Tamás Major

Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl, an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.

A German stage actor finds unexpected success and mixed blessings in the popularity of his performance in a Faustian play as the Nazis take power in pre-WWII Germany. As his associates and friends flee or are ground under by the Nazi terror, the popularity of his character supercedes his own existence until he finds that his best performance is keeping up appearances for his Nazi patrons.

The film is a historic parable about the topicality of revolution. 1514. The peasants' uprising is over, Dózsa has been arrested. Werbőczy tries to get the imprisoned peasant leader deny the revolution and offers him the lives of his people in exchange.

A murder has been committed in a block of flats in Pest. Almost all the dwellers of the building behave in a suspicious way at the beginning of the investigation, although it is their everyday lapses they try to hide. In spite of the janitor's unpleasant comments, light is gradually thrown upon the case.

The Sultan of Zanzibar has a harbor infested with sharks, which makes it impossible for ships to trade with him. In an attempt to fix the problem, he brings twelve hippos into the harbor to keep the sharks away. His idea works well enough, but once the hippos are no longer a novelty and the people no longer feed them, they begin to starve. After the hungry hippos rampage through the city looking for food, Aban-Khan, the king's adviser, slaughters all the hippos except one, a little hippo named Hugo.

Napoleon's army besieges Győr. Mr. Léner, the grain merchant, is deeply hoping for the French emperor's victory, hoping an alliance with him could assure Hungary's independence from the Habsburg rule.

Mocorgó, the well-meaning worker boy, is a tough guy. In his 40s he is still a mechanic's apprentice, but he is disappointed by his family, women and friends, and becomes a criminal. He goes to prison several times and tells the story of his life to the writer, who follows his story until 1956, until Mocorgó's death.

Dery is a grande dame actress of the Sarah Bernhardt school of big-gesture theater. Her beauty and popularity is fading, and a new school of acting which involves the use of one's own emotions (a-la Eleanora Duse) is emerging in the person of her younger Viennese rival. She thinks of retiring from the stage, and reunites briefly with her estranged husband in a newly-built manor in the country. Finding that life there is boring, she returns to town, the theater, and her old friends.

A young man has his hepatic duct replaced with a plastic tube after an accident but starts to get worried how this will affect his manliness.

13 March 1965 (Hungary)

This is a romantic biographical film about Franz Liszt. In a distinguished saloon of Paris, the unknown composer, Liszt, defeats the renown Thalberg at a piano competition. Through his playing, he wins the favours and later the hand of the countess D'Agoult. A daughter is born in their marriage, Cosima. Liszt is better and better known, Marie introduces him to the circle of artists.

This film describes the narrator's childhood, the years before and after the Hungarian Soviet Republic, in a burlesque and fabulous style and with the humour of a child's fantasy.

This absurd story, bordering on the drawing-room comedy, portrays the practices of abusing power and the insolence of bureaucracy through the revolting of a young designer-engineer of the Railway Tilting Examination Board. The ambitious Pócsik works persevearingly on how to compensate for the tilting of railway carriages in bends. His jealous bosses, however, use their best efforts to block the development of an innovation.

Count János Buttler rushes home to his parents and his beloved for the school holidays. On the way, they stop at Baron Dőry's house, where János is deviously trapped. In the presence of false witnesses, he is forcibly married to Baron Dőry's pregnant daughter. The swearing priest is the father of the unborn child. Although Buttler, his family and friends do their utmost to have the marriage annulled, the Church and the court, fearing for his authority, will not allow it. John Buttler and his lover therefore choose another way to divorce.

"Ripacsok" is a great movie with great soundtrack, acting, cinematography, direction, etc. The world of "artists", hamming actors, good clowns and bad clowns... A unique movie in many ways. Pál Sándor is a very good hungarian director, watch his movies (especially the slightly better "Régi idõk focija") if you have the chance.

Kicsi Dániel, the young virtuoso pianist gets a separate apartment in the ten-storey block of flats. He rehearses all the time, irregularly, day and night, disturbing thus the peace of the dwellers in the thin-walled house. Inquisition begins in the name of equal rights for inhabitants.

At the end of World War II, Bálint, a deserter tries to obtain forged papers. He gets involved in funny adventures

The rich love wealth and believe that if they don't keep accumulating it, the world will collapse. It is this human weakness that Volpone, the old con man, builds on, inventing an unexpected trick to play a sickly old man about to die, who, with the help of his servant and skilful apprentice, tricks the hypocritical but wealthy Venetian citizens into doing anything in the hope of a rich inheritance. How things don't turn out as planned...

PFC Molnár decides his WWII services are over, and with serious money hidden in his hand grenades, he heads to an abandoned mansion where he encounters not only the sour butler but a bunch of others who also try to wimp out of their duties.

Bátky János a 20th century intellectual studies the secret of the Rosicrucians in London libraries during the day and in the evening takes pleasure in the "decent" everyday joys offered by the fair sex. He gets involved in the wildest ghost-story in the mysterious Wales castle of the Pendragons, where Earl of Gwynnedd from the 18th century is making experiments to prove his ancestors' slogan, "the resurrection of the body". In the meantime St. Claire, a beautiful, demonic woman and her companions try to kill him for the huge legacy.

As the unforgettable Auntie Zsófi, the unforgettable Dajka Margit lives with naive simplicity and wisdom in her secluded little villa. Everyone is in a hurry around her, but she puts the cottage cheese dumplings or the casserole in her oven every day with a healthy spirit. He sells his peach orchard for good money to help his daughter. Lawyer and Bunko, two petty criminals, get wind of the money, but they don't count on the ingenuity of the fair old woman and her fearsome flatmate, the black cat.

The film is set in Budapest, 1924. Laundryman Ede Minarik's only passion is football. His dream is to see his team, Csabagyöngye, qualify for the first division. For this goal he would be willing to sacrifice everything he has. But he has nothing, even footballers just barely. The team is just like the times. But still, "we need a team!"

Winter of 1944, the last days of the war. When the roads and houses ceased to exist and the bottom of the cellars become filled with life, when fortunes were lost and countries burned up, her used coat was only important to Mama, the cloak-room servant of a local dance-school. Her son stole it to sell it for twenty pengő. He did it because Aranka Fussbaum's love cost money. There is no honour left in such a destroyed world. Yet still they start looking for that coat... (Elemér Ragályi won Best camera with this movie in Montreal, 1979, and in Budapest, 1980.)