Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

42 Episodes

New German Cinema renegade Rainer Werner Fassbinder lived fast and made films even faster, directing more than forty features, miniseries, and TV movies before his untimely death at age thirty-seven. With both cutting irony and profound empathy, Fassbinder exposed the moral hypocrisy of German society in slashing, Sirkian melodramas like THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT and ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL; subversive period pieces such as the postwar-set THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN and the Weimar-era epic BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ; and taboo-breaking explorations of gay desire including FOX AND HIS FRIENDS and his final film, the delirious Jean Genet adaptation QUERELLE.

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Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
  • The Third Generation

    Episode 1

    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1979 • West Germany
    Starring Harry Baer, Hark Bohm, Margit Carstensen

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s follow-up to his international breakthrough THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN is a wildly anarchic satire of guerrilla terrorism in which a band of leftist radicals i...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 1

    Episode 2

    “The Punishment Begins”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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 ...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 2

    Episode 3

    “How Is One to Live If One Doesn’t Want to Die?”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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 ...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 3

    Episode 4

    “A Hammer Blow to the Head Can Injure the Soul”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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 t...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 4

    Episode 5

    “A Handful of People in the Depths of Silence”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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 th...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 5

    Episode 6

    “A Reaper with the Power of Our Lord”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 6

    Episode 7

    “Love Has Its Price”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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 mad...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 7

    Episode 8

    “Remember—An Oath Can Be Amputated”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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, ...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 8

    Episode 9

    “The Sun Warms the Skin But Burns It Sometimes Too”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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 a...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 9

    Episode 10

    "About the Eternities Between the Many and the Few”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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 a...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 10

    Episode 11

    “Loneliness Tears Cracks of Madness Even in Walls”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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 ag...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 11

    Episode 12

    “Knowledge Is Power and the Early Bird Catches the Worm”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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,...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 12

    Episode 13

    “The Serpent in the Soul of the Serpent”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    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-f...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 13

    Episode 14

    “The Outside and the Inside and the Secret of Fear of the Secret”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific dire...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Epilogue

    Episode 15

    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...

  • Lola
    1:55:15
    Episode 16

    Lola

    Episode 16

    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1981 • Germany
    Starring Barbara Sukowa, Mario Adorf, Armin Mueller-Stahl

    Germany 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...

  • Veronika Voss

    Episode 17

    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1982 • Germany
    Starring Rosel Zech, Hilmar Thate, Cornelia Froboess

    A 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...

  • Querelle

    Episode 18

    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1982 • Germany
    Starring Brad Davis, Franco Nero, Jeanne Moreau

    Conjured from the unholy meeting of two iconoclastic queer artists, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film audaciously raises Jean Genet’s controversial novel to the level of myth. In an expressi...