The very first film program to charge admission was held at the Berlin Wintergarten on November 1, 1895: Some eight weeks before the Lumière Brothers' first Paris screening, brothers Max and Emil Skladanowsky treated audiences to film strips projected by their Bioskop. True, continuous motion pictures began appearing in Germany the following year, when inventor Oskar Messter started making films. The producer/director of such pioneering works as Gemütlich Beim Kaffee (1898), Salome (1902), and Apachentanz (1906), he also made weekly newsreels in the mid teens. But domestic production languished in these early years, and German audiences went to French, American, and Italian films. In the years just before World War One, patriotic efforts like director Franz Porten's Deutschlands Ruhmestage 1870-71 (1912) attracted attention, as did the sentimental dramas directed by Kurt Stark (Liebesglück Der Blinden, 1911) and the melodramas of writer/director Joe May (In Der Tiefe Des Schachts, 1912; Heimat Und Fremde, 1913). The first German film studios were finally built, and native performers began achieving celebrity. Ernst Lubitsch first appeared in short comedies in 1913, and started writing and directing with the one-reeler Fräulein Seifenschaum (1914). Franz Porten's wife Henny was both star and producer of Adoptivkind (1914) and Gelöste Ketten (1915). Paul Wegener debuted in films with Der Student Von Prag (1913, The Student Of Prague), directed by Stellan Rye. This doppelganger tale, co-scripted by Wegener, is an early instance of expressionist cinema, with stylized lighting, sets, and camerawork used to bring psychological resonance to its dark story. Wegener was fond of the Jewish legend of the Golem, a clay statue brought to life, and played the creature in Der Golem (1914) and Der Golem Und Die Tänzerin (1917), both of which he co-directed. He also starred in the fantasies Peter Schlemihl (1915), which he co-scripted, and Der Rattenfänger Von Hamelin (1916, The Pied Piper Of Hamelin), which he co-directed.

World War One kept foreign films out of German theaters, and more movies were made in Germany, mostly comedies, mysteries, and historical dramas. Lubitsch's Schuhpalast Pinkus (1916) was his first collaboration with writer Hans Kräly, who worked on most of the writer/director's silents, including his first two features in 1918, Die Augen Der Mumie Ma and Carmen, both starring Pola Negri. These tragic dramas made Lubitsch internationally famous, but he also continued his success in comedy with two 1919 gems, the 3-reel transgender farce Ich Möchte Kein Mann Sein and the satiric feature Die Austernprinzessin, both with Ossi Oswalda. Expressionism also persisted in the war years, with such films as Stellan Rye's thriller Die Haus Ohne Tür (1914) and Homunculus (1916), directed and co-scripted by Otto Rippert, about a soulless, manmade human who becomes an evil dictator. After the war came the most celebrated of all German expressionist films: Das Kabinett Des Dr. Caligari (1919, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari). Distinguished by its nightmarish sets and stylized costumes and makeup, this chiller about a strange doctor who controls a somnambulist also launched the careers of most of its principals: director Robert Wiene, producer Erich Pommer, writers Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, and actors Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover, and Rudolf Klein-Rogge.

The year 1919 also saw the debuts of two filmmakers who would rank among Germany's greatest: Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau. A writer for such popular directors as Joe May, Lang began directing with the Pommer productions Halbblut and Der Herr Der Liebe. Lang's third film, Hara-Kiri, was also Dagover's debut. She then reteamed with him for the two-part actioner Die Spinnen (Spiders), Lang's fourth 1919 film and his third for Pommer; a lively tale of a worldwide criminal cult, it looked ahead to some of Lang's classics of the 1920s. The first two films of F.W. Murnau were the psychological drama Der Knabe In Blau and an elaborate historical fantasy, Satanas, scripted by Robert Wiene, with Conrad Veidt as the Devil. Other notable films of 1919 include Anders Als Die Anderen (Different From The Others), a plea of tolerance for homosexuality, directed by Richard Oswald and starring Veidt, and two major films from Lubitsch: the sweeping historical drama Madame Dubarry with Pola Negri and his E.T.A. Hoffman-inspired fantasy Die Puppe with Ossi Oswalda.

Lubitsch and Kräly continued their winning streak into the 1920s with Kölhiesels Töchter (1920), a broad farce starring Henny Porten and Emil Jannings; the Arabian Nights drama Sumurun (1920), with Negri, Wegener, and Lubitsch (in his final acting role); the historical epic Anna Boleyn (1920), with Jannings as Henry VIII; the uproarious comedy Die Bergkatze (1921), starring Negri; the lavish spectacle Das Weib Des Pharao (1921), again with Jannings; and the intimate comedy of manners Die Flamme (1922) with Negri. Lubitsch then came to America to work in Hollywood and never returned -- a pattern of loss for German cinema which was repeated again and again over the decade. The 1920s also saw the flowering of expressionist cinema. Paul Wegener made his third and best Golem film, Der Golem (1920), co-directing with Carl Boese and co-scripting with Henrik Galeen (who'd co-directed his 1914 Golem). Robert Wiene adapted Dostoevsky's "Crime And Punishment" for his stylized Raskolinkow (1923) and directed the Austrian production Orlacs Hände (1925, The Hands Of Orlac), with Conrad Veidt as a pianist who loses his hands in an accident and has the hands of an executed murderer grafted onto his arms. Fritz Lang, producer Erich Pommer, and writer Thea von Harbou made Der Müde Tod (1921, Destiny) with Lil Dagover as a young woman struggling to rescue her lover from a personified Death. The three reteamed for Lang's two-part adventure thriller, Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler (1922), with Rudolf Klein-Rogge as the eponymous crimimal mastermind. Writer Hans Janowitz adapted Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde" for F.W. Murnau's Der Januskopf (1920) with Conrad Veidt; with writer Carl Mayer, Murnau made the murder mystery Schloss Vogelöd (1921). Henrik Galeen adapted Bram Stoker's "Dracula" for Murnau's classic Nosferatu (1922). Filled with clever special effects and boasting a hideous, corpse-like vampire, Nosferatu is one of the masterpieces of expressionist cinema. Galeen directed and co-scripted a remake of Der Student Von Prag (1926), starring Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss, and wrote the memorable Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924, Waxworks), directed by Paul Leni, with Jannings, Veidt, and Krauss as wax statues of historical tyrants which come to life.

Thea von Harbou divorced her husband, actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and married Fritz Lang in 1922. Together the trio made three landmark silents, starting with Die Niebelungen (1924). Perhaps Lang's masterpiece, this epic version of Norse mythology consists of two films: Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried's Death), a lavish account of the legendary hero, complete with fire-breathing dragon, and Kriemhilds Rache (Kriemhild's Revenge), a rousing actioner in which Attila the Hun (played by Klein-Rogge) helps avenge Siegfried's slaying. Their next film was Lang's classic Metropolis (1926), a nightmare vision of a mechanized future, with Klein-Rogge as the mad robot-builder Rotwang. The actor also scored as the master spy Haghi in Spione (1928, Spies), the first great espionage thriller (and Lang's last film for producer Pommer). Lang and von Harbou's final silent was the imaginative and prescient science-fictioner Frau Im Mond (1929, Woman In The Moon).

Several other important German films were also scripted by Thea von Harbou in the '20s. With Lang, she co-wrote the exciting Das Indische Grabmal (1921) for producer/director Joe May; with the great Danish writer/director Carl Dreyer, she co-scripted the unusual, quasi-homosexual drama Mikaël (1924), an Erich Pommer production. She also co-wrote two 1922 films produced by Pommer and directed by F.W. Murnau, the revenge drama Der Brennende Acker and the Gerhart Hauptmann adaptation Phantom. Von Harbou soloed on Murnau's 1923 films Die Austreibung, a rural love story, and the comedy Die Finanzen Des Grossherzogs. Murnau's greatest successes, however, were made without her. His landmark Der Letzte Mann (1924, The Last Laugh) is distinguished by both its virtuoso camerawork and Murnau's ability to tell Carl Mayer's story without any intertitles; Emil Jannings starred as a hotel doorman who loses his identity when he's fired from his prestigious job. Jannings also scored in Murnau's next films: in the title role of Tartüff (1925), a Molière adaptation scripted by Mayer, and as the Devil in Faust (1926), written by Hans Kyser from the Goethe classic.

