The best Kurt Raab’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Kurt Raab’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Kurt Raab.
Escape from Sobibor
7.4/10
The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
8/10
Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.
The Magic Mountain
6.4/10
Hans Castorp, fresh from university and about to become a civil engineer, comes to the Sanatorium Berghof in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin Joachim, an army officer, who is recovering there from tuberculosis. Intending to remain at the Berghof for three weeks, Hans is gradually contaminated by the morbid atmosphere pervading the place. Wishing very much to be considered a patient like the others, he achieves his ends and stays in the sanatorium for ...seven years. During this time, he has enough time to take part in the furious philosophical debates pitting against each other Settembrini, a secular humanist, and Naphta, a totalitarian Jesuit. And to fall in love with the beautiful but enigmatic Clawdia Chauchat. When he is finally discharged in 1914 - along with all the other patients - it is only to plunge into the horrors of World War I.
Boarding School
4.7/10
This film tells the story about a group of girls at an exclusive German girls boarding school. Across the lake is an exclusive boys boarding school...
Fox and His Friends
7.6/10
Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. 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.
Whity
6.4/10
"Whity" is the mulatto butler of the dysfunctional Nicholson family in the American southwest in 1878. The father, Ben Nicholson, has an attractive young wife Katherine, and two sons by a previous marriage; the homosexual Frank, and the retarded Davy. Whity tries to carry out all their orders, however demeaning, until various of the family members ask him to kill some of the others.
Martha
7.5/10
After the death of her abusive father, the lonely librarian Martha marries an equally vile businessman - Helmut.
The Stationmaster's Wife
7/10
The lackluster and plodding Bolweiser has the (mis)fortune to be married to the town's siren; his trusting nature leads him into serious trouble when she beds nearly every available guy.
The Merchant of Four Seasons
7.3/10
Hans is a street fruit peddler and born-loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.
Out of Order
6.8/10
It's Friday evening. The lift repairman leaves the building and wants to finish his work on Monday. But he doesn't know there are four men in the building. They use the lift but stay in it about 100 meters from the floor. They have little oxygen and must survive…
Why Does Mr. R. Run Amok?
7.2/10
Herr Raab is a technical draftsman. His wife pushes him to seek a promotion, which may be a long shot after he gives a dull and tipsy toast at an office dinner. But why would Herr Raab run amok?
Satan's Brew
6.7/10
This fast-paced black comedy by wunderkind director Rainer Werner Fassbinder follows the frantic efforts of a starving and confused writer, Walter Kranz to beg, borrow or steal enough money to survive on, and at the same time make some sense of his confusing life. Unable to write enough to keep his publisher's royalty advances coming, he seeks out a woman he imagines is a prostitute and interviews her for material. He is also inspired to utter some poetry, which his brassy, outspoken wife identifies as coming from the famous homosexuality-advocating mystical German poet, Stefan George. This inspires Walter to take a closer look at the gay scene, and he quickly becomes a sort of celebrity there.
Beware of a Holy Whore
6.6/10
Tensions between members of a film crew build while they wait for the arrival of the director and star to arrive on location.
Bremen Freedom
7/10
A very stylized TV version of the Fassbinder play. The set consists of a few pieces of furniture in front of a large screen on which coastal scenery is back projected. Geesche is a nineteenth century woman who wants to have a mind of her own. She defies convention and will do anything to achieve her freedom from oppression by her family and friends. (synopsis written by Will Gilbert)
Tenderness of the Wolves
6.3/10
A German serial killer preys on boys and young men during the so-called years of crisis between the wars. Based on the true story of Fritz Haarmann, aka the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover.
World on a Wire
7.7/10
Cybernetics engineer Fred Stiller uncovers a massive corporate conspiracy involving a virtual reality computer project.
Parker
6/10
An Aussie businessman is trying to find out why and by whom he was kidnapped and then later released with no explanation.
Love Is Colder Than Death
6.5/10
Small-time pimp Franz is torn between his mistress and Bruno, the gangster sent after him by a shady crime syndicate he's refused to join.
Pioneers in Ingolstadt
6.3/10
German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder directs the made-for-TV melodrama Pioneers in Ingolstadt, based on the play by Marieluise Fleisser. The film opens as a parade of soldiers are marching through a town square singing patriotic songs. Alma (Irm Hermann) and Berta (Hanna Schygulla) are watching them and musing about their ideas on men and relationships. The soldiers (often referred to as pioneers) have been given the task of building a bridge in the town. Alma seems to understand that the soldiers only want her for short sexual encounters, so she's prepared to live her life accordingly. Meanwhile, romantic Berta falls in love with self-centered soldier Karl (Harry Baer), who all but tells her to get lost. The soldiers get drunk and beat up a random passerby. The women grow to hate Alma for her acceptance of life as a sex object. Naïve Berta is ultimately humiliated.
Angry Harvest
7.1/10
In the winter of 1942-43, a Jewish family leaps from a train going through Silesia. They are separated in the woods, and Leon, a local peasant who's now a farmer of some wealth, discovers the woman, Rosa, and hides her in his cellar. Leon's a middle-aged Catholic bachelor, tormented by his sexual drive. He doesn't tell Rosa he's seen signs her husband is alive, and he begs her to love him. Rosa offers herself to Leon if he'll help a local Jew in hiding who needs money. Leon pays, and love between Rosa and him does develop, but then Leon's peasant subservience and his limited empathy lead to tragedy. At the war's end, a ray of sunshine comes from an unexpected place.
