German movies about New Year and Christmas

Pre-teen foundling Emil and slightly older middle class orphan Inga seek to comfort each-other in the pitiful conditions at Mrs. Landfried's orphanage. She sells the shoes the produce in a Dickensian poorhouse workshop but keeps most profits, only ambitious eldest turned foreman Franz gets a bonus. For Christmas, the kids must sell I town the sets of matchsticks she bargained as bonus with the shoes, the winner gets a goose helping, sub)standard sale means a caning. After chasing the duo from the lucrative market, Frans wins and even gets to cane Emil, but lets him off with loud pretense. Inga ran away, dreaming in the rundown family home of her late parents welcoming her home whenever she strikes a match. Emil informs the homonymous friendly cop they met on the market, who sees the tyrant is replaced by a proper administrator.

After losing his brick laying job, Christian begins to work at a supermarket.

Christmas is just two weeks away, it is pouring with rain, and Ben is struggling to get into the Christmas spirit. Suddenly, Bens life takes a turn for the better when Santa Niklas Goodfellow and his Christmas caravan come crashing down to Earth in the middle of thunderstorm and land in Foggy Lane. Santa is on the run from the ruthless Gerold Geronimus Goblynch and his army of nutcrackers who have outlawed all of the old magical ways and have transformed the bright and peaceful Christmas world into a dark and hostile place, governed by greed and money. Goblynch has banned work for all Santas and confined the Christmas angels to tiny prison cells, where they can no longer hear the dearest wishes of children. Goblynch also wants to force Santa Niklas Goodfellow, the last real Santa, to work for his commercialized Christmas company and forces him to do hard labour in the ordering department of the Christmas Palace.

An American backpacker gets involved with a ring of drug smugglers as their driver, and winds up on the run from his employers across Munich's autobahns.

East Germany. Summer, late 70's. Three years after her boyfriend Wassilij's apparent death, Nelly Senff decides to escape from behind the Berlin wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic memories and past behind. Pretending to marry a West German, she crosses the border to start a new life in the West. But soon her past starts to haunt her as the Allied Secret Service begin to question Wassilij's mysterious disappearance. Is he still alive? Was he a spy? Plagued by her past and fraught with paranoia, Nelly is forced to choose between discovering the truth about her former lover and her hopes for a better tomorrow.

A collection of 24 films that take a look at the dark side of the festive season. 24 international directors with the most diverse ideas and styles; linked by short animated segments that deal with the Advent calendar itself.

Six years have elapsed since Guantanamo Bay, leaving Harold and Kumar estranged from one another with very different families, friends and lives. But when Kumar arrives on Harold's doorstep during the holiday season with a mysterious package in hand, he inadvertently burns down Harold's father-in-law's beloved Christmas tree. To fix the problem, Harold and Kumar embark on a mission through New York City to find the perfect Christmas tree, once again stumbling into trouble at every single turn.

In the aftermath of World War II, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German widower who lives with them.

Set right before Christmas, Niko the reindeer must deal with his mom getting re-married and his being tasked with looking after his little stepbrother.

The tables are turned as four teenagers are sucked into Jumanji's world - pitted against rhinos, black mambas and an endless variety of jungle traps and puzzles. To survive, they'll play as characters from the game.

Story of a couple that starts the first legal brothel in Nevada and a boxer they own a piece of.

Four lost souls decide to end their lives on the same night, New Year's Eve. When they meet unintentionally at the same suicide hotspot, they mutually agree to call off their plans for six weeks, forming an unconventional, dysfunctional family.

The film follows a 30-year-old man named Gabriel, a French war reporter who was taken to hostage in Syria and then heads to India after months in captivity.

When Michèle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving family, all the while becoming engaged in a game of cat and mouse with her stalker.

Darwin meets Hitchcock in this documentary. Directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine have created a parable about the search for paradise, set in the brutal yet alluring landscape of the Galapagos Islands, which interweaves an unsolved 1930s murder mystery with stories of present day Galapagos pioneers. A gripping tale of idealistic dreams gone awry, featuring voice-over performances by Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, and Gustaf Skarsgard.

In the 1980s, Anna, a Czech sprinter, starts training for the Olympics. After she collapses during training, she learns she is being given steroids and decides to stop using them until her mother helps the coaches give them to her.

Hartmut Mackowiak, a German taxi driver, tries to help 6 year old Turkish girl to find her mother.

María, a girl from Colonia Dignidad, in Chile —a kind of sectarian community, tyrannically mastered by the ruthless Paul Schäfer, a German madman, religious fanatic and child predator, who would end up turning the place into a torture center at the service of the military dictatorship ruled by Augusto Pinochet—, is punished for having lost three pigs, so she decides to run away and take refuge in an abandoned house hidden in the forest.

A teenage girl helps an escaped fugitive flee Germany into France, after extracting a promise that he will help her commit suicide.

Inexperienced guardian angel, Buddy (Michael Herbig) arrives to assist Eddie (Alexander Fehling) with getting his life back on track, but instead only causes more chaos.

