Fassbinder and the New German Cinema
March 6–May 17, 2026
The New German Cinema movement began in the mid-1960s and continued through the 1980s, bringing an awakening of form, style, and expression of the postwar German experience. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a driving force behind the movement; we showcase a selection of his films alongside those of his fellow West German filmmakers.
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, 1972
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Volker Schlöndorff: The Tin Drum, 1979
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Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta: The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, 1975
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Wim Wenders: Paris, Texas, 1984
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Ulrike Ottinger: Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press, 1984
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Werner Herzog: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 1972
- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
West Germany, 1974Friday, March 6 7 PMView DetailsThe unlikely love between a washerwoman in her sixties and a Moroccan guest worker twenty years her junior is the subject of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s bitter and touching homage to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows.
The Merchant of Four Seasons
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
West Germany, 1971Sunday, March 8 4 PMView DetailsThe story of a hapless fruit peddler is told as “a virtuoso balance of soap opera, social comedy, irony, politics, farce, and brilliant ensemble acting” (New Yorker Films).
Far from Home
Sohrab Shahid Saless
West Germany, Iran, 19754K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Sunday, March 15 (with an introduction by Deniz Göktürk).Wednesday, March 11 3:30 PMIntroduced by Minoo MoallemView DetailsA Turkish guest worker makes his way through a frigid Germany in this moving glimpse at exile, solitude, and migration. Director Sohrab Shahid Saless, a key figure in the early Iranian New Wave, lived in exile in Germany.
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
West Germany, 1972Friday, March 13 7 PMView DetailsThe well-crafted world of a famous designer is slowly unraveled by the treachery of love. “A haute-couture lesbian pajama party with silken, knowing dialogue” (David Denby, New Yorker).
Far from Home
Sohrab Shahid Saless
West Germany, Iran, 19754K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Wednesday, March 11 (with an introduction by Minoo Moallem).Sunday, March 15 1 PMIntroduced by Deniz GöktürkView DetailsA Turkish guest worker makes his way through a frigid Germany in this moving glimpse at exile, solitude, and migration. Director Sohrab Shahid Saless, a key figure in the early Iranian New Wave, lived in exile in Germany.
Beware of a Holy Whore
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
West Germany, 1971Sunday, March 15 3:30 PMView Details“A key Fassbinder, both for its revealing self-portrait of the director, and for its position in his career as the watershed between his first nine films and the body of work that followed” (James Quandt, TIFF Cinematheque).
Young Törless
Volker Schlöndorff
West Germany, 1966Friday, March 20 4:30 PMView DetailsYoung Törless launched the New German Cinema movement and garnered the 1966 Cannes Film Festival International Critics’ Prize for first-time director Volker Schlöndorff.
Signs of Life
Werner Herzog
West Germany, 1968Sunday, March 22 4:30 PMIntroduced by Deniz GöktürkView DetailsWerner Herzog’s breakthrough film garnered a special jury award at the Berlinale and this appraisal at the New York Film Festival: “A strange, intense work . . . influenced by Borges and Kafka. The hypnotic probing of cruelty, indifference, and unspoken horrors becomes a metaphysical comment on man and his ideologies.”
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta
West Germany, 1975Friday, March 27 7 PMView Details“Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta’s powerful adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s novel is a stinging commentary on state power, individual freedom, and media manipulation—as relevant today as on the day of its release in 1975” (Janus Films).
Fear of Fear
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
West Germany, 1975Saturday, March 28 7 PMView DetailsMargit Carstensen portrays a young mother in the grip of anxiety. Vincent Canby called this small film “perfectly sculpted . . . a distillation of reality—a dream in which everything counts” (New York Times).
Yesterday Girl
Alexander Kluge
West Germany, 1966Friday, April 3 4:30 PMIntroduced by Nicholas BaerView DetailsProtagonist Anita G. (played by Alexandra Kluge, the director’s sister) is the face of the 1960s, typical of a generation that had grown up since World War II, hovering on the edge of delinquency and frustrated by the pettiness of bourgeois society.
Chinese Roulette
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
West Germany, 1976Sunday, April 5 4 PMView DetailsA husband and wife lie to each other about their weekend travel plans, only to both show up at the family’s country house with their lovers. A camp satire on the haute bourgeoisie starring Anna Karina and Margit Carstensen.
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
West Germany, 1979Saturday, April 11 7 PMView DetailsHanna Schygulla became the new Marlene Dietrich with her ironic performance as an emblem of Germany’s postwar economic miracle. “Brilliantly complex . . . splendid and mysterious” (New York Times).
Germany in Autumn
Alf Brustellin, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge, Maximiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katja Rupe, Hans Peter Cloos, Volker Schlöndorff, Bernhard Sinkel, Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus, Peter Schubert
West Germany, 1978Friday, April 17 3:30 PMIntroduced by Nicholas BaerView DetailsA provocative mixture of reportage, autobiography, and melodrama, this omnibus film made by eleven directors of the New German Cinema, remains an important and unique contribution and contains a revealing autobiographical sequence by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, at one point interviewing his mother.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Werner Herzog
West Germany, 1972Wednesday, May 6 7 PMView DetailsStunningly photographed in hazardous locations in Peru, Aguirre, the Wrath of God—starring Klaus Kinski in an unforgettable role—takes the viewer on a mad voyage as frightening and entertaining as one of Edgar Allan Poe’s maelstrom-bent epics of demented discovery.
The Tin Drum
Volker Schlöndorff
West Germany, France, 1979Director’s Cut
Friday, May 8 7 PMView DetailsThe rise of Nazism is seen through the diabolically knowing eyes of a child in Volker Schlöndorff’s unforgettable fantasia of surreal imagery, striking eroticism, and unflinching satire, adapted from Günter Grass’s acclaimed novel.
In a Year of 13 Moons
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
West Germany, 19784K Digital Restoration
Wednesday, May 13 7 PMView Details“This heartrendingly compassionate tragedy from Rainer Werner Fassbinder traces the final days in the life of Elvira (Volker Spengler), a transgender woman spurned by her former lover, as she reaches out desperately for understanding” (Janus Films).
Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press
Ulrike Ottinger
West Germany, 1984Thursday, May 14 7 PMView DetailsDelphine Seyrig plays Dr. Mabuse, the unscrupulous president of a multinational press conglomerate scheming up a new plan for world domination, in Ulrike Ottinger’s Langian exploration of media manipulation.
Our Hitler
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg
West Germany, 1977Saturday, May 16 1:30 PMView Details“One of the great works of art of the 20th Century” (Susan Sontag), about the founding of modern Germany—Our Hitler uses a series of stylized tableaux before back projections, filled with references to German history and mythology.
Paris, Texas
Wim Wenders
West Germany, France, United States, 19844K Digital Restoration
Sunday, May 17 5 PMView DetailsAmnesiac Harry Dean Stanton and his young son set out across the West in search of the boy’s mother in Wim Wenders’s melancholy road movie, written by Sam Shepard, with a memorable score by Ry Cooder.