Berlin, 1931. Jakob Fabian works in the advertising department of a cigarette factory by day and drifts through bars, brothels and artist studios with his wealthy and debauched friend Labude by night. When Fabian meets the beautiful and confident Cornelia, he manages to shed his pessimistic attitude for a brief moment and falls in love. Not long after, he falls victim to the great wave of layoffs sweeping the city, plunging him back into a depression,...

On the day Adolf Hitler comes to power, the German-Jewish family Glickstein comes together for a family dinner. Most of them however don't take the Nazis seriously. When young Leah reveals her plans to emigrate from Berlin to Palestine, her family starts disputing. Her father Aaron can't see any reason to leave Germany. But when Michael, Leah's younger brother, indicates that he actually is an ardent admirer of the national socialist movement, the...

This historical satire, based on Heinrich Mann's world-famous novel, Der Untertan, is ranked by film critics among the 100 Most Significant German Films of all time. In Mann's biting critique of conservative Wilhelmine Germany, written during WWI, Diederich Hessling learns an important lesson for an ambitious man: one must first serve power to gain power for oneself. From then on, his modus operandi is to bow to superiors and kick underlings.

Michael Haneke turns the unflinching gaze of the camera back on itself in this provacative, profoundly disturbing study of emotional disconnection in the age of mass-media saturation.

In a small town, everyone has tried to forget what happened shortly after WWII. That is, until a stranger finds a book that Jadup gave to the young refugee, Boel, over 30 years ago. This subject matter was considered so controversial by GDR authorities thatJadup and Boel℗ was banned and not released until 1988. Painful memories of the period after the war and of Boel and her disappearance begin to surface. Jadup, now the town's respected and popular...

A socialist story of "atoms for peace" and compulsory labor in an East German uranium mine under Soviet control. Banned at Soviet insistence, it impresses even today with its political complexity, variety of characters and realistic portrayal of daily work in a forbidden zone of the industrial landscape. Sun seekers was banned in 1958 at the urging of the USSR, in part because it is about Soviet-German relations and the mining of uranium to support...

This playlist includes the following special features from Kuhle wampe or Who owns the world, How the Berlin worker lives (dir. Slatan Dudow, 1930) Slatan Dudow: a film about a marxist artist (dir. Volker Koepp, 1974) original prologue, with Herbert Jhering, 1958.

It's 1983. The Cold War is hot. The threat of nuclear conflict looms. Born and raised in East Germany, Martin Rauch is sent undercover, as Moritz Stamm, to West Germany, to work for a top General in the Bundeswehr. Officially, his job is to gather intelligence on the placement of the Pershing II Missiles. A secondary gig develops, infiltrating youth culture through close relationships with the General's two children. But nothing and no one are as...

The simultaneously random and interconnected nature of modern existence comes into harrowing focus in the despairing final installment of Michael Haneke's trilogy. Seventy-one intricate, puzzlelike scenes survey the routines of a handful of seemingly unrelated people.

In his bittersweet comedy loaded with human quirks and nuance, Jacob invents news reports to bolster the spirits of the other Jews living in his Polish ghetto under Nazi occupation. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1977, the story was remade in Hollywood starring Robin Williams in 1999. In a Polish ghetto in 1944, Jacob Heym is summoned to the police station. While there, Jacob overhears on the radio that "the Russians are twenty...