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Precious few movies about life in communist countries have made an impact in America. Barbara should be one of them. It’s a compelling drama – and a sexy one – about a glamorous doctor torn between two men and the different lives they represent. It’s also an insightful lens into the grim reali…

Seminal movie, thy name is The Blue Angel, Der Blaue Engel in its native German. Josef von Sternberg was 36 when he paired unknown Marlene Dietrich with eminent Emil Jannings. Dietrich and von Sternberg rocketed straight to Hollywood. Jannings was left behind, kind of like in the story its…

This dazzling German movie shows the sociological antecedents of Nazism in ways both fresh and timeless. A penetrating societal examination unprecedented in its knowingness, it would be a landmark no matter which nation it examined. That it elucidates the generation of Germans who grew up to fo…

The Stasi employed 100,000 East Germans, who maintained a network of 200,000 informants, in a country of 16 million people. So roughly 1% of the population controlled the other 99%. Ring any bells America? ¹

The Lives of Others, a Stasi romantic drama, was the first perfect movie about t…