A pseudo documentary study of an archetypal German who tries to model his world according to his ideas of law and (sexual) order.
The subject of this historical drama is a splintering Berlin in the years of 1948 and 1949. Played against the backdrop of social upheaval, the characters in the drama come to epitomize the best and worst of each pole of the political sphere. A 17-year-old hoodlum by the name of Gladow works hand-in-glove with a local white-collar criminal to rob and pillage every day and night, defying capture. While he and his gang of thugs are terrorizing the people of Berlin, the Soviets are trying to make the blockade of their region of control impermeable. The future casts long shadows over the drama, as Berlin's problems take the shape of times to come.
A gently humorous look at otherness and xenophobia in modern day German with this tale of a black Berlin teen named Leroy who rediscovers his roots after falling for a pretty white girl and meeting her racist family.
Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.
In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.
When 17-year-old Effi Briest marries the elderly Baron von Instetten, she moves to a small, isolated Baltic town and a house that she fears is haunted. Starved for companionship, Effi begins a friendship with Major Crampas, a charismatic womanizer.
An American army officer working for British intelligence comes to post-war Berlin to solve a murder. His investigation is compromised when he falls for a nightclub singer, not realising she is an agent of the criminal mastermind he is on the trail of.
In Berlin in 1961, an American soldier and a German engineer join forces to build a tunnel under the Berlin Wall in order to smuggle out refugees, including the soldier's East German girlfriend.
Sunny is the singer of band trying to establish itself in the music-scene of East-Berlin. They play regular gigs in small towns, but Sunny feels out of touch with the audience and her life as a whole. She begins a relationship with the amateur saxophonist and studied philosopher Ralph who writes her a very personal song - but his obsession with death and unfaithful lifestyle is not for her. After getting into a quarrel with a band member who harasses her and telling off a show-host she is thrown out of the band. Abandoned, she struggles to regain control over her life.
Frustrated, because he is forced to produce bad TV-shows, a manager of a TV-station, enters the station and manipulates the ratings, to initiate a TV-revolution.
A posthumous look at the last days of Guenther's life as he, his best friend, and his sister let loose on a four-day binge of alcohol, drugs, and sex.
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.
Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. She has 20 minutes to raise this amount and meet Manni. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.
Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
Magdalena and Michael have loved each other since they were children. But when the Nazis come to power, Michael rebels against the regime and is sentenced to fifteen years in a concentration camp. Magdalena, meanwhile, goes underground with the help of a friend and later immigrates to the Soviet Union. Michael, who has joined the Red Army, discovers on the way to Moscow that Magdalena is staying there. But when his plane lands, she is already on her way back to Germany. Michael hopes that one day, he and Magdalena will be reunited.
Paul and Paula have had bad experiences with love: Paul is financially well off but has lost all affection for his wife, and Paula leads a troublesome life raising two children on her own. They meet and discover a strong passion for each other. Life seems like a dream when they're together - but their short flights from the burdens of reality are once and again interrupted by Paul's ties to family and career.
Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.
A CIA operation to purchase classified Russian documents is blown by a rival agent, who then shows up in the sleepy seaside village where Bourne and Marie have been living. The pair run for their lives and Bourne, who promised retaliation should anyone from his former life attempt contact, is forced to once again take up his life as a trained assassin to survive.