In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.
During the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.
In the first of Hartl's two Mozart biographies, Hans Holt plays the robust and dashing composer who, in keeping with the spirit of the film's time of origin, sets out into the world like a soldier of art after his falling out with the Salzburg authorities. Instead of conquering lands, he conquers the hearts of young ladies, like one of his most famous creations.
GDR and West Berlin in the 1950s. Hans Nettermann, a designer at the "Komet" bicycle factory, is a favorite of the BSG road riders. His dream is to one day ride in a stand-up race. A construction error throws him back in the road race. They work for a long time to fix it. Then he is persuaded to go to West Berlin to become a professional rider. Although he makes it to the top class, he also learns about the scams in professional sport. He marries Marianne, who has followed him and tries to persuade him to return to the GDR, which he eventually does. After some difficulties at work, he is nominated for the first amateur endurance race in the GDR and wins.
During the unloading of the freighter "Florida", West German dock workers discover napalm bombs instead of the specified precision machines - and a deceptive maneuver by the American occupying forces: the workers had already refused to unload the ship in France, where it was named "Chicago". It was refloated on the voyage to Germany. The German dockers also went on strike. Among them was Hein Jensen, who found it particularly difficult to take part. He had just found work again with difficulty. He needs the money because he wants to get married. His bride Helga has just given birth. When the Americans try to blackmail him into changing his colleagues' minds, he knows where his place is. The strike turns into a huge peace demonstration.
Mitrea Kocor, a young butler, gives up his work in the fields to join Antonescu's Romanian army, which fought alongside Nazi forces during World War II. After spending time in Soviet captivity and a prisoner-of-war camp, he returns to his home village to participate in post-war reconstruction.
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
To take a revenge on countess Laura, who slapped him at his proposal, the Governor of the occupied Poland gets her fall in love with a poor student, and exposes him during wedding banquet.
A traditional chinese story about a girl, Zhu Yingtai, daughter of the noble Mr. Zhu, who goes to Hangzhou to study, dressed as a boy. There, she meets a student, Liang Shanbo, with whom she becomes good friends. They go to school together for the following years, and Zhu gradually falls in love with Liang.
Theater director Falke, dressed as a bat, ends up in prison after a merry carnival night. Director Frank only releases him after some time. Falke decides to take revenge on his friend Gabriel von Eisenstein, to whom he owes the whole affair. The annual masked ball at Prince Orlofsky's provides the opportunity. Falke stages a game of mistaken identity in which Eisenstein does not recognize his own wife and courts her, while maid Adele appears as the countess. Eisenstein is duped, Falke has taken his revenge.
Two small children and a ship's cook survive a shipwreck and find safety on an idyllic tropical island. Soon, however, the cook dies and the young boy and girl are left on their own. Days become years and Emmeline and Richard make a home for themselves surrounded by exotic creatures and nature's beauty. But will they ever see civilization again?
Vera Meiners' life was sweet but unfortunately for her, it was not to last. Her husband, Jan, left her after she met a former lover in a harmless friendly meeting. Forced to resume her disrupted medical career, she worked in a Swiss clinic but, without the knowledge of the chief surgeon, Vera ordered a risky operation to be performed and was thereafter fired. Penniless, she then works in Spanish nightclubs in order to provide for herself and her child. After many years, she runs into her friend Frank again in one of these nightclubs...
Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protege and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he is involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the devil's work.
The story of Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice and alchemist’s assistant. Fleeing from the Prussian King, he goes to Saxony, where King Frederick August the Strong takes him to a fortress and demands that he create gold. Böttger is equipped with everything he would need for the task, but he has known for a while that actual gold production is a myth and instead experiments with porcelain—white porcelain, as the Chinese are said to possess. In 1709, he finally succeeds in surprising the King with the "white gold," the first white porcelain made in Europe, he hopes for freedom.
The ship stoker Heini Holler leaves Greece for health reasons and reports to the consulate of fascist Germany. The consul sends him back to Hamburg. He had previously reported him to the Gestapo there as politically suspicious. On his arrival, Holler is immediately arrested. His comrades kidnap the consul and demand an exchange for Heini, which is to take place in Marseille. The Gestapo agree to this as a pretense and secure the support of the French police to arrest the kidnappers. However, the solidarity of the sailors in Marseille is stronger and Heini is able to cure his lung disease in the Soviet Union.
Factory workers in 1947 repair a bridge over Song Hua River so that Communist forces can use it.
Dr. Wagner is a scientist currently working on an experiment for the Asta plant in East Berlin. If the experiment is successful its a brilliant new invention. But Wagner is the target of sabotage, and all the decisive experiment fails. Wagner can not explain this setback.
After Partition, a large group of farmers from East Bengal have to migrate to Calcutta.
Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.
Celebrating the end of World War II and liberation of their city, a group of students is set on holding a cultural evening. They invite Ema, a reclusive piano teacher from the same building, to play for them. Ema declines, but starts reminscing back on her own life and the historical events that have seemingly overshadowed it.