Lola" (1981) Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

The film depicts the exploits of a group of German "pioneers" (soldiers sent to work on public projects) who are assigned to build a wooden bridge in the out-of-the-way town of Ingolstadt. They seek relief from the boredom of their project, and lives, through alcohol, sexual adventures with local women, and intermittent acts of violence.

Lonely, middle-aged widow and cleaning lady Emmi Kurowski (Brigitte Mira) goes into an unknown bar during a rainstorm and meets Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), a Moroccan auto mechanic over twenty years her junior. These two "outsiders" like each other immediately, fall in love, and marry. That sends shockwaves through Emmi's family and neighbours, as well as Ali's co-workers and bar buddies. Emmi and Ali's relationship is threatened not only by hostile outside forces, but by problems in themselves which they need to confront if they hope to find lasting happiness together.

German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder both directed and photographed The Third Generation (Die Dritte Generation). Displaying a sense of humor that can most kindly be described as perverse, Fassbinder follows the exploits of a group of well-heeled German terrorists. Without truly taking sides, the director demonstrates how the terrorists are essentially shooting themselves in the foot. The more havoc they spread, the tighter the government restrictions against other radicals. Eddie Constantine, the sang-froid leading man of many a Lemmy Caution espionage film, is ironically cast in The Third Generation.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, already the director of almost twenty films by the age of twenty-nine, paid homage to his cinematic hero, Douglas Sirk, with this updated version of Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Lonely widow Emmi Kurowsky (Brigitte Mira) meets Arab worker Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love––to their own surprise––and to the shock of family, colleagues, and drinking buddies. In Fear Eats the Soul, Fassbinder expertly uses the emotional power of the melodrama to underscore the racial tensions threatening German culture.

Once-beloved Third Reich-era starlet Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech) lives in obscurity in postwar Munich. Struggling for survival and haunted by past glories, the forgotten star encounters sportswriter Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate) in a rain-swept park and intrigues him with her mysterious beauty. As their unlikely relationship develops, Krohn comes to discover the dark secrets behind the faded actress' demise. Based on the true story of a World War II movie star, Veronika Voss is wicked satire disguised as a 1950s thriller. (-DVD cover)

Gods of the Plague is the work of a very young man who has just discovered the secret pleasures of angst. It's full of the movie associations that once so amused Godard, Truffaut and Chabrol, and it's impeccably performed by members of the Fassbinder stock company.

Fans of the prodigiously gifted Rainer Werner Fassbinder will find Beware of a Holy Whore the German director's most revealing look inside his filmmaking process. A kind of neurotic backstage comedy, the movie details the struggles of a film crew in Spain: the jealousies, tantrums, money problems. He doesn't spare himself in this process, as the movie's director (played by Lou Castel) is a petulant manipulator given to screaming fits.

Fox and His Friends is one of Fassbinder's most poignant and accessible films. The story and performances are direct, and the look of the film is polished and inviting. Yet it is also a powerful work, dealing with some of Fassbinder's central themes, such of the search for love, and exploitation in its many forms (both gay and straight).

The Merchant of Four Seasons is the deeply moving tale of a fruit-peddler searching for love and meaning in his life, during West Germany's "economic miracle" of the 1950s (a period which Fassbinder also explored in his late masterpiece, the BRD Trilogy). Not only was this Fassbinder's first major commercial success, it is also one of his greatest films, and marks a crucial turning point in his career.

In a Year of Thirteen Moons - Volker Spengler gives an extraordinary performance as the transgendered Elvira, a man who has become a woman in a desperate bid to please a former lover. This movie is widely recognised as Fassbinder's attempt to work through his grief over the death of his lover Armin Meier, in 1978.