Based on the best-selling novel by Nobel-laureate Heinrich Böll, this drama is a passionate indictment of Catholicism. Hans Schnier (Helmut Griem) has earned his living as a clown, though he is in fact a very covert sort of social critic. After enduring a difficult childhood in Bonn during the...
Richard is a private detective. He makes a good money from marital infidelity: the deceived husband and wife generously paid him for proof of their infidelity "halves"...
A medical doctor who is regarded as a specialist in retort research has been found dead. Science journalist Vera Pukall investigates the alleged suicide and uncovers the ruthless activities of a large pharmaceutical company. She receives help from Dr. Svoboda, of all people, the group's main...
A small carnival is in dire financial straits. Their show is attracting fewer and fewer paying customers, as their "attractions" are ageing, out of shape and beset by internal feuds and bickering. One day a beautiful young woman shows up and suggests a way of attracting customers: put on a strip...
In 50s Canada, trapper Jacques Monge is a freedom-loving adventurer. But when he falls in love with Hannah, a farmer's daughter, he stirs up trouble within his family.
1802: The adventurous life story of Hans Bückler, known as "Schinderhannes", who fights against the French occupying forces and large landowners exploiting poor farmers in the Hunsrück region during the Napoleonic Wars. The French eventually allied themselves with the German authorities. After...
The ageing actor Peter Poller, whose name still has traction, is engaged as a guest at a provincial theater. They are performing a play by Molière. Poller is an alcoholic and his physical collapse is only a matter of time. His colleagues are watching him: the fear that the performance could fail...
In a Nazi concentration camp, Karl, a German political prisoner, and David, a Jewish watchmaker, are confined in a small enclosure from which only one of them will be able to go out alive.
Brothers Friedrich and Richard inherit their father’s seaside hotel after reunification. Ambitious Western businessman Friedrich plots a massive development behind Richard’s back, who wants to preserve the family inn. Tensions rise as old grudges and clashing values tear them apart, even as...
A top-level meeting of the Eastern secret services is taking place in Prague. Martin, an agent who knows all the tricks of the trade, is tasked with obtaining the minutes of the conference for the West German intelligence service. And he does so via Zimra, his former lover. She is now the...
The young toolmaker Gerd Asselt knows how to exploit his acquaintance with the influential Albrecht Maybach for a breathtaking career: With pumped money, he takes over companies in need of reorganization and quickly racks up an entire business empire. But pride comes before a fall...
In the Second World War, spring 1944: shortly before the planned Ardennes offensive, Germans and Americans stand waiting on the German-Belgian border. The small Eifel village of Winterspelt threatens to become the scene of a bloody battle. A German officer comes up with a plan to hand over his...
Young Olga Ahrendt almost succeeded in attempting suicide. She had thrown herself in front of a tram out of desperation about her miserable life, a desperation she shared with many in the post-war period. Fortunately, Privy Councillor Sauerbruch is at the scene of the incident, ordering her to be...
