Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Born: 1945-05-31

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a German film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the most important figures in the New German Cinema. Fassbinder was prolific; in a professional career that lasted less than fifteen years, he completed forty feature length films, two television film series, three short films, four video productions, twenty-four stage plays, and four radio plays. He had tortured personal relationships with the actors and technicians around him who formed a surrogate family. However, his pictures demonstrate his deep sensitivity to social outsiders and his hatred of institutionalized violence. He ruthlessly attacked both German bourgeois society and the larger limitations of humanity. Fassbinder died in June 1982 at the age of 37 from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates. His death has often been cited as the event that ended the New German Cinema movement.


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Lili Marleen

as Günther Weissenborn (uncredited)
Released: 1981-01-14

The story of a German singer named Willie who while working in Switzerland falls in love with a...

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Veronika Voss

as Kinobesucher (uncredited)
Released: 1982-05-13

In Munich 1955, German film star Veronika Voss becomes a drug addict at the mercy of corrupt Dr....

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Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

as Eugen
Released: 1974-06-05

Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her...

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The Marriage of Maria Braun

as Peddler
Released: 1979-03-23

Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in...

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The Merchant of Four Seasons

as Zucker
Released: 1972-02-10

Hans is a street fruit peddler and born-loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family,...

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Baal

as Baal
Released: 1970-01-07

Baal explores the cult of the genius, an anti-heroic figure who chooses to be a social outcast...

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Love Is Colder Than Death

as Franz
Released: 1970-01-16

Small-time pimp Franz is torn between his mistress and Bruno, the gangster sent after him by a...

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Fox and His Friends

as Franz "Fox" Bieberkopf
Released: 1975-06-06

Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and...

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Effi Briest

as Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Released: 1974-06-20

When 17-year-old Effi Briest marries the elderly Baron von Instetten, she moves to a small,...

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Room 666

as Self
Released: 1982-06-01

During the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wenders asks a number of global film directors to, one at...

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Beware of a Holy Whore

as Sascha
Released: 1971-08-28

Tensions between members of a film crew build while they wait for the arrival of the director...

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Wim Wenders, Desperado

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2020-07-16

"Wings Of Desire" and "Buena Vista Social Club", "Paris, Texas" and "The State Of Things": Wim...

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Tenderness of the Wolves

as Wittowski
Released: 1973-07-12

A German serial killer preys on boys and young men during the so-called years of crisis between...

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Katzelmacher

as Jorgos
Released: 1969-10-07

A group of young slackers spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment...

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Mathias Kneißl

as Flecklbauer
Released: 1971-05-27

Inspired by the real life events of Mathias Kneißl, a marginal man, son of poor farmers from...

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The American Soldier

as Franz Walsch (uncredited)
Released: 1970-10-09

Ricky returns to Munich from Vietnam and is promptly hired as a contract killer.

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Germany in Autumn

as Self (uncredited)
Released: 1978-03-03

Germany in Autumn does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard...

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Bremen Freedom

as Rumpf
Released: 1972-11-12

A very stylized TV version of the Fassbinder play. The set consists of a few pieces of furniture...

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Whity

as Saloon guest (uncredited)
Released: 1971-06-02

"Whity" is the mulatto butler of the dysfunctional Nicholson family in the American southwest in...

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I Don’t Just Want You to Love Me

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 1992-06-11

A documentary about the life and work of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

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Shadow of Angels

as Raoul
Released: 1976-09-03

Beautiful, detached, laconic, consumptive Lily Brest is a streetwalker with few clients. She...

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Supergirl

as Man in Front of Shop Window
Released: 1971-05-14

In this comedy, Iris Berben plays a mysterious, supernaturally beautiful girl from another...

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Fassbinder

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2015-04-30

A film portrait of the influential Bavarian actor, director and screenwriter who publicly...

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The Sudden Wealth of the Poor People of Kombach

as Bauer
Released: 1971-04-14

An intriguing Hans Christian Anderson-style fairy tale aesthetic and voice over narration....

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Kamikaze 1989

as Police Lieutenant Jansen
Released: 1982-07-16

In a totalitarian society of the future, in which the government controls all facets of the...

