Fritz Lang & German Expressionism

December 7, 2018–February 23, 2019

Our tribute to this essential director presents his German films alongside other enthralling works of German Expressionist cinema.

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  • Metropolis

  • Dr. Mabuse the Gambler

  • M

  • Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

  • F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

    • Saturday, February 23 4:30 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1933

    Imported 35mm Print

    From an insane asylum, the evil Mabuse carries on his international terrorism. Lang shapes an anti-Nazi allegory in the form of a thriller.

  • Liliom

    • Friday, February 22 4 PM
    Fritz Lang
    France, 1934

    Charles Boyer gives a winning performance as a self-centered carousel operator in this inventive fantasy touched with melancholic poetry.

  • Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, Part I: A Portrait of Our Time

    • Sunday, February 17 1 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1922

    A vicious portrait of post-WWI social breakdown (in fabulous art deco settings). A fiendish mastermind gifted with sinister hypnotic powers, “Mabuse is history’s secret agent” (J. Hoberman).

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, Part II: Inferno, a Play of People in Our Time

    • Sunday, February 17 4:30 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1922

    In Part II, Mabuse descends into madness, but we haven’t seen the last of him!

    Bruce Loeb on Piano

  • Woman in the Moon

    • Saturday, February 16 7:30 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1929

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    Lang’s final silent film takes viewers to the moon and back in a fantastical exploration of space travel. Abstract animation pioneer Oskar Fischinger helped create the special effects.

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • Asphalt

    • Sunday, February 10 4 PM
    Joe May
    Germany, 1929

    A gorgeous petty thief seduces a straitlaced beat cop, and soon both are over their heads in trouble, in Joe May’s technically astounding proto-noir.

  • Spies

    • Saturday, February 9 4 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1927

    Digital Restoration

    The head of an international bank doubles as a criminal mastermind in Lang’s compelling thriller. “Granddaddy of decades of intrigue epics, Spies, in its rigorous austerity, remains the most modern of the bunch” (Village Voice).

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • M

    • Sunday, January 20 2 PM
    • Friday, February 8 8 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1931

    Digital Restoration
    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    This film is also screening on Wednesday, February 13, 3:10 PM as part of our series In Focus: Writing for Cinema featuring speakers David Thomson and Michael Ondaatje.

    A precursor to American noir, Lang’s masterpiece is a terrifying excursion into an urban underworld where there are few moral distinctions between organized crime and organized law enforcement. With Peter Lorre in his definitive performance.

  • The Nibelungen, Part II: Kriemhild’s Revenge

    • Sunday, February 3 3:30 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1924

    Digital Restoration

    In its second part, Lang’s epic becomes a terrifying study of barbarism.

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • The Nibelungen, Part I: Siegfried’s Death

    • Saturday, February 2 4:30 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1924

    Digital Restoration

    Lang’s two-part superproduction of the thirteenth-century saga that also inspired Wagner’s Ring cycle is a triumph of studio artifice. “Stunning . . . very highly recommended” (Chicago Reader).

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • Metropolis

    • Friday, December 7 7 PM
    • Thursday, January 24 7 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1926

    The Complete Version

    Evil leaders, enslaved citizens, the orgiastic super-rich, and messiah robots populate Lang’s dystopian classic. Now over ninety years old, and still one of the most essential, influential science fiction films of all time.

  • Nosferatu

    • Friday, January 18 8:30 PM
    F. W. Murnau
    Germany, 1922

    Digital Restoration

    Still among the most unnerving and poetic of horror films, investing the natural world with eerie incandescence. Max Schreck’s vampire is unforgettable—a living death, a walking ruin.

    Bruce Loeb on Piano

  • Destiny

    • Sunday, January 13 1 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1921

    Digital Restoration

    Lil Dagover stars as a woman who tries to save her lover from “the weary Death” in this Expressionist fantasy said to have influenced both Douglas Fairbanks and Alfred Hitchcock.

    Bruce Loeb on Piano

  • The Golem

    • Thursday, January 10 7 PM
    Paul Wegener, Carl Boese
    Germany, 1920

    Digital Restoration

    A rabbi in medieval Prague conjures a monster to protect his people from destruction in this visually astounding retelling of the Golem myth, shot by gifted cinematographer Karl Freund (The Last Laugh; Metropolis).

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • Harakiri

    • Wednesday, January 9 7 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1919

    Restored Print

    Lang’s version of Madame Butterfly changes the title character from geisha to noblewoman, and was one of the first European films to depict Japanese culture. “Refreshingly stereotype-free, the film demonstrates that silent film can rival opera in emotional impact” (Tom Vick).

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • The Spiders, Part 1: The Golden Lake

    • Sunday, December 30 3 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1919

    Lang’s extravagant globetrotting serial moves from San Francisco’s Chinatown to Peru and Asia as an adventurer battles the worldwide criminal gang known as The Spiders, led by femme fatale Lio Shia.

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • The Spiders, Part 2: The Diamond Ship

    • Sunday, December 30 4:45 PM
    Fritz Lang
    Germany, 1919

    The continuation of Lang’s sensational serial, a time capsule of European exotica.

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • Faust

    • Friday, December 28 7 PM
    F. W. Murnau
    Germany, 1926

    Murnau’s version of the Faust legend is a masterwork of chiaroscuro lighting, and helped redefine what black-and-white cinematography could accomplish. Emil Jannings stars as a subtly mischievous Mephistopheles.

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • The Last Laugh

    • Saturday, December 15 6 PM
    F. W. Murnau
    Germany, 1924

    A proud hotel doorman falls from grace in Murnau’s classic of German Expressionism, whose roving camerawork and hallucinatory imagery “changed the way that movies were made” (Dave Kehr).

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

    • Sunday, December 9 4:30 PM
    Robert Wiene
    Germany, 1920

    4K Digital Restoration

    The quintessential German Expressionist film translates narrative and psychology into stunning set design.

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano