Beyond Silence 1996  PG-13, 109 min.
Genre: Foreign / Drama
Director: Caroline Link
Cast: Sylvie Testud, Tatjana Trieb, Howie Seago, Emmanuelle Laborit, Sibylle Canonica, Matthias Habich, Alexandra Bolz
Lara's (Sylvie Testud) parents are deaf mutes, but she has faithfully tended to their needs throughout her young life. As she approaches adulthood, however, it is the world of music that she wants to serve and, now, must choose between her parents and her clarinet.
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Coup de Grace 1976  N/R, 96 min.
Genre: Foreign / Drama
Director: Volker Schlondorff
Cast: Margarethe von Trotta, Matthias Habich, Rudiger Kirschstein, Mathieu Carriere, Marc Eyraud, Valeska Gert, Bruno Thost, Frederik von Zichy, Henry van Lyck, Franz Morek
World War I has just ended and the Soviet Civil War is in full swing in 1919 Latvia where three aristocrats have lived out the war on their estate–despite bombings and fighting around them. One of the aristocrats, Sophie (Margarethe von Trotta), is a Communist sympathizer and continuously falls in love with men who do not love her. An eerie film with abundant symbolism (much of which only a historian can pick up on).
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Downfall 2004  R, 150 min.
Genre: Foreign / Drama
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Cast: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Kohler, Heino Ferch, Christian Berkel, Matthias Habich, Thomas Kretschmann, Michael Mendl, Ulrich Noethen, Birgit Minichmayr, Andre Hennicke, Rolf Kanies, Justus von Dohnanyi
Adolf Hitler's (Bruno Ganz) secretary Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) narrates this story of Hitler's last ten days, which he spent in a Berlin bunker before his suicide in 1945. Hitler's Reich is crumbling, and his mistress Eva Braun (Juliane Kohler) throws parties. Meanwhile, Joseph Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes) and his wife Magda (Corinna Harfouch) contemplate murdering their six children and then killing themselves. Meanwhile, Hitler refuses to leave and, like the others in the bunker, will choose suicide rather than facing the Allies after Germany is defeated.
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 Enemy at the Gates 2001  R, 131 min.
Genre: Drama / Thriller
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Cast: Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, Ron Perlman, Gabriel Thomson, Eva Mattes, Matthias Habich, Sophie Rois, Ivan Shvedoff, Mario Bandi, Mikhail Matveyev, Hans Martin Stier, Clemens Schick
This film is based on true facts of a cat-and-mouse game of survival played between a Russian, Vassily Zaitsev (Jude Law), and his enemy, German businessman Major Koenig (Ed Harris) during World War II. When fate brings them together, Zaitsev and Koenig, who have both fallen in love with Tanya (Rachel Weisz), engage in their own battle while the Battle of Stalingrad rages.
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Nowhere in Africa 2002 N/R, 138 min.
Genre: Foreign / Drama
Director: Caroline Link
Cast: Juliane Kohler, Merab Ninidze, Matthias Habich, Regine Zimmermann, Gabrielle Odinis, Sidede Onyulo, Karoline Eckertz, Lea Kurka, Gerd Heinz, Hildegard Schmahl
After leaving Germany in 1938, a Jewish family begins life anew in Kenya. Although physically safe from Hitler's Holocaust, the family must deal with the loss of friends and relatives in Germany as well as problems adapting to a new culture. Recipient of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
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The Reader 2008 R, 123 min.
Genre: Drama / Thriller / Romance
Director: Stephen Daldry
Cast: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, David Kross, Jeanette Hain, Susanne Lothar, Alissa Wilms, Forian Bartholomai, Friederike Becht, Matthias Habich, Frieder Venus, Marie-Anne Fliegel, Rainer Sellien, Hendrik Arnst
Based on Bernard Schlink's novel, this story begins in post-war Germany with the forbidden romance between 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross) and 30-ish Hanna (Kate Winslet) that develops when Michael reads stories to her. One day, Hanna vanishes, but the two reunite eight years later in 1966 when Michael (now played by Ralph Fiennes) is a law student and finds Hanna as a defendant in a court case. She is on trial for serving as a guard at Auschwitz where she condemned inmates to death. Michael has evidence that could change the verdict in Hanna's case, but will he present it or simply remain silent? Winslet won an Academy Award for Best Actress. The film also received four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Director.
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| 1. Beyond Silence (1996)
2. Coup de Grace (1976)
3. Downfall (2004)
4. Enemy at the Gates (2001)
5. Nowhere in Africa (2002)
6. The Reader (2008)
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