Introduction
Dead by 37, openly bisexual, constantly controversial: Rainer Werner Fassbinder was arguably post-war Germany’s greatest filmmaker. A fearless artist who knew no taboos, he combined scathing social criticism with profound psychological insight.
After failing to get into film school he turned instead to the theatre, rapidly winning renown as a radical, innovative writer-director. With ferocious energy, though minimal resources, he started to make films, building a loyal team of actors and technicians drawn from the theatre (his first 10 features were made in less than two years).
An insatiable film addict from early childhood, Fassbinder drew inspiration from the French New Wave and, later, from the Hollywood melodramas of Douglas Sirk and others. But what emerged from his dazzling fusion of style and content was a powerful, personal vision of people imprisoned by social constraints and their own contradictory desires. Provocative, poignant, darkly witty: these are films that could change your life.
Fassbinder always dreamed of creating his own brand of ‘German Hollywood film’, and with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978), he finally managed to combine huge popular appeal with a complex, uncompromising vision of reality. This was the first of three superbly crafted chronicles of the 1950s (the others were Lola and Veronika Voss) – antidotes to the prevailing historical amnesia.
By exploring the past, Fassbinder aimed to shed light on Germany’s troubled present; in other works, he engaged directly with the political turmoil and terrorism of the 1970s. ‘The secret of our success is that we’re making honest films,’ he once said, but his fierce integrity made him a target of vicious abuse.
Neither a polemicist nor an ideologue (he dubbed himself a ‘romantic anarchist’), Fassbinder remains an extraordinary artist whose passion for truth-telling is now more important than ever.
Highlighted works
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A black butler in the American South of the 1870s holds a strange erotic power over his masters.
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This ruthless dissection of a marriage is like Douglas Sirk on steroids.
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An exquisitely subtle rendition of Fontane’s 1896 novel, about a 17-year-old forced into marriage with an older man.
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A newly arrived army regiment makes a big impression on the sexually frustrated women of a Bavarian town.
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Die BITTEREN TRÄNEN DER PETRA VON KANT
A brilliant all-female cast star in this visual and verbal extravaganza about a lonely fashion designer.
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Fassbinder stars in his debut feature as a petty criminal whose desire for freedom is undermined by his emotional needs.
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Black comedy about a left-wing poet which skewers the cult of the charismatic artist.
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Set in the Third Reich, this forbidden love story focuses on recording star Willie Bunterberg.
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Overcome by anxiety, a middle-class wife and mother struggles to conform.
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Hanna Schygulla plays a girl who wants to settle down, but her free-wheeling boyfriend has other ideas.
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Fassbinder’s controversial five-part TV soap opera.
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A Greek immigrant (Fassbinder) unleashes jealousy and xenophobia among a group of his Munich neighbours.
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s striking adaptation of Oskar Maria Graf’s novel about a small-town Bavarian stationmaster.
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In this funny and sad tale, Fox wins the lottery and falls in love with ‘posh and prissy’ Eugen.
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WARNUNG VOR EINER HEILIGEN NUTTE
Awaiting a shoot, the cast and crew of a film outdo one another in displays of professional and sexual rivalry.
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Fassbinder’s intriguing exploration of the arts of political mass manipulation.
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Mutter Küsters Fahrt zum Himmel
The wife of a factory worker gone murderously berserk finds herself hounded and exploited.
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s adaptation of one of his favourite novels by Jean Genet – a dream-like tale of sex, murder and the quest for self-realisation.
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Ich will doch nur, daß ihr mich liebt
Chilling drama based on a real-life interview with a convicted murderer.
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In this melancholy thriller, capitalism is the ‘plague’ and criminals are its ‘gods’.
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A bitter young girl brings her emotionally estranged parents together in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s gothic psychodrama.
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Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss
A young sports journalist meets an ageing movie star in this eerie vision of 1950s Germany.
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Fassbinder’s two-part TV sci-fi anticipates both Blade Runner and The Matrix.
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Fantastically vulgar update of The Blue Angel (1930) set in late 1950s West Germany.
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s first film in English was brilliantly adapted by Tom Stoppard from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel set in 1930s Berlin.
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This immersive documentary captures the 1981 World Theatre Festival in Cologne.
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Fassbinder’s international breakthrough is an unconventional love story with devastating emotional power.
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Fassbinder’s glorious re-working of Hollywood noir, about a man who becomes a contract killer.
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This heart-rending tale was Fassbinder’s first venture into popular melodrama.
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Colourful farce centring on a group of bourgeois self-styled terrorists.
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A lonely transsexual journeys through modern Frankfurt in this dark elegy for doomed love.
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Hanna Schygulla gives a star performance in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film, as a German woman who struggles to rebuild her life after the Second World War.
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A brilliant black comedy of manners about a man surely at the end of his tether…
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This portmanteau film was the collective response of leading German filmmakers to the dramatic Baader-Meinhof terrorist crisis of autumn 1977.
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ICH WILL NICHT NUR, DASS IHR MICH LIEBT
Made 10 years after Fassbinder’s death, this doc investigates his approach to filmmaking through extracts, comments and interviews.
