Berlin, shortly after World War II. Five parentless siblings, led by the oldest sister Inge Kuckert, search for a place to stay and a basis of existence in the destroyed city. A bombed villa in the Grunewald seems to be the right "cuckoo's nest", but an alleged authorised disposal tries to drive the siblings out of the building. Fortunately, the friendly neighbor can help.
Rival window cleaners Willy I and Willy 2 befriend Jou-Jou, an aspiring dancer, who has been tricked out of money by a con-man posing as an American movie mogul, and together they turn an old railway carriage into a "Villa Hollywood" for her.
Franz Biberkopf has served four years in prison. His return to normal life is not successful.
Otto, a feckless Everyman, tries to adjust to the postwar travails of his defeated nation. Stymied by black-market profiteers and government bureaucrats, Otto begins fantasizing about a happier life at the end of that ever-elusive rainbow.
An elderly lady has a trauma and simply must celebrate Christmas every day of the year, to the dismay of her family and relatives.
A circus drama in which the scheming relatives of an orphan girl are thwarted by her compassionate uncle, a liquor store clerk.
The three musicians Hans, Otto and Paul have no work and propose becoming street musicians with the support of Grete, who lives in the same apartment building. One day, Otto finds a valuable object. Rather than turn it in to the police, he sells it for money and then uses the money to buy alcohol. Hans, however, squanders his share at a fair and flirts with the widow Neumann. This hurts Grete deeply, who, without Hans’ knowledge, is expecting a child.
They live among doilies and all kinds of bric-a-brac, the two prissy old ladies Carter, and try to make the best of their pensioner's existence. For example, in a shopping game where they keep a whole army of sales clerks in suspense, only to end up buying nothing. A computer error provides the two with membership cards for the international service club, enabling them to make cashless payments. They end up with multi-digit dollar debts and a turbulent court case.
Berlin, around 1900. Art student Hugo Großmann takes his work lightly and his pleasure seriously! A friend’s warnings do no good. He fails his exams. In the vegetable cellar of the widow Möhring, he finds cheap lodging and, in her daughter Mathilde, the person he needs. Hugo resists her positive influence for a long time. As his affection for the girl grows, so does his ambition. Hugo passes his exams, but then the easy life beckons him once again! Mathilde emerges victorious this time as well: he takes the post of mayor in Woldenstein and makes her his wife. It becomes their shared success to secure a railroad connection for the small town against all odds. At the inauguration, a tragedy claims Hugo’s life.
Freely adapted from Theodor Storm's novella of the same name.
In the style of Gogol's Inspector General: When a traveling salesman arrives in the car of a government official, the powers that be of a small town think he's the auditor and try to throw him off the track about their disorderly finances.
In a fantasy European principality, the headstrong and beautiful Princess Ingrid falls in love with a handsome officer, but dismisses him in a fit of temperamental overreaction when she learns of an alleged liaison.
Detective Hans Braumüller is trying to untange the conspiracy behind a bank robbery.
Young French student Madeleine Duchanel wants to go to the theater and therefore pulls out of the well-protected environment of her school. In Paris she hopes to make a career, but in her naivety she ends up on the street.
The story is set in Berlin at the beginning of the 20th century. The members of a singing group live in poor conditions in a dilapidated building. When the manager of the property is murdered, Peter and Paul, both members of the singing group, become suspects in the murder. When they return from a performance, the police are waiting for them to take them in for questioning. Since Paul is the most likely perpetrator according to the investigation, he is arrested immediately.
Nazi propaganda film based on the life and death of Hitler Youth Herbert "Quex" Norkus – in the film, renamed Heini Völker – who was killed while distributing flyers in a Communist neighborhood.
An Italian engineer who had made a strategically important invention to ward off enemy aircraft is killed in a robbery. As the plans have presumably fallen into the hands of spies, secret service captain Bergall is given the task of recovering the papers. Bergall initially adopts a false name and appears as Mr. Gran, whom nobody knows. Under this name, he rents a room in the Hotel Danieli in Venice and makes the acquaintance of the shipowner's daughter Viola Dolleen. With her help, he is able to eliminate Captain Gordon, who is also interested in the plans. When Gran learns that the plans are now in the possession of the art dealer Tschernikoff, who wants to sell them to Gordon, he immediately travels to Rome, visits the art dealer Titian and pretends to be Gordon. In the art dealer's remote villa, events come thick and fast...
A dashing marquis bends from his horse when he discovers a lost garter in the woods and falls. During his delirium he is serenaded by a little hairdresser. She is the person who lost the garter to begin with and has only come to get it back having borrowed it from her employer--the empress of France. The marquis mistakenly thinks he was nursed by the empress, herself, and decides to woo her.
Two inspiration sources appear clearly: contemporary American gangster movies and Alfred Döblin’s novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929).
Attractive Julia Swinton is a middle-aged woman. Her life went normally and without big occurrences. But through the unexplained death of a familiar young lady in a houseboat and the sudden appearance of a strange stranger, unrest and threat now break into the seemingly so peaceful everyday life of the Swinton family. As it soon turns out, Mr. Swinton has a secret relationship with the lady on the boathouse...
White slave traders kidnap a cabaret singer aboard a ship headed for South America,but they have not counted on her husband aboard a nearby coast guard cutter.
As a gang of classy jewel thieves hop from one European country to another, an engineer rescues a woman from their clutches.