German cinema of the 1920s also saw the development of three noteworthy genres. The "Kammerspiel," or chamber play, was a form of intimate drama with strong psychological overtones. Along with Dreyer's Mikaël and Lubitsch's Die Flamme, examples include writer/director Paul Czinner's Nju (1924), starring his wife Elisabeth Bergner, and three films written by Carl Mayer: Scherben (1921) and Sylvester (1923), both directed by Lupu Pick; and Hintertreppe (1921, Backstairs), directed by Paul Leni and Leopold Jessner. The "street film," a realistic urban drama mourning the loss of love and freedom, started with Die Strasse (1923, The Street), directed and co-scripted (from a Mayer treatment) by Karl Grune. Other major street films include Die Freudlose Gasse (1925, The Joyless Street) and Die Liebe Der Jeanne Ney (1927, The Love Of Jeanne Ney), both directed by G.W. Pabst; Dinentragödie (1927, Tragedy Of A Street), directed by Bruno Rahn; and Asphalt (1929) by producer/director Joe May. The third genre, the "mountain film," is an outdoors tale that celebrates nature and the body. Writer/director Arnold Fanck and his athletic, charismatic star Leni Riefenstahl made several, including Der Heilige Berg (1926), Der Grosse Sprung (1927), and Die Weisse Hölle Vom Piz Palü (1929, co-directed by G.W. Pabst).

Other notable German films of the 1920s include Joe May's wartime love story Heimkehr (1928, Homecoming); Robert Wiene's life of Christ, I.N.R.I. (1922); and the tragic Varieté (1925, Variety), written and directed by E.A. Dupont. Pabst directed the stylish psychological drama Geheimnisse Einer Seele (1926, Secrets Of A Soul), and two 1929 films starring American actress Louise Brooks: Die Büchse Der Pandora (Pandora's Box) and Das Tagebuch Einer Verlorenen (Diary Of A Lost Girl). With the coming of sound, the public appetite for escapist comedies, love stories, and musicals, increased drastically, out of which only a few films -- the clever Emil Und Die Detektive (1931, Emil And The Detectives), directed by Gerhard Lamprecht and written by Billy Wilder; the romantic drama Liebelei (1933), directed by Max Ophuls; the crossdressing musical farce Viktor Und Viktoria (1933), by writer/director Reinhold Schuenzel -- rise above the crowd. Yet several early German talkies have become classics. Der Blaue Engel (1930, The Blue Angel), produced by Erich Pommer and directed by the American Josef von Sternberg, made a star of Marlene Dietrich as a cabaret singer who degrades the authoritarian schoolteacher (Emil Jannings) that adores her. Women directors scored with Leontine Sagan's girls-school drama Mädchen In Uniform (1931, Girls In Uniform), and the visionary mountain film Das Blaue Licht (1932, The Blue Light), directed by its star, Leni Riefenstahl. Pabst made the antiwar tale Westfront 1918 (1930), the Brecht and Weill musical Die Dreigroschenoper (1931, The Threepenny Opera), and the mining drama Kameradschaft (1931). From Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou came a brilliant account of the hunt for a child murderer, M (1931), which made a star of actor Peter Lorre, and another thriller of arch-villain Mabuse, Das Testament Des Dr. Mabuse (1933), starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge.

The year 1933 saw the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis. The German film industry was already hurting from the departure of such artists as Lubitsch, Murnau, Leni, Dupont, and Mayer, lured away by Hollywood during the 1920s. Now the threat of Nazi anti-Semitism caused waves of German cinema talent to flee the country. The artists responsible for Menschen Am Sonntag (1929, People On Sunday), a stylish and original account of everyday people, all left Germany: co-directors Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, writers Curt Siodmak and Billy Wilder, and cameraman Eugen Schüfftan. Lang, Pabst, Pommer, Wiene, Henrik Galeen, Paul Czinner and Elisabeth Bergner, Joe May, Max Ophuls, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt were just some of the talent who departed by 1933. Those who stayed behind threw their support to Hitler's regime; among them were Jannings, von Harbou, Klein-Rogge, Paul Wegener, and Werner Krauss. Leni Riefenstahl made an hour-long documentary of the Nazis' 1933 Nuremberg Party Convention, Sieg Des Glaubens (1933), and followed with the propaganda classic Triumph Des Willens (1935, Triumph Of The Will), an ecstatic account of the 1934 rally. In 1938 she premiered her masterpiece, a visually inventive, 220-minute documentary of Berlin's 1936 Olympic Games, Olympia. Most popular German films were apolitical entertainment or lavish historical dramas; but Nazi ideology was also extolled in such films as Hitlerjunge Quex (1933) and Ohm Kruger (1941), both directed by Hans Steinhoff, and Der Herrscher (1937) and Jud Süss (1940), both directed by Veit Harlan.

