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.
As the Germans invade Poland Jewish Ruth and her mother are trapped by the oncoming Nazis. When they are loaded onto a truck for transportation to a ghetto, Ruth is told by her mother to jump from the truck at the first chance and to make her way to relatives in Warsaw. While the war progresses Ruth tries to survive and grow up.
1952, Paris. Nadia, a Red Diaper baby, has a sister, Polish parents, and at 15 is an active Communist. When cops beat her during an anti-American demonstration, she's rescued by a "Match" photographer. As the friendship becomes a love affair and her slogans are tested by new knowledge and emotion, some of the Red youth want to expel her. When she goes with Stéphane to a seaside photo shoot, her father goes to the police. Stéphane faces charges, so leaving to cover the war in Indochina looks appealing. In a parallel story, Nadia's mother meets again her prewar lover, released from Siberia, who challenges the French Reds with very real scars and word of Stalin's anti-Semitism.
In a small Franconian town, Werner Wild enters Georg Baum's store and wants to become a baker. "I like to eat good bread" - that's all he knows how to say to the sales clerk Gisela. But under the wing of Master Baum, the newcomer quickly becomes familiar with the intricacies of bread and pastry making. Soon the loner Baum finds himself increasingly confronted with a changed economic environment.
Jochen Epstein is released from prison after serving 15 years for murder. He is determined to emigrate from Germany and leave the past behind him forever. But familiar places, repressed memories and a never-forgotten girlfriend break the armor that the old man has built around himself. It all began on his last night in freedom: during a chance visit to a Christian service, Epstein believes he recognizes his former concentration camp tormentor Giesser in the parish priest.
Seitz has been abusing his underage daughter for years and is the father of her first child. He is a brutal perpetrator of violence and has several relevant criminal records. When Tanja confides in her new boyfriend, he persuades her to go to the police. Seitz is sentenced and threatens to beat Tanja to death while still in court. Tanja and her boyfriend have long been married and have children of their own when, after seven years, fate catches up with them again: they are terrified of Seitz, who is soon released from prison and threatens revenge. Tanja and her family turn to the authorities in vain. They can only intervene if there is a concrete threat. But then it will be too late, Tanja fears. Too late for her children and herself. Together, the family gets a rifle...
The tranquil family life of a police officer is disrupted when a colleague on duty goes berserk and expects him to make a false statement. A question of conscience? But how does one live with a guilty conscience if one violates the unwritten laws of the police?
The story of Jacob Fabian, a somewhat liberal Berlin advertising copywriter who witnesses the collapse of the prewar German society during the 1930s.
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.
In 1917, the boys from Irish club Avondale United parade through the town with the cup they have just won.
Karl Maiwald, a Dortmund auto mechanic, struggles amid neighbor disputes and family tension. Discovering his company’s clandestine bugging, he exposes management, expecting union backing. Yet the union’s hidden ownership of the firm stuns him, as he realizes the very workers leading protests are its members.
In the summer of 1913, a heat wave threatens the existence of the farm of H. C. Curry and his sons: The cattle die of thirst, the grain dries up. Then the adventurer Bill Starbuck comes to the ranch and claims he can conjure up rain for 100 dollars. The father and daughter Lizzie are believing the swindler.
After rehab, Manfred Burger seems to have got his alcohol addiction under control and is trying to reorganize his life. Although he is now sober, he soon realizes that society cannot cope with his illness: His relationship with his wife Eva is on its last legs and he loses his job. Nobody seems to understand Burger and his illness. As his life continues to go off track, the bottle soon becomes his daily companion again...
Mysterious deaths are occurring in Basel: people are dying out of the blue in public with no apparent cause of death. The coroner, Professor Rüegg, the cantonal doctor Zäslin, and politicians are at a loss and becoming fearful. There are even serious considerations to cancel the upcoming carnival. Rüegg's assistant Andreas Zinstag, who is also dealing with the deaths, lives with his uncle, Jean-Jacques Zinstag, a retired doctor. The latter begins to take an interest in the mysterious deaths. Among his friends, Zinstag develops the theory that people are not dying from a specific disease, but from "death" itself. The Grim Reaper himself is making his presence felt in Basel, as he once did in the Dance of Death.
