Marianne and Juliane

Marianne and Juliane 1981

7.00

Germany, 1968: The priest's daughters Marianna and Juliane both fight for changes in society, like making abortion legal. However their means are totally different: while Juliane's committed as a reporter, her sister joins a terroristic organization. After she's caught by the police and put into isolation jail, Juliane remains as her last connection to the rest of the world. Although she doesn't accept her sister's arguments and her boyfriend Wolfgang doesn't want her to, Juliane keeps on helping her sister. She begins to question the way her sister is treated.

1981

Decalogue X

Decalogue X 1989

7.90

Jerzy and Artur’s father dies, leaving behind a valuable stamp collection, which, they discover, is coveted by dealers of varying degrees of shadiness. The more involved the brothers get in their father’s world, the more dire and comical their situation becomes.

1989

Decalogue VI

Decalogue VI 1989

7.96

A teenage postal worker, Tomek, routinely spies on his older neighbor Magda, a sexually liberated artist who lives in the apartment across the courtyard from his. As their private worlds merge, fascination turns to obsession, and the line between love and curiosity becomes violently blurred.

1989

Decalogue IX

Decalogue IX 1989

7.60

Roman and Hanka have a loving marriage, but his impotence has led to her having an affair. The unbearable situation drives Roman to extreme measures both physically and mentally, testing their love and his own will to live.

1989

Decalogue I

Decalogue I 1989

8.05

Krzysztof, a semantics professor and computer hobbyist, is raising his young son, Paweł, to look to science for answers, while Irena, Paweł’s aunt, lives a life rooted in faith. Over the course of one day, both adults are forced to question their belief systems.

1989

Decalogue VII

Decalogue VII 1989

7.40

As a high school student, Majka bore a child, Ania, whom Majka’s mother, Ewa, has been raising as her own. Now that Majka is ready for motherhood, Ewa refuses to let go, leading Majka to kidnap her own daughter, with unexpected emotional consequences.

1989

Decalogue VIII

Decalogue VIII 1989

7.20

Zofia, a professor of ethics, is visited by Elżbieta, an American researching the fate of Jews who survived World War II. A daytime classroom conversation turns into a night of confrontation, and Zofia is forced to answer for a decision she made decades ago that directly affected the course of Elżbieta’s life.

1989

Decalogue IV

Decalogue IV 1989

7.80

A father and daughter, Michał and Anka, have a unique intimacy, which the college-aged Anka is beginning to feel conflicted about. When she finds an unopened letter from her deceased mother, it seems to justify her attraction to Michał, who may not in fact be her father.

1989

Decalogue III

Decalogue III 1989

7.10

It’s Christmas Eve, and Ewa has plotted to pass the hours until morning with her former lover Janusz, a family man, by making him believe her husband has gone missing. During this night of recklessness and lies, the pair grapple with choices made when their affair was discovered three years ago, and with the value of their present lives.

1989

Decalogue V

Decalogue V 1989

7.90

Jacek, an angry drifter, murders a taxi driver, brutally and without motive. His case is assigned to Piotr, an idealistic young lawyer who is morally opposed to the death penalty, and their interactions take on an emotional honesty that throws into stark relief for Piotr the injustice of killing of any kind.

1989

Just a Gigolo

Just a Gigolo 1978

4.81

After World War I, a war hero returns to Berlin to find that there's no place for him--he has no skills other than what he learned in the army, and can only find menial, low-paying jobs. He decides to become a gigolo to lonely rich women.

1978

Decalogue II

Decalogue II 1989

7.30

Dorota Geller, a married woman, faces a dilemma involving her sick husband's prognosis. Her husband's doctor, who believes in God, sweared about it in vain.

1989

Dear Mr. Wonderful

Dear Mr. Wonderful 1982

4.80

Ruby Dennis is an middle-aged man with an unfulfilled ambition as a singer. As he begins to pursue that ambition, his family falls apart.

1982

Jail Bait

Jail Bait 1973

6.00

Based on Franz Xaver Kroetz's play, which is in turn based on a true story, this film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder tells the story of a very young girl who, after persuading a local boy to become her lover, induces the anger of her father, whose incestuous sexual attentions to her have grown unbearable.

1973

Linie 1

Linie 1 1988

7.20

Film version of the musical by the same name: Sunnie, a girl from the province, comes to Berlin to meet rock star Johnnie who had given her his address after a concert. On the subway to Kreuzberg, Sunnie becomes acquainted with a couple of strange people, among them "asphalt cowboy" Bambi. Bambi tells Sunnie that Johnnie’s address in Kreuzberg does not exist. Together, Sunnie and Bambi try to find the rock star in bustling metropolitan Berlin.

1988

Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press

Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press 1984

4.90

The final installment in Ulrike Ottinger’s Berlin Trilogy (following TICKET OF NO RETURN and FREAK ORLANDO) casts Delphine Seyrig as the nefarious Fritz Lang supervillain Dr. Mabuse, here the head of a powerful media empire that seeks to create headlines by manufacturing (and then publicly destroying) its own celebrity: the wealthy, handsome playboy Dorian Gray.

1984

Die Senkrechtstarter

Die Senkrechtstarter 1989

2.50

In the not too distant future, in the year 1999: In Germany, payment may only be made by credit card, which leads to many people purchasing things they cannot pay for. A nasty debt collector from the almighty central bank sends out employees to take back unpaid goods from customers by force. A girl who calls herself Egon is also forced to work for this evil person. In the process, she meets nice Mike, with whom she falls in love. Soon Mike and his friend, the aging playboy Löffler, are in a turbulent adventure to free Egon from the clutches of the bank villain.

1989

Underground and Emigrants

Underground and Emigrants 1976

1

In this film, outspokenly homosexual filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim has documented his encounters with friends in the New York "underground" arts movement, the better-known of whom are William Burroughs (who says nothing for the camera), Andy Warhol (seen in the distance) and Fernando Arrabal (who is interviewed in Spanish). The emigrants named in the title are notable Germans who left the country before World War II, such as Greta Keller and Grete Mosheim. Reviewers at the time of the film's release considered it to have been a sort of paid vacation for the filmmaker rather than a serious effort. (Clarke Fountain, Rovi)

1976