After the war, the Allied de-Nazification policies screened potential scripts, directors, and stars, and refused to let notorious figures such as Jannings, Riefenstahl, and Harlan resume making movies. In 1946 Erich Pommer was brought to Germany by the Americans to oversee the reconstruction of his country's film industry. Although German theaters now showed mostly American films, movies began being made again. From Soviet-dominated East Berlin came harsh looks at postwar life, such as the anti-Nazi Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns (1946, Murderers Among Us), written and directed by Wolfgang Staudte, and Irgendwo In Berlin (1946, Somewhere In Berlin), written and directed by Gerhard Lamprecht. Similar works came from American-controled West Berlin, including Film Ohne Titel (1948), directed by Rudolph Jugert, and Berliner Ballade (1948, The Berliner), directed by Robert Stemmle. Pabst, who had returned to Germany at the outbreak of the war and directed Komödianten (1941) and Paracelsus (1943), made Der Prozess (1948), attacking anti-Semitism. In 1949, Germany was officially split into two nations, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany); reunification would not occur until 1990. The films from Communist-run East Germany tended to be didactic stories in the Soviet socialist-realist style, such as Unser Täglich Brot (1949), directed by Slatan Dudow; Ernst Thälmann (1955), directed by Kurt Maetzig; and Sie Nannten Ihn Amigo (1958), directed by Heiner Carow. West Germany went back to making genre films (and increasingly, exploitationers), although some major works were released in this period. Peter Lorre wrote, directed, and starred in the psychological thriller Der Verlorene (1951, The Lost One). Leni Riefenstahl also filled all three jobs on her 1954 release Tiefland, a non-musical version of the Eugen d'Albert opera; shot mostly in 1940, it had remained unfinished until she was permitted to resume working in 1952. Pabst re-created Hitler's downfall in Der Letzte Akt (1955, The Last Ten Days). Die Brücke (1959, The Bridge), directed by Bernhard Wicki, was a moving war film about German teenagers trying to hold a bridge against the Allies. A returning Fritz Lang rekindled the past with expert genre films: the two-part adventure saga Der Tiger Von Eschnapur and Das Indische Grabmal (1959), and the espionage thriller Die Tausend Augen Des Dr. Mabuse (1961, The Thousand Eyes Of Dr. Mabuse), his final film.

By the mid 1960s German cinema began to re-emerge in the West. Alexander Kluge wrote, produced, directed, and acted in the stylish Abschied Von Gestern (1966, Yesterday's Girl), about a refugee from the East who is disillusioned by life in the West; also admired were Kluge's Die Artisten In Der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos (1968), Der Starke Ferdinand (1976, Strongman Ferdinand), and Die Macht Der Gefuehle (1983, The Power Of Emotion). Writer/director Volker Schlöndorff had a hit with his first feature, Der Junge Törless (1966, Young Torless), from the Robert Musil novel about cruelty at a boys school. His career has since been defined by literary adaptations: Die Verlorene Ehre Der Katharina Blum (1975, The Lost Honor Of Katharina Blum) from the Heinrich Böll novel, co-scripted and co-directed with his wife, Margarethe von Trotta; Die Blechtrommel (1979, The Tin Drum), from Günter Grass's surreal novel about a little boy who stops growing after the Nazis come to power; Swann In Love (1984), drawn from Proust's "Remembrance Of Things Past"; Margaret Atwood's feminist science-fiction drama The Handmaid's Tale (1990); and Voyager (1991), from Max Frisch's "Homo Faber." Actor Maximilian Schell was also producer of Das Schloss (1968, The Castle), a Franz Kafka adaptation directed by Rudolf Noelte; Schell's later successes as a writer/director include the romantic drama Erste Liebe (1970, First Love); a tale of Nazi war guilt, Der Füssganger (1974, The Pedestrian); and Marlene (1984), an insightful documentary on Marlene Dietrich. French-born writer/director Jean-Marie Straub scored with his film of Johann Sebastian Bach, Chronik Der Anna Magdalena Bach (1967, Chronicle Of Anna Magdalena Bach), which he co-scripted with his wife Daniele Huillet; in the '70s the two co-directed Moses Und Aron (1975), from the opera by Arnold Schoenberg, and Della Nube Alla Resistenza (1978, From The Cloud To Resistance), adapted from writings by Cesare Pavese.

