The devastation of World War One left Germany's budding film industry, like much of Europe, in tatters. But necessity being the mother of invention, German Expressionism was born. Relying heavily on symbolism and shadow rather than elaborate and costly sets, films like 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' are still studied by film students the world over. By the mid-1920s, the industry was getting back on its feet and great directors like Fritz Lang and FW Murnau were making their early masterpieces. However the onset of Nazism and the impending war led many of Germany's artists, including filmmakers, to flee to the U.S. Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Douglas Sirk, Karl Freund and many more all continued their careers in America while the German film industry virtually disappeared. It was not unitl the '60s and '70s that new talents emerged. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Viktor Schlondorff and Wim Wenders revitalised German cinema and today international hits such as 'Run Lola Run' and 'Goodbye Lenin!' assure us it is here to stay. Right: 'Run Lola Run'
Von Sternberg's classic study of sexual humiliation made Marlene Dietrich a star as Lola-Lola, the vulgar nightclub singer who brings the dignified un... Read more
RW Fassbinder's Bundesrepublik Deutschland trilogy comprises three of his most celebrated films which chart West Germany's post-war economic miracle t... Read more
Just a few weeks before the surrender of Nazi Germany to the allies, young recruit Albert is drafted along with a cadre of soldiers to defend The Brid... Read more
Bernhard Wicki's Oscar-nominated directorial debut, this is an excellent little film with no known names on the roster. In the final days of World War... Read more
On January 20, 1942, leading representatives of the German Nazi regime met in a villa in Berlin-Wannsee for a meeting that went down in history as the... Read more
In pre-WWII Germany, Salomon Sorowitsch is a world-class counterfeiter, being also a Jew he is soon arrested and put in a concentration camp, but as t... Read more
Adapted from a novel by Akif Pirrincci, "The Door" aka "Die Tur" is the tale of a formerly successful painter, David who has lost control over his lif... Read more
Twelve-year-old nomad Bazarbai lives in the Altai mountains on the border between Mongolia and Kazakhstan. He is reluctant to follow the family line o... Read more
Turkish/German director Fatih Akin ('Head-On') brings together a deeply humanistic amd multi-layered drama as he follows the stories of six people cau... Read more
Jan (Daniel Bruhl) and Peter (Stipe Erceg) are young left-wing idealists making their anti-capitalist statement by breaking into rich people's homes a... Read more