October 1982: The entire German political scene is corrupt, the German government a puppet of the USA. To play it safe, the CIA replaces German politicians with compliant doubles. When the chancellor's doppelganger, of all people, is to be taken out of circulation, the secret service accidentally kills the real chancellor, who is floating dead in the swimming pool. Agent Erwin of the Federal Criminal Police Office is assigned to solve the case...
9-year-old Friedrich surprises a burglar.
Shokov is the last cosmonaut of the "Mir" station. On board: the secret satellite weapon "Medusa". A corrupt minister wants to sell them abroad. Shokov, fearing for his life, causes galactic chaos.
A rock band moves into a farmhouse in a little village. They are eyed suspiciously by the citizens of the village.
In the little town of Herzsprung - whose name harks back to an ancient legend of broken hearts - almost nothing has changed since German unification, except a rise in unemployment. Johanna, a young mother and widow, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. To make matters worse, she falls in love with a dark-skinned, roving adventurer and the whole village starts talking about it.
A tramp tries to trick the community into paying for the funeral of his fellow tramp who was found frozen to death.
Former revolutionary Pat and sex worker Meg run a brothel in 1950s Dublin. In addition to five girls and two gay men, the old IRA general Musjö and Mr. Muleady also live in their establishment. One evening, two IRA fighters drag in a prisoner. The hostage is Leslie Williams, a young British soldier who was captured in Northern Ireland and is now to be exchanged for an IRA member...
A fictionalized version of a military training fight.
A train with all the passengers disappears in the subway. Sometimes the sound of a passing train can be heard in the tunnels, but no one sees it. A young mathematician develops a theory: because of the opening of a new line, the train has fallen into another dimension.
At night, a violent confrontation between a pimp and a Greek guest worker takes place on Hamburg's Reeperbahn, resulting in the latter's death. In the subsequent trial before a jury, contradictory statements make it difficult to decide whether this was an intentional act or an accident.
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.
Documentary musing upon the work of German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
A documentary about the making of the television mini-series by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including interviewees with the principal actors.
As a teenager, Carla Zachanassian had a child with a man named Serge Miller. When he refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. Now, many years later, she is a multimillionaire and returns to the town of her childhood, where she is welcomed with open arms. However, she has only one thing in mind: revenge—she wants Serge dead.
A documentary that focuses on the making of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Marriage of Maria Braun".
The Earth shortly before its end. The houses in the cities are deserted, the streets smashed. The sky shimmers dark gray.
The relationship of a married couple in their 40s is broken when the mother has an affair with her teenage daughter's boyfriend.
Emma Morschel, known as Lämmchen, is expecting a child. So she marries her boyfriend, Johannes Pinneberg. The young marriage gets off to a rocky start: Lämmchen's parents, class-conscious workers, are opposed to their daughter marrying the lowly clerk.
A boy under the influence of his neonazi-brother witnesses the power of truth when listening to an old survivor of the Shoah.
Comedian Harmonists tells the story of a famous, German male sextet, five vocals and piano, the "Comedian Harmonists", from the day they meet first in 1927 to the day in 1934, when they become banned by the upcoming Nazis, because three of them are Jewish.
Dutch police inspector Piet Van der Valk finds himself repeatedly crossing paths wiht the beautiful yet troubled Lucienne Englebert, the daughter of a famous conductor recently killed in a car accident. Whern the maverick inspector investigates the seemingly senseless killing of a man in Amsertdam, will Lucienne turn up again?
By coincidence, a couple who have just fallen in love are targeted by the Russian mafia, who have made a deal with a shady Berlin businessman and a corrupt politician. When the young woman is kidnapped, her boyfriend sets off on a dangerous search for her.
A foundling who survived a plane crash as an infant is raised by a hermit in the forest. Seventeen years later, a television reporter lands his hang glider at the girl's feet. While he wants to exploit the story for his lover's reality show, the girl thinks he is an angel who could bring her into contact with her mother and falls in love with him.