Dr. Faustus is a great Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlow originally published in 1600. The story is based on an earlier anonymous classic German legend involving worldly ambition, black magic and surrender to the devil. It remains one of the most famous plays of the English Renaissance. Dr. John Faustus, a brilliant, well-respected German doctor grows dissatisfied with the limits of human knowledge - logic, medicine, law, and religion, and...

Based upon Herman Bang's 1902 novel, Dreyer's Michael refashions the classical Greek myth of Jupiter and Ganymede into a love triangle between an aging artist, Zoret (director Benjamin Christensen), his protagonist Michael (Walter Slezak, later to play the Nazi villain in Hitchcock's Lifeboat) and Princess Zamikoff (Nora Gregor, Rules of the game), an aristocratic femme fatale as entranced by Michael's youthful beauty as Zoret is. As Michael plunges...

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.

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...

Shortly before GDR’s collapse, Helke Misselwitz traveled by train from one end of the country to the other interviewing East German women of different ages and backgrounds. In this documentary masterpiece, women reveal their personal and professional frustrations, hopes and aspirations—and, in doing so, paint a portrait of a changing society. The landscape and architecture of East Germany, filmed in B&W on 35mm by Thomas Plenert, form the background...

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...

The first German feature film to explicitly address the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, Marriage in the shadows called on Germans to accept collective responsibility for the crimes of the Third Reich. Stylistically, the production, in which many former Ufa artists were involved, blends classic melodrama in the Ufa style with documentary glimpses into life in Berlin under the Nazis. Shown in all four sectors of occupied Berlin and across Germany,...

Nothing is as it seems in this riveting World War II thriller as a wary soldier (Jai Courtney) goes to investigate a mysterious German monarch (Christopher Plummer) at his secluded mansion, leading him into a web of deceit and a dangerous love affair with a local Jewish woman (Lily James). Official Selection at the **Toronto International Film Festival**. "*The superb English stage director David Leveaux keeps the pacing taut while creating space...

In Germany, Michael Berg is a teenager who becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate but secretive affair. Michael discovers that Hanna loves being read to and their physical relationship deepens. Hanna is enthralled as Michael reads to her from different works of literature. Despite their intense bond, Hanna mysteriously...

A group of young World War I German recruits pass from idealism to disillusionment with war.