Perhaps the most acclaimed of the new German writer/directors was Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who started making features in 1969 with the gangster film Liebe Ist Kälter Als Der Tod (Love Is Colder Than Death) and a drama of anti-foreigner hatred, Katzelmacher. Working quickly with a loyal troupe of technicians and actors, Fassbinder made over 30 films in the next dozen years, before his death from a drug overdose in 1982 at age 37. He sardonically conflated cliches of Hollywood melodrama with the social and psychological pressures of German life, dissecting his country in a series of provocative films -- most overtly in his trilogy of postwar Germany, Die Ehe Der Maria Braun (1978, The Marriage Of Maria Braun), Lola (1981), and Die Sehnsucht Der Veronika Voss (1981, Veronika Voss). The Nazi past was recalled in Lili Marleen (1980), and the pre-Nazi era in Bolweiser (1977, The Stationmaster's Wife). He probed contemporary German life in the psychological drama Händler Der Vier Jahrszeiten (1971, The Merchant Of Four Seasons), the interracial love story Angst Essen Seele Auf (1973, Ali -- Fear Eats The Soul), the media-exploitation tale Mutter Küsters Fahrt Zum Himmel (1975, Mother Küsters Goes To Heaven), and the black comedies Chinesische Roulette (1976, Chinese Roulette) and Die Dritte Generation (1979, The Third Generation). An openly gay man, Fassbinder treated lesbian love in Die Bitteren Tränen Der Petra von Kant (1972, The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant), gay life in Faustrecht Der Freiheit (1974, Fox And His Friends), and transsexualism in In Einem Jahr Mit 13 Monden (1978, In A Year Of 13 Moons). He also adapted Theodore Fontane in Fontane Effi Briest (1974, Effi Briest), Vladimir Nabokov in Despair (1978), Alfred Döblin in the 14-hour television mini-series Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), and Jean Genet in Querelle -- Ein Pakt Mit Dem Teufel (1982, Querelle), his last film.

Director Werner Herzog premiered two films in 1970 which put him at the forefront of new German cinema: a poetic, non-narrative look at Africa, Fata Morgana, and a crazed parable about an insurrection by institutionalized dwarfs, Auch Zwerge Haben Klein Angefangen (Even Dwarfs Started Small). He followed with four classic films: a dark journey into the conquistadors' imperialist folly, Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes (1972, Aguirre, The Wrath Of God), starring Klaus Kinski; an account of the real-life mystery man Kaspar Hauser in Jeder Fur Sich Und Gott Gegen Alle (1974, The Mystery Of Kaspar Hauser); a dreamlike vision of collective madness, Herz Aus Glas (1976, Heart Of Glass), for which he hypnotized his actors; and the black comedy of a German in America, Stroszek (1977). The '70s also saw two major documentaries by Herzog: Land Des Schweigens Und Der Dunkelheit (1971, Land Of Silence And Darkness), about the blind and deaf, and La Soufrière (1977), shot on an evacuated volcanic island that was about to blow (but never did). With Klaus Kinski, Herzog remade Murnau with Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht (1978, Nosferatu, The Vampyre), adapted Georg Buchner in Woyzeck (1979), and dragged a large boat up and down a mountain in the Amazon jungle for Fitzcarraldo (1982). He faltered in his subsequent features: Where The Green Ants Dream (1983), set in Australia; Cobra Verde (1988), an African drama with Kinski; the mountain-climbing saga Scream Of Stone (1991); and the World War Two drama Invincible (2001). His documentaries, however, have been outstanding: They include God's Angry Man (1980), with the American televangelist W. Eugene Scott; Ballade Vom Kleinen Soldaten (1984, Ballad Of The Little Soldier), about young Miskito Indians fighting the Sandanistas in Nicaragua; Echos Aus Einem Dusteren Reich (1990, Echoes From A Somber Empire), examining the reign of the overthrown Emperor of Central Africa, Jean Bedel Bokassa; Herdsmen Of The Sun (1991), an account of the Sahara's nomadic Wodaabe people; Lessons Of Darkness (1995), an indelible journey through Kuwait's devastation after the Iraqis set its oilfields on fire; Little Dieter Needs To Fly (1997), about a German-born American POW tortured in Laos in 1966; and Mein Leibster Feind (1999, My Best Fiend), in which Herzog examines long friendship with Klaus Kinski.