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Gods of the Plague

as Pornokunde
Released: 1970-07-24

A man is released from prison and finds the society on the outside less than appealing. With...

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1 Berlin-Harlem

as Self
Released: 1974-01-01

An African-American GI retires from the US Army in West Berlin to live with his (white)...

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Counter Shot: Departure of the Filmmakers

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2008-02-11

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Mit Eichenlaub und Feigenblatt

as Soldier
Released: 1968-01-05

A young man named Jürgen joins the military. As much as he tries to make a heroic career as a...

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Fassbinder: Love Without Demands

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2015-02-07

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was probably Germany’s most significant post-war director. His swift...

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The City Tramp

as Man #1 on Toilet
Released: 1966-01-01

A tramp finds a gun lying in the street.

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The Niklashausen Journey

as Schwarzer Mönch
Released: 1970-10-26

Can a small group of people start a proletarian revolution, asks the "Black Monk" in a leather...

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Rio das Mortes

as Hannas Tanzpartner (uncredited)
Released: 1971-02-15

Michel and Guenther, working in dead-end jobs, are obsessed with going to Peru to find buried...

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The Bridegroom, the Actress, and the Pimp

as the pimp
Released: 1968-10-10

Three sequences are linked together in this short film by Straub; the first sequence is a long...

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Haytabo

as Bote des Professors
Released: 1971-01-01

A biochemistry professor finds an old manuscript with structure and formula of immortality drug.

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A Life for Movies: Lotte Eisner

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2020-11-01

Born in Berlin in 1896, Lotte Eisner became famous for her passionate involvement in the world...

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Daniel Schmid: Le Chat Qui Pense

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2010-09-02

When director Daniel Schmid grew up, his parents ran a hotel in the Alps, and this singular...

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Fassbinder in Hollywood

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2002-07-02

Though he never actually worked in Hollywood, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who died in 1982 at the...

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My Name Is Not Ali

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2011-11-07

Travelling between Germany, France and Tunisia, Viola Shafik reconstructs and deconstructs the...

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Once Upon a Time… The Marriage of Maria Braun

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2012-06-12

A documentary that focuses on the making of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Marriage of Maria...

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The Little Chaos

as Franz
Released: 1966-12-02

Theo, Marite, and Franz cannot make any money selling magazines door to door, so they try a...

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The Culture Industry Needs Something Like Me

as Self (also interviewee) (uncredited)
Released: 1976-01-01

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Signs of Vigorous Life: The New German Cinema

as Self
Released: 1976-12-02

BBC documentary about the rise of the New German Cinema and several of its most important figures.

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End of the Commune?

as Self (uncredited)
Released: 1970-06-05

"End of the Commune"/"Ende einer kommune" is a great 49 min. long movie made in 1969 about...

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Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1977

as Self
Released: 1977-01-01

Rainer Werner Fassbinder reflects on the various stages of his career, discusses how his motives...

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The Ancestress

as Jaromir
Released: 1971-12-20

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Cinémania : Rainer Werner Fassbinder

as Self
Released: 1981-04-27

A documentary about the Director Fassbinder but edited as if it was a film of the Master...

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Alfonso Sansone: Producer by Chance

as Self (archive footage)
Released: 2014-09-10

After the war, almost by chance, Alfonso Sansone starts to produce documentary films and moves...

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Notes on the Making of 'Berlin Alexanderplatz'

as Self
Released: 1980-01-01

Documentary about the making of the 1980 German television series.

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The Last Trip to Harrisburg

as Voice of Man and Woman in Train (voice)
Released: 1984-10-08

A soldier and a beautiful blonde on a train to Harrisburg.

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Photographer "Eise"

as Self
Released: 2019-12-21

A portion of the Emmy award-winning documentary on the great Life Magazine photojournalist,...

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The Wizard of Babylon

as Self
Released: 1982-08-13

Documentary about German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, during the time of filming...

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NDR Talk Show

as Self
First aired: 1979-02-09

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Stars in der Manege

as Self
First aired: 1959-04-11

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Am laufenden Band

as Self - Guest
First aired: 1974-04-27

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Dalli Dalli

as Self - Candidate
First aired: 1971-05-13

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Spécial cinéma

as Self
First aired: 1974-09-25

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