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.
When a suspicious man bribes Emil with chocolate in return for a bundle of cash, the young lad thinks of a plan to catch him.
Erich Kästner’s beloved novel has been adapted for film or television six times since its publication in 1929; this 1935 British version was the first in English. Believed lost for decades, it was recently rediscovered by the BFI and has now been restored. The film moves the action from Berlin to London, where Emil goes to stay with his grandmother and cousin. Thereafter, the tale of Emil’s adventures with a gang of streetwise London children faithfully follows the original plot.
When Emil travels by bus to Berlin to visit his family, his money is stolen by a crook who specializes in digging tunnels. While following the thief, Emil runs into Gustav, a young boy who gathers up all his friends to help Emil find the money. However, they get into more trouble than they bargained for when Emil's pickpocket turns out to be mixed up with a couple of notorious bank robbers.
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.
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.
Gustav Hartmann is in trouble. Because of the new taxis he doesn't get many passengers in his horse-drawn carriage. To prove what he and his horse are capable of, he starts a trip from Berlin to Paris.
The drama of a youthful triangle among gang leader Freddy, his brother Jan, and bad girl Cissy, in one of the first considerations of juvenile delinquency in post-war West Germany.
Focusing on the predicaments of those born with genetic defect causing dwarfism, the film is the love story between Khoka and Soma.
In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.
After Clown Teddy lost his son, he lost his gift for laughter. He opened a joke shop and lives above the shop. His landlady has had a foster son since birth, and Teddy decides to raise the child, who always believed that Teddy was his father. When the mother suddenly appears five years later and wants her son, Teddy decides to run away with the child and goes back onstage with his son. Will the family catch up with them, or will the mother never get her son back?
Post-war Germany 1945: Two rival gangs of uprooted boys fight each other in the ruins of Berlin, whose business is the black market out of necessity in order to survive. Their respective leaders are Gerhard and Dietrich. A pretty young circus artist named Corona comes to the destroyed city with a traveling circus. She immediately caught the boys' attention. When the latter notice that the circus director is abusing the girl, the two gangs join forces and plot an act of revenge against the tyrant. But with the hustle and bustle caused by this, Corona falls from the trapeze and is seriously injured. When the circus moves on, the boys organize a doctor for the sick artist who has been left behind. Their collectively concern for the blonde beauty makes them forget their enmity. This welds the troops closer together and sets the course for a common, meaningful future.
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.
Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. When the Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's father says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution...
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.
Hitler no longer believes in himself, and can barely see himself as an equal to even his sheep dog. But to seize the helm of the war he would have to create one of his famous fiery speeches to mobilize the masses. Goebbels therefore brings a Jewish acting teacher Grünbaum and his family from the camps in order to train the leader in rhetoric. Grünbaum is torn, but starts Hitler in his therapy ...
When Ruth's husband dies in New York, in 2000, she imposes strict Jewish mourning, which puzzles her children. A stranger comes to the house - Ruth's cousin - with a picture of Ruth, age 8, in Berlin, with a woman the cousin says helped Ruth escape. Hannah, Ruth's daughter engaged to a gentile, goes to Berlin to find the woman, Lena Fisher, now 90. Posing as a journalist investigating intermarriage, Hannah interviews Lena who tells the story of a week in 1943 when the Jewish husbands of Aryan women were detained in a building on Rosenstrasse. The women gather daily for word of their husbands. The film goes back and forth to tell Ruth and Lena's story. How will it affect Hannah?
Valeri Sikorski knows from his doctors that his days are numbered because of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He wants to make a last adventure in his life and goes to England, but first he stops in Berlin to pick up his best friend Victor. But Victor has disappeared. Now Valeri's journey turns into a search for his old friend Victor.
David, a recently fired scrapyard worker and Marie, a prostitute, both about 20 years old, meet on New Year's Eve in Berlin and decide to run away together. As David's arm is plastered from an accident Marie continues to prostitute herself to finance their restless journey through the Ruhr area. Their love and their will to survive guide them though all problems.
A woman tries to survive the invasion of Berlin by the Soviet troops during the last days of World War II.