The third major figure in the new wave of German cinema is Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, who made a strikingly original trilogy in the 1970s which analyzed Germany through three visionary historical figures: the martyred 19th-century king Ludwig II in Ludwig -- Requiem Für Einen Jungfräulichen König (1972, Ludwig -- Requiem For A Virgin King), popular author Karl May in Karl May (1974), and Hitler in the astounding seven-hour Hitler, Ein Film Aus Deutschland (1977, Our Hitler). Using stylized sets, miniatures, back projections, talking-head lectures, tableaux vivants, puppets, and reams of 19th-century German music, these essay films plumb the depths of the German experience and psyche. Two byproducts of the trilogy were Theodor Hierneis Oder Wie Man Ehemaliger Hofkoch Wird (1973, Ludwig's Cook), with actor Walter Sedlmayr as the reminiscing chef for Ludwig II, and the five-hour Winifred Wagner Und Die Geschichte Des Hauses Wahnfried Von 1914-1975 (1975, The Confessions Of Winifred Wagner), an exhaustive interview with Richard Wagner's daughter-in-law, an admirer of Hitler who ran the Bayreuth Festivals from 1930 to 1945. Syberberg then created three memorable showcases for actress Edith Clever: She lip-synchs the role of Kundry in Parsifal (1983), a dreamlike, four-hours-plus film of Wagner's opera; she's the sole person in the six-hour Die Nacht (1985), performing a range of texts about the decline of Western civilization; and she plays Sybille von Bismarck, daughter-in-law of the Iron Chancellor, in another monologue film (although only some 2-1/2 hours long), Ein Traum, Was Sonst? (1990). Syberberg's experimental Cave Of Memory (1998) consists of six one-hour-long videos, to be shown either simultaneously or in series.

Writer/director Wim Wenders found a following in the 1970s with his slow, non-dramatic films of modern alienation. He followed the Peter Handke adaptation Die Angst Des Tormanns Beim Elfmeter (1971, The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick) with a trilogy of road movies: Alice In Den Städten (1973, Alice In The Cities), Falsche Bewegung (1975, Wrong Move), and Im Lauf Der Zeit (1976, Kings Of The Road). A devotee of American cinema, Wenders made the crime film Der Amerikanische Freund (1977, The American Friend) with Dennis Hopper, documented the last days of director Nicholas Ray in Lightning Over Water (1980), and cast writer/director Samuel Fuller in a drama about a faltering film shoot, Der Stand Der Dinge (1982, The State Of Things). After the misfire of his first American film, the detective drama Hammett (1983), Wenders found international fame with his English-language Paris, Texas (1984), scripted by Sam Shepard, and a tale of angels on Earth, Der Himmel Über Berlin (1987, Wings Of Desire), co-scripted by Handke. Less successful were his later efforts: the science-fictioner Bis Ans Ende Der Welt (1991, Until The End Of The World); the Wings Of Desire sequel In Weiter Ferne So Nah (1993, Faraway, So Close!); and the American crime films The End Of Violence (1997) and The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) with Mel Gibson. Occupying a place of its own is the multi-episode Par Delà Les Nuages (1995, Beyond The Clouds), Wenders' collaboration with the great Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni.

