The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.
Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.
In August 1988, two armed bank robbers keep German police at bay for 54 hours during a hostage-taking drama that ends in a shootout and three deaths.
A dramatization of the incident in 1972 when Arab terrorists broke into the Olympic compound in Munich and murdered 11 Israeli athletes.
Germany in Autumn does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped, and later murdered, by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the orginal leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.
East Germans abduct a U.S. coed (Linda Blair) and throw her in a women's prison run by a brutal inmate (Sylvia Kristel).
The supremely world-weary Lemmy Caution, last seen in Godard's "Alphaville" (France/1965), has several strange encounters while trying to make his way from the former East Germany to "the west."
Tensions rise when a U.S. military base is built in a small village in post-war Germany.
A beautiful East German Olympic hopeful pole-vaults over the Berlin Wall to freedom.
Felix from West-Berlin falls in love with Thomas in East-Berlin. At first they keep their relationship going by regular visits from Felix, but the curfew forces him to return every evening. When the East-German authorities become suspicious, Thomas decides to try and flee to the West.
After two decades in prison Widmer, a former German RAF-terrorist, is released. He meets Valerie, his next door neighbour. The young woman tries to get her life back on track after she lost child custody for her little son. She shows some interest in Widmer, the two of them seem to have something in common. They discreetly enter into the secrets of their lives. Till the truth comes between them.
Kraftwerk's vision of a keyboard-driven world of clicking metronomic rhythms and digitised sound bites may have been the stuff of avant fantasy in the 1970s (the decade that saw the band's first groundbreaking albums), but it is a reality in the new millennium. Their visionary style is explored in KRAFTWERK AND THE ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION, a study of the group, their career and their emergence as the most influential electronic band in the world.
Endless beaches, dunes, heath and the Wadden Sea characterize the landscape of Sylt. Germany's largest North Sea island is also a paradise for numerous animal and plant species. Around half of its area is under landscape or nature protection. In spring and autumn, thousands of migratory birds stop here on their way between Siberia and East Africa. Sheep graze on the dike meadows, female seals give birth to their young off Sylt. And the Sylt Wadden Sea is one of the last large wilderness areas in Europe. But in winter storms hit the island. If the “Blanke Hans”, as the storm on Sylt is called, causes the North Sea to rage, it hits the island with tremendous force. Only a few places on the German North Sea coast are as exposed to the force of the sea as the west coast of Sylt. The documentary shows Sylt's nature in fascinating images. People who are particularly connected to the island and its nature are accompanied in their everyday lives.
When Chris Gueffroy becomes increasingly disillusioned with his life in 1980s East Germany, he hatches a plan with his friend, Christian Gaudian, to escape the isolated Eastern bloc state without telling his mother, Karin. The pair believe that the standing order to shoot anyone who crosses the Berlin Wall, as ordered by the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party, Erich Honecker, has been lifted due to the state visit of Swedish PM Ingvar Carlsson. The young men seize their chance and attempt the fateful escape to the west.
The 1974 finals in West Germany saw the emergence of "Total Football" in the shape of the classy Dutch led by the legendary Johan Cruyff. The Dutch swept all before them until they came up against the solid hosts in the final. Beckenbauer led West Germany to a tense 2-1 victory.
In buildings where foreign workers lived in Germany, there were strict rules of conduct, defined by the house rules and supervised by the building superintendents. Many rights regarding the freedom of movement, communication and behavior were abused. Interviews with the tenants and with the "orderlies" which point out absurd situations and clashes caused by these restrictions.
Traffic on the B61 road, which connects Rotterdam to Warsaw and cuts through the German spa town of Bad Oeynhausen, is permanently gridlocked. The promised cure is a bypass whose construction is documented for a period of eight years: the efforts of the mayor, police, fire brigade and construction companies, the delays in the construction of the northern bypass and above all the reactions of the affected residents.
Four inseparable friends from childhood struggle in the best years of their lives when one grows up to become a prize fighter, second a police detective, third a nightclub runner and the fourth sets them all at loggerheads.
The film takes a look at a professional gambler, who very successfully specialized on the German version of the slot machine.
Marcel Ophüls interviews various important Eastern European figures for their thoughts on the reunification of Germany and the fall of Communism.
West Germany, 1987. The politician Uwe Barschel (1944-87), member of the Christian Democratic Union party and Minister-President of the Schleswig-Holstein region, is found dead in very sinister circumstances. Reporter David Burger pledges to find the truth behind one of the most important political scandals in German history, investigating countless speculations and conspiracy theories as he fights his own personal demons.
In a small area of West Germany, the American military presence opened up a new world in the early 1950s and paved the way for individual freedom, freedom of movement and capitalism in Germany. In this time of upheaval, two friends are looking for their place and have to fight time and again with the 'old order', the conservative forces from politics, church and society. Confronted with the seductions of the new world, the two dissimilar women make an opposing development that puts their intimate friendship to a severe test ...
