Two Worlds

The story of General Yorck von Wartenburg, a commander in the army of Prussian King Wilhelm, who defied the king's orders for the Prussian army to join Napoleon in his invason of Russia.

In the style of Gogol's Inspector General: When a traveling salesman arrives in the car of a government official, the powers that be of a small town think he's the auditor and try to throw him off the track about their disorderly finances.

Kitty Kellermann is set to appear in court on suspicion of murder. She is accused of killing her husband. Strangely enough, Peter Bille, who suddenly shows up, confesses to the crime of his own accord, but manages to escape shortly afterward. An adaptation of the play Hokuspokus by Curt Goetz.

In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

Vehicle for one of the Weimar era's most beloved actresses: as the popular Prussian queen in 1806-1807, she presides over the humiliating Peace of Tilsit which Napoleon forces on the defeated Germans.

It begins with a Tannhäuser performance and ends with the premiere of The Tales of Hoffmann. In between a young ingénue cast in her first big role, the Hoffmann rehearsals, the theatre director and his stage director exchanging cynicisms, a budding love affair. Gründgens at his most repulsive, trying to woo both lovers. And a hair-raising finale. Add to this some snappy dialogue and "pre-code" scenes that make you sit up and stare.

An anti-British propaganda film from Nazi Germany which depicts the life of the South African politician Paul Kruger and his eventual defeat by the British during the Boer War.

In 1957 Gustaf Gründgens staged a new production of Goethe's Faust in which he once again played Mephisto, a part he had played since 1932. The brilliant production was a huge success and ran for a couple of years. In 1959 Peter Gorski captured the performance on film in his directorial film debut. Basically it is a registration of the production, but Gorksi did manage to accentuate the details of the acting by using enough medium and close-up shots which give a view on the acting you normally would not able to see in a theater.

As a gang of classy jewel thieves hop from one European country to another, an engineer rescues a woman from their clutches.

During a house concert, the Bach family gets a visit by their son Wilhelm Friedemann, who has just given up his position in Dresden because he no longer could endure the reprisals of his superiors.

Vienna in the beginning of the twentieth century. Cavalry Lieutenant Fritz Lobheimer is about to end his affair with Baroness Eggerdorff when he meets the young Christine, the daughter of an opera violinist. Baron Eggerdorff however soon hears of his past misfortune...

When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.

The likeable and carefree Grand Duke of Abacco is in dire straits. There is no money left to service the State’s debt; the main creditor is looking forward to expropriating the entire Duchy. The marriage with Olga, Grand Duchess of Russia, would solve everything, but a crucial letter of hers about the engagement has been stolen. Besides, a bunch of revolutionaries and a dubious businessman have other plans regarding the Grand Duke. With the intrusion of adventurer Philipp Collins into the Grand Duke’s affairs, a series of frantic chases, plots and counter-plots begins…

Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1933, when the Nazis came into power, until 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed. (A sequel to From Caligari to Hitler, 2015.)

The political advisor to the French emperor Napoleon, and the Austrian emperor Franz I, arrange a marriage between Napoleon and the Austrian archduchess Marie-Luise in order to prevent another war.