Since collaborating with Schlondorff, Margarethe von Trotta has written and directed the feminist dramas Schwestern, oder Die Balance Des Gluecks (1979, Sisters, or The Balance Of Happiness) and Die Bleierne Zeit (1981, The German Sisters); the biopic Rosa Luxemburg (1985); an adaptation of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters," Love And Fear (1988); and the German-reunification drama Das Versprechen (1994, The Promise). Percy Adlon wrote and directed several quirky and clever comedies starring Marianne Sägebrecht: Zuckerbaby (1985, Sugarbaby), Bagdad Café (1987), Rosalie Goes Shopping (1989). Writer/director Doris Dörrie skewered masculine egos with such popular satires as Mitten Ins Herz (1983, Straight Through The Heart), Männer (1985, Men ...), Ich Und Er (1989, Me And Him), Keiner Liebt Mich (1994, Nobody Loves Me), and Erleuchtung Garantient (2000, Enlightenment Guaranteed). Polish-born Agnieszka Holland wrote and directed two powerful dramas set during World War Two, Bittere Ernte (1985, Angry Harvest) and Europa, Europa (1991). Stylish dramas from writer/director Tom Tykwer include Winterschlaefer (1997, Winter Sleepers) and two films starring Franka Potente, the blockbuster Lola Rennt (1998, Run Lola Run) and Der Krieger Und Die Kaiserin (2000, The Princess And The Warrior).

Lesbian filmmakers have also found success in German cinema. Monika Treut co-wrote and co-directed Verführung: Die Grausame Frau (1985, Seduction: The Cruel Woman) with Elfi Mikesch before soloing with Virgin Machine (1989), My Father Is Coming (1991), and a documentary about female-to-male transsexuals, Gendernauts (1999); Ulrike Ottinger wrote and directed the imaginative Freak Orlando (1981), Dorian Gray Im Spiegel Der Boulevardpresse (1984, Dorian Gray In The Mirror Of The Popular Press), and Johanna D'Arc Of Mongolia (1989). Gay men have likewise flourished. Among Rosa von Praunheim's noteworthy efforts are his essay film Nicht Der Homosexuelle Ist Pervers Sondern Die Situation, In Der Er Lebt (1970, It Is Not The Homosexual Who Is Perverse But The Situation In Which He Lives); his documentaries Armee Der Liebenden, oder Aufstand Der Perversen (1979, Army Of Lovers, or Revolt Of The Perverts), The Transexual Menace (1996), and Fassbinder's Women (2000), an insightful account of Rainer Werner Fassbinder; the AIDS-themed Ein Virus Kennt Keine Moral (1986, A Virus Knows No Morals); a biopic of singer Anita Berber, Anita: Tänze Des Lasters (1988, Anita: Dances Of Vice); and a biopic/documentary of transgendered activist Charlotte von Mahlsdorff, Ich Bin Meine Eigene Frau (1993, I Am My Own Woman). Frank Ripploh starred in and directed two witty accounts of gay life, Taxi Zum Klo (1980) and Taxi Nach Kairo (1988). Writer/director/actor Lothar Lambert mixed comedy, drama, gay love, drag, and feminism in numerous films, including Die Hure Und Der Hurensohn (1981, Dirty Daughters) and Drama In Blond (1985). Werner Schroeter wrote and directed stylized homoerotic films such as Der Rosenkonig (1986, The Rose King). Gay themes also emerged in the tragic love story Die Konsequenz (1977, The Consequence); its writer/director Wolfgang Petersen and star Jurgen Prochnow later scored an international hit with the World War Two drama Das Boot (1981, The Boat). Actress Eva Mattes gave an uncanny impersonation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Radu Gabrea's Ein Mann Wie EVA (1984, A Man Like EVA). Director Bettina Wilhelm looked at androgynous performer Georgette Dee in All Of Me (1990), which she co-wrote with Dee. Lola And Bilidikid (1998), written and directed by E. Kutlug Ataman, examined gay and transvestite life in Germany's Turkish subculture. The moving drama Aimée & Jaguar (1998), directed and co-scripted by Max Färberböck, recounted the true story of lesbian lovers torn apart by World War Two. One of Germany's biggest moneymakers has been the bisexual farce Der Bewegte Mann (1995, Maybe ... Maybe Not), written and directed by Sonkë Wortmann. But whether aiming at gay or straight audiences, domestic or foreign, contemporary German cinema has renewed the artistic brilliance that astounded the world from the mid teens to the mid 1930s.