Highest-Rated Movies about 'New German Cinema'

Fitzcarraldo (1982), Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Alice in the Cities (1974), Stroszek (1977), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), Veronika Voss (1982), Fox and His Friends (1975) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best New German Cinema movies.

#1. Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Storyline: Fitzcarraldo is an obsessed opera lover who wants to build an opera in the jungle. To accomplish this he first has to make a fortune in the rubber business, and his cunning plan involves hauling an enormous river boat across a small mountain with aid from the local Indians.

Plot Keywords: based on true story, obsession, south america, new german cinema, jungle, opera, rainforest ...

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#2. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Storyline: Emmi, a German woman in her mid-sixties, falls in love with Ali, a Moroccan immigrant worker around twenty-five years younger. When they abruptly decide to marry, everyone around them seems appalled. When the folks calm down a bit, Emmi and Ali's relationship grows uncertain.

Plot Keywords: racism, culture clash, loneliness, friendship, family relationships, gambling, friend ...

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#3. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

Storyline: A few decades after the destruction of the Inca empire, a Spanish expedition leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon river in search of gold and wealth. Soon, they come across great difficulties and Don Aguirres, a ruthless man who cares only about riches, becomes their leader. But will his quest lead them to "the golden city", or to certain destruction?

Plot Keywords: megalomaniac, gold, power, river, spanish, conspiracy, convent ...

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#4. Alice in the Cities (1974)

Storyline: German journalist Philip Winter has a case of writer's block when trying to write an article about the United States. He decides to return to Germany, and while trying to book a flight, encounters a German woman and her nine year old daughter Alice doing the same. The three become friends (almost out of necessity) and while the mother asks Winter to mind Alice temporarily, it quickly becomes apparent that Alice will be his responsibility for longer than he expected. After returning to Europe, the innocent friendship between Winter and Alice grows as they travel together through various European cities on a quest for Alice's grandmother.—Karl Engel <cassiel@ix.netcom.com>

Plot Keywords: road movie, little girl, stranger, airport, journalist, character name in title, concert ...

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#5. Stroszek (1977)

Storyline: Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck. After they are harried and beaten by the thugs who have been Eva's pimps, they join Bruno's neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin. In that winter bound, barren prairie, Bruno works as a mechanic, Eva as a waitress. They buy a trailer. Then, bills mount, the bank threatens to repossess the trailer, Eva wants privacy, and inexorably, the promise of a new life deserts Bruno.

Plot Keywords: prostitute, surrealism, chicken, american dream, wisconsin, pimp, road movie ...

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#6. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)

Storyline: Herzog's film is based upon the true and mysterious story of Kaspar Hauser, a young man who suddenly appeared in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to talk or walk, and bearing a strange note; he later explained that he had been held captive in a dungeon of some sort for his entire life that he could remember, and only recently was he released, for reasons unknown. His benefactor attempts to integrate him into society, with intriguing results.

Plot Keywords: exploitation, circus, dwarf, existentialism, professor, 1820s, 1830s ...

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#7. Veronika Voss (1982)

Storyline: Munich, 1955: A sports journalist meets Veronika Voss, an UFA actress who supposedly had an affair with Goebbels. Now declining, Voss is kept by her "kind" doctor, Dr. Katz, supplying her house, food, clean clothes and her favourite: morphine. Voss, trying to come back towards the cinema, cannot perform an absurdly simple scene, but it attracts the attention of the journalist, who suspects that something's very wrong regarding her doctor.—Sdicht <sdicht@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: washed up star, drug addiction, overdose, lesbian subtext, actress, morphine, drugs ...

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#8. Fox and His Friends (1975)

Storyline: Working class and middle-upper class worlds come together in this interesting look at class conflict within the gay world from the German director Reiner Werner Fassbinder. Fassbinder plays Fox, he is working class, a former circus performer who wins the lottery of DM 500,000. His life starts to look up and doesn't have to struggle financially. Fox can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. He begins a new relationship with Eugen, creates a business partnership, and his life is looking bright. While he wants to climb up the social ladder, it isn't without turmoil, and being torn between his old working class roots, and the shiny new facade of middle class consciousness.—Nathan Niessen

Plot Keywords: munich germany, class differences, brother sister relationship, businessman, loan, money, quarrel ...

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#9. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979)

Storyline: Jonathan Harker is sent away to Count Dracula's castle to sell him a house in Wismar where Jonathan lives. But Count Dracula is a vampire, an undead ghoul living off of men's blood. Inspired by a photograph of Lucy Harker, Jonathan's wife, Dracula moves to Wismar, bringing with him death and plague... An unusually contemplative version of Dracula, in which the vampire bears the curse of not being able to get old and die.

Plot Keywords: vampire, remake, immortality, insane asylum, melancholy, rat, transylvania ...

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#10. The Tin Drum (1979)

Storyline: Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on...

Plot Keywords: nazi, male nudity, drummer, money, mother son relationship, boy, nazi uniform ...

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#11. The American Friend (1977)

Storyline: Tom Ripley has a sweet deal with an art forger. The forger creates the paintings; Tom sells them. But another criminal business associate wants Tom to go in for an even riskier enterprise: murder. Tom suggests his associate ask a local picture framer instead. That man has a fatal disease, or so it's rumored. More, he has a wife and kid that surely he wouldn't want to leave penniless. Let this picture framer be a hit man, and no one will suspect. The terminally ill craftsman may agree to the misdeed, and several more, but he'll end up needing Tom Ripley in a pinch.

Plot Keywords: neo noir, based on novel, hitman, cult film, male bonding, assassination, leukemia ...

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#12. Circle of Deceit (1981)

Storyline: Laschen, a German journalist, travels to the city of Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians to produce an essay about the situation. Together with his photographer, he meets some important people and discovers the everyday face of the war. He also has to figure out about his home life, where his marriage is in a big crisis.—Benjamin Stello

Plot Keywords: adoption, explosion, extramarital affair, father daughter relationship, father son relationship, fear, female frontal nudity ...

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#13. Woyzeck (1979)

Storyline: Everything in town appears calm, placid, lovely. But Woyzeck, a rifleman assigned as an orderly, hears voices -- the times are out of joint, at least in his cosmos. To his captain, Woyzeck is a comic marvel: ignorant but courageous, full of energy to little purpose. To a local doctor, Woyzeck is a curiosity, the object of cruel study. Woyzeck, 40, has a young wife, Marie, and a small child. He dotes on them, but Marie, even though she has periods of guilt and remorse, carries on affairs and flirtations. When the captain lets drop broad hints of Woyzeck's being a cuckold, his inner demons and the voices of the spheres take over. Will madness bring action? Of what sort?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: humiliation, based on play, adulterous wife, despair, underdog, murder, soldier ...

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#14. Katzelmacher (1969)

Storyline: Jorgos, a migrant worker from Greece, joins a group of young people in Munich usually hanging around. This foreigner incites hostility and jealousy among them, and he is insulted as a "Communist" and "Greek dog". After having been attacked, Jorgos talks to Maria of his wish to return home.—L.H. Wong <as9401k56@ntuvax.ntu.ac.sg>

Plot Keywords: inn, racism, munich germany, xenophobia, boredom, twenty something, boyfriend girlfriend relationship ...

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