband to leave her alone with their son. A struggle with loneliness and adapting to the new situation ensues.
- 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.
- DirectorRainer Werner FassbinderStarsEddie ConstantineHanna SchygullaVolker SpenglerA wildly anarchic satire of urban guerrilla warfare in which a band of leftist radicals inadvertently become puppets of the West German government, which uses them to justify its authoritarian policies.
- DirectorPercy AdlonStarsEva MattesJürgen ArndtNorbert WarthaIn 1914, with men gone to war, Marcel Proust hired Céleste Albaret as his attendant. More than eight years later, she was at his side when he died. During this entire time, she only entered his room when he rang for her, sleeping from 9 AM to 3 PM to wait during the night while he wrote. Marcel uses her as more than a servant: she is his muse, telling stories of her childhood to stir his remembrance of things past; she's in cahoots with him as he manipulates those he wants to draw on for his writing; she listens appalled to his descriptions of the underside of Paris. Hers is a life of love and sweet devotion as he races time to finish his work before death.
- DirectorHans W. GeissendörferStarsAngela WinklerVadim GlownaLeopold von VerschuerWhen Edith Howland's husband abandons her for a younger woman, leaving her with their alcoholic son and his senile uncle, she begins recording details of an imaginary, much more successful life where she has friends and grandchildren. However, this diversion soon grows unhealthy when she becomes slowly convinced that the fantasies are real.
- DirectorRadu GabreaStarsEva MattesLisa KreuzerWerner StockerA bearded director named EVA, a fictive Rainer Werner Fassbinder, lives in a large house with his cast and crew as he films Dumas' Lady of the Camellias. His accountant informs him he has many unpaid bills and little cash on hand. EVA throws a fit and fires him. He then proceeds to play one person off against another, dismiss with cruelty his recent lover Ali, sleep openly with his leading lady Gudrun, and make a direct and public play for his leading man, Walter. He's mercurial, dictatorial, and manic. Will he finish the film, having drawn great performances from his actors through his manipulations, or will his antics set events in motion that spin out of his control?
- DirectorHans-Christoph BlumenbergStarsBarbara RudnikArmin Mueller-StahlKarin BaalIn Hamburg in winter, Gabriele dreams of sunny Australia and her lover who sends her taped messages. Gabriele lives with her parents and is studying marine biology, but at night she works in a peep show to earn the money to go to Australia.
- DirectorRudolf ThomeStarsVera TschechowaRüdiger VoglerHanns ZischlerA film director, his fiancée, a scriptwriter and a student interact and discuss their emotions, at length.
- DirectorReinhard HauffStarsUlrich TukurHans KremerTherese AffolterStammheim Prison in Stuttgart, West Germany, as the five defendants--Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Holger Meins--are brought before the judge and accused of the murder of four US servicemen in a terrorist bombing attack. After a hunger strike at the trial's start, Meins dies. The next to die is Meinhof, an apparent suicide. As the trial stretches on, Baader, Ensslin, and Raspe continuously disrupt the proceedings with accusations that they are being purposely undernourished and spied upon.
- DirectorMichael VerhoevenStarsLena StolzeHans-Reinhard MüllerMonika BaumgartnerWhen a young woman investigates her town's Nazi past, the community turns against her.
- DirectorMatthias X. ObergStarsFabian BuschSophie RoisChristiane PaulA young German moving to the city to start studying experiences a troublesome arrival: Within a few minutes he falls in love, learns that the girl has a boyfriend already, and discovers that all his savings have been stolen on the night train. Penniless, he is happy to get a job as a sleeping car conductor and soon finds himself on the same train he travelled on. Naieve and innocent at first, he learns from and adopts to his tougher colleagues on a series of trips to Italy and back, striving to make some money and to win the girl he constantly dreams of.
- DirectorDominik GrafStarsKaroline EichhornAntonio WannekSebastian UrzendowskyKatrin and Jürgen spend their holidays in Corsica. Katrin is in her mid-thirties, working as a tracer at Jürgen's company who suddenly remembers he's married -- but not with Kathrin. So they decide to end their vacation earlier than they had planned. Virtually a second before they start to drive back to the airport, Katrin takes her belongings out of Jürgens car again and lets him go. Now being alone for the remaining days of her vacation, Katrin finds herself more and more bewildered by the things that happened to her. She tries to calm herself down a bit by strolling around, visiting clubs and bars and discotheques, having a gentle one night stand with two men passing by, things like that... Then she meets Malte, a 17 year old criminal from Berlin, who is serving time in a reform camp. Malte falls in love with that friendly but sad and disappointed woman. It takes some time for Katrin to realize what's going on, then she feels more and more sympathy for that little bandit who, in a way, is a bit like her. Torn between Katrin and the camp, Malte causes more and more trouble, and in the end Katrin tries to help him escape from the island. But things end up differently.
- DirectorMatthias X. ObergStarsChloé WinkelJon YangRebecca PalmerEnter a dark, dangerous world where the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred. Angela is 18, a stunning Dutch blonde, a comic illustrator, and bored with life. Eager for adventure, she moves to Tokyo to become a bar hostess for Asian men who like Western women. An innocent in this sexual underworld, she confronts sleazy customers, jealous co-workers and a mystery: the disappearance of a former hostess. As she discovers clues, she sketches them out in comic-strip style, and slowly begins to confuse what she knows with what she draws.
- DirectorUwe JansonStarsMatthias SchweighöferPasquale AleardiSheri HagenBaal, a young artist whom society regards as a genius, does not want to be monopolized by the culture and business.