Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany
Starring Günter Lamprecht, Gottfried John, Barbara Sukowa
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, had already made over thirty films. Fassbinder’s immersive epic follows the hulking, childlike ex-convict Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht) as he attempts to “become an honest soul” amid the corrosive urban landscape of Weimar-era Germany. With equal parts cynicism and humanity, Fassbinder details a mammoth portrait of a common man struggling to survive in a viciously uncommon time.
Up Next in Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
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Lola
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1981 • Germany
Starring Barbara Sukowa, Mario Adorf, Armin Mueller-StahlGermany in the autumn of 1957: Lola (Barbara Sukowa), a seductive cabaret singer–prostitute, exults in her power as a tempter of men, but she wants more—money, property, and love. Pitt...
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Veronika Voss
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1982 • Germany
Starring Rosel Zech, Hilmar Thate, Cornelia FroboessA once-beloved Third Reich–era starlet, Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech) lives in obscurity in postwar Munich. Struggling for survival and haunted by past glories, she encounters sportswriter Rob...
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Querelle
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1982 • Germany
Starring Brad Davis, Franco Nero, Jeanne MoreauDirector Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film is a deliriously stylized tale of hothouse lust and simmering violence. Set amid an expressionistic soundstage vision of a French sea port, this da...
