Bounce: Behind The Velvet Rope

When Werner Herzog was still a child, his father was beaten to death before his eyes. His mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing and thereupon shipped him off to one of the toughest youth welfare institutions in Freistatt. This was followed by a career as a bouncer in the city's most notorious music club and an attempt to start a family. Today, the 77-year-old from Bielefeld lives with his dog Lucky in a lonely house in the country. Despite adverse living conditions, he has survived in his own unique and inimitable way.

10 years before the debut of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. In 1979, Bill Viola and Frank Caliguri dreamed up a contest pitting barroom bigmouths against wrestlers, martial artists, boxers, bouncers and brawlers, billed as no-holds-barred new type of competitive fighting. When the fights succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, they were swept up in a chain of events that ended in the first mixed-martial arts ban in the nation. “Tough Guys” chronicles the inception of Caliguri and Viola’s first bouts and the colorful, crazy cast of fighters who made them a hit as well as the politicians who brought it all crashing down. The film brings to life a moment when the national martial arts craze was building to a crescendo as the economies of Pennsylvania steel towns were plummeting to levels of unemployment never seen, breeding desperate men looking for a chance to prove their worth and make some money in the ring.

Libreville, Gabon, Africa, 2016. Christ Olsen Mickala, a young boxer, trains tirelessly during the day and earns his living by night as a bouncer in nightclubs. At the same time, the combat of the presidential elections is taking place. As Christ hopes to succeed, a whole country hopes that a democratic transition finally triumphs.

Portraits of the bouncers of the Flamingo Club in Zurich.

Chicago am Rhein

Mr. T's first starring made-for-TV movie role has him playing a tough and scowling, but softhearted, nightclub bouncer who finds himself involved with a bunch of kids after being conned into taking over a youth center.

Shane MacQuade is a rising star in Hong Kong's underworld kickboxing rings... until he wins a fight he was supposed to lose. Framed for murder, running from both the Triad mob and the police, Shane escapes to America. There, a chance encounter with a professional hitman in the Nevada desert ends with Shane taking the man's identity and his life. Shane finds that the violent world he left behind in Hong Kong is too strong to escape. A crooked Las Vegas fight promoter and a stripper named Angelique draw him into a web of sex and murder that will test his martial arts skills to their limit and change his life forever.

At the remote and hidden Shaolinji temple, Miyoko, also known as Shaolin Grandma , has practiced martial arts fighting techniques there for many years. When she is badly defeated by Ippon-ashi, her young and attractive rival, Miyoko is thrown out of the temple. Loosing her identity, Miyoko and her two Shaolinji apprentice misfits drift to an urban town.

A young man from a small town goes to Hollywood to make his fortune. He gets hired as a bouncer at a disco club, but soon finds himself caught up in drugs, gangsters and eventually has to flee when his boss and another bouncer are murdered by drug dealers, who are soon after him.

The Double Deuce is the meanest, loudest and rowdiest bar south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Dalton has been hired to clean it up. He might not look like much, but the Ph.D.-educated bouncer proves he's more than capable – busting the heads of troublemakers and turning the roadhouse into a jumping hot spot. But Dalton's romance with the gorgeous Dr. Clay puts him on the bad side of cutthroat local big shot Brad Wesley.

When a strip club goer is killed, the dancers hire a bouncer to protect themselves. As the sexual tension grows between one of the women and the bouncer, the mystery of the dangerous killer unravels.

Doug Glatt, a slacker who discovers he has a talent for brawling, is approached by a minor league hockey coach and invited to join the team as the "muscle." Despite the fact that Glatt can't skate, his best friend, Pat, convinces him to give it a shot, and Glatt becomes a hero to the team and their fans, until the league's reigning goon becomes threatened by Glatt's success and decides to even the score.

An Australian lone wolf's quiet existence is shattered when he learns that the woman he once loved and thought was dead is alive and held captive by ruthless gangsters. Now, to take on this dangerous criminal organization, he must seek out allies and storm into a world of violence to rescue the love of his life in this gritty, modern day violent fairytale.

Ex-UFC fighter Dalton takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse, only to discover that this paradise is not all it seems.

A seasoned bouncer is forced to deal with severe consequences after letting two minors slip into the nightclub, he's employed to guard.

A tough nightclub bouncer struggling to raise his 8-year-old daughter is forced to go undercover after an unfortunate event.

Tom Maranta has been a 'bouncer' for years, but he has decided to give the toughs, pushers, pimps and prostitutes the flick. As he makes that decision, Pharoah, his bitter enemy, is released from prison for stabbing him in a bloody and vicious street fight three years earlier. After three years of sleepless nights and haunting nightmares, Tom realizes a showdown is inevitable and he enlists the help of a friend and together they are confronted by Pharoah and his army.

Charlie is a refugee from South Sudan who works as a bouncer at a Melbourne pub. An altercation with a local man reveals that sometimes people have more in common with each other than is first apparent.

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.)

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.