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GOUTTES D'EAU SUR PIERRES BRÛLANTES
François Ozon’s seductive chamber piece about the destructive affair between a middle-aged businessman and his younger lover.
Filmography
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Director
-
Director
-
Director
2008
GEGENSCHUSS - AUFSTAND DER FILMEMACHER
on-screen participant
2004
Special Thanks
2003
[Subject of Film]
1999
GOUTTES D'EAU SUR PIERRES BRÛLANTES
Based on the play by
1998
Music
1993
ICH WILL NICHT NUR, DASS IHR MICH LIEBT
[Subject of Film]
cast member1985
[Subject of Film]
on-screen participant1984
cast member
1982
Director
Screenplay
Editor1982
Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss
Director
Screenplay
[man in cinema]1982
Police Lieutenant Jansen
1982
on-screen participant
1981
Director
Screenplay
Additional Dialogue
Editor
Günther Weisenborn1981
Director
Executive Producer
Screenplay
Editor1981
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
EINSAMKEIT REISST AUCH IN MAUERN RISSE DES IRRSINNS
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Eine LIEBE, DAS KOSTET IMMER VIEL
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
WISSEN IST MACHT UND MORGENSTUND HAT GOLD IM MUND
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
WIE SOLL MAN LEBEN, WENN MAN NICHT STERBEN WILL
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Die Sonne warmt die Haut, die sie manchmal verbrennt
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
MERKE: EINEN SCHWUR KANN MAN AMPUTIEREN
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Director
1980
Die SCHLANGE IN DER SEELE DER SCHLANGE
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Ein HAMMER AUF DEN KOPF KANN DIE SEELE VERLETZEN
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Das AUSSERE UND DAS INNERE UND DAS GEHEIMNIS DER ANGST VOR DEM GEHEIMNIS
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Eine HANDVOLL MENSCHEN IN DER TIEFE DER STILLE
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
VON DEN EWIGKEITEN ZWISCHEN DEN VIELEN UND DEN WENIGEN
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Ein SCHNITTER MIT DER GEWALT VOM LIEBEN GOTT
Director
Screenplay
Editor1980
Director
Screenplay
Editor
[himself]1979
Director
Producer
Screenplay
Director of Photography1979
cast member
1978
Director
Editor1978
Director
Producer
Screenplay
Director of Photography
Editor
Art Director
man on television1978
Director
Dialogue
Based on an idea by
Editor
black market dealer1978
Director
himself1977
Director
Theatre Production1977
Director
Screenplay
Editor [Cinema Version]1976
Director
Screenplay1976
Ich will doch nur, daß ihr mich liebt
Director
Screenplay1976
Director
Producer
Screenplay1976
cast member
1975
Director
Screenplay1975
Director
Producer
Screenplay
Franz 'Fox' Biberkopf1975
Mutter Küsters Fahrt zum Himmel
Director
Screenplay1975
Director
Screenplay1975
cast member
1974
Director
Screenplay1974
Director
Producer
Screenplay
narrator1974
Director
Screenplay1974
A film by
[Producer]
[Screenplay]
[Art Director]
[Eugen, Krista's husband]1973
Director
Screenplay1973
Producer
Wittkowski1972
Die BITTEREN TRÄNEN DER PETRA VON KANT
Director
Producer
Screenplay based on his own play1972
Director
A Film by1972
Director
Screenplay1972
Director
Screenplay
Themes Developed by
Rumpf1972
Director
[Producer]
Screenplay
[Zucker, fruit wholesaler] (uncredited)1971
Director
Screenplay
Editor
[aggressive cowboy]1971
Made by [Director]
Made by [Screenplay]1971
Collaborator [Director]
Collaborator [Screenplay]
Collaborator [Editor]
[man who dances with Hanna in bar]1971
WARNUNG VOR EINER HEILIGEN NUTTE
A Film by
Screenplay
Editor
Sascha Berling, production manager1971
professor's messenger
1971
cast member
1970
Director
Screenplay
Stage Production
Using themes developed by1970
A Film by
[Screeplay]
[black leather-jacketed monk]1970
Director
[Producer]
Screenplay
Editor
[man who buys porno magazine]1970
A film by
[Producer]
Screenplay
[Art Director]
[Franz Walsch]1970
Director
Screenplay
Editor1969
Director
Producer
Screenplay
Editor
Art Director
Franz1969
Director
Screenplay based on his play
Editor
[Art Director]
[Jorgos]1969
SONJA UND KIRLOV HABEN SICH ENTSCHLOSSEN SCHAUSPIELER ZU WERDEN UND DIE WELT ZU VERÄNDERN
Material/Copying Expenses
1969
Screenplay
1969
cast member
1969
cast member
1968
Der BRÄUTIGAM, DIE KOMÖDIANTIN UND DER ZUHÄLTER
The Pimp [Freder in the play]
1967
Director
Screenplay
Franz1966
Director
Screenplay
youth in leather jacket