Two misfit males, one man-child, one boy, find each other, building a small cabin in the woods to create a new life. Their daily struggle for survival creates a strong bond between them until the hut is destroyed and one of the boys carted off. The former psychiatric patient is told that his friend was just a figment of his imagination, but this provokes him to fight back and prove the boy's existence.

You left your home to move far away. You were struck by a wind of change and were unfaithful to yourself. You reinvented yourself and you are now feeling free. But suddenly pressure arises in you.

A young prosecutor in postwar West Germany investigates a massive conspiracy to cover up the Nazi pasts of prominent public figures.

Based on the incredible true story of Jesse Owens, the legendary athletic superstar whose quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy. Starring Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, Carice Van Houten and William Hurt - Race is an enthralling film about courage, determination, tolerance, and friendship, and an inspiring drama about one man's fight to become an Olympic legend.

Based on the book "Ich bin dann mal weg" by Hape Kerkeling where the author describes his journey on the Way of St. James, a pilgrimage route, and the people he encounters there.

Sonia breaks the perhaps most exciting time of her life, because the 20-year-old moves to Berlin for a mathematics study. Once there, she soon began to build up a new circle of friends, and then she fell in love with the kind, but irresponsible Ladja. There is only one big catch: the dear money is a bit scarce and therefore Sonia one day, financially, but also from curiosity, the path to prostitution. From now on, it leads a brisk double flight, which can fly at any time. Her experiences are ambivalent, as part-time she often gets into difficult situations, but also gets to know nice people, while she enjoys life just as a student. But how long can it maintain the double game?

Frank and Simone have fulfilled a dream and live with their two children in a row house in the suburbs. They are a happy couple, until the day Frank is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. The family is suddenly confronted with death.

"I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians." These words, spoken in the Council of Ministers of the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. The film attempts to comment on this statement.

Every year, on the 9th of May, people gather in Treptower Park in Berlin. They come dressed in their best outfits or in Soviet military uniform. They carry flags, banners and posters. They lay flowers at the monument to the Soviet soldier; they sing, dance and drink. They celebrate the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany.The film is a direct reportage from Treptower Park 72 years after the victory.

A 30-sth. businessman gets stuck on a man-eating traffic island in the middle of a forest for an entire year.

Thomas, a young German baker, is having an affair with Oren, an Israeli married man who has frequent business visits in Berlin. When Oren dies in a car crash in Israel, Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking for answers regarding his death. Under a fabricated identity, Thomas infiltrates the life of Anat, his lover’s newly widowed wife, who owns a small Café in downtown Jerusalem. Thomas starts to work for her, creating German cakes and cookies that bring her Café to life. Thomas finds himself involved in Anat’s life in a way far beyond his anticipation. To protect the truth he will stretch his lie to a point of no return.

Germany, Baltic Sea coast, May 1945, a few days before the end of World War II. A small Soviet patrol arrives at an isolated house where an elderly baroness gives shelter to a group of orphan girls and a boy who is determined to continue the fight.

Twenty years after the events of Iron Sky, the former Nazi Moonbase has become the last refuge of mankind. Earth was devastated by a nuclear war, but buried deep under the wasteland lies a power that could save the last of humanity - or destroy it once and for all. The truth behind the creation of mankind will be revealed when an old enemy leads our heroes on an adventure into the Hollow Earth. To save humanity they must fight the Vril, an ancient shapeshifting reptilian race and their army of dinosaurs.

Brian Cox stars as Jacques, the curmudgeonly owner of a gritty New York dive bar that serves as home to a motley assortment of professional drinkers. Jacques is determinedly drinking and smoking himself to death when he meets Lucas (Dano), a homeless young man who has already given up on life. Determined to keep his legacy alive, Jacques deems Lucas is a fitting heir and takes him under his wing, schooling him in the male-centric laws of his alcoholic clubhouse: no new customers, no fraternizing with customers and, absolutely no women. Lucas is a quick study, but their friendship is put to the test when the distraught and beautiful April (Isild Le Besco) shows up at the bar seeking shelter, and Lucas insists they help her out.

A road movie about two very different brothers who have not seen each other for 20 years: city manager Christian and cabinetmaker Georg, who never left their hometown and took care of their father until his passing. After their fathers funeral, the brothers decide on a whim, and with some help from the alcohol, to fulfil their old dream: travel trough Germany together on their mopeds.

Helen is a nonconformist teenage girl who maintains a conflictual relationship with her parents. Hanging out most of her time with her friend Corinna, with whom she breaks one social taboo after another, she uses sex as a way to rebel and break the conventional bourgeois ethic. After an intimate shaving accident, Helen ends up in the hospital where it doesn’t take long before she makes waves. But there she finds Robin, a male nurse who will sweep her off her feet...

The true story of a young woman whose lust for life means she is determined to be so very much more than just another cancer patient.

Successful businesswoman Maria has achieved everything except what she wants the most - a baby of her own. She decides to deal with the matter by herself and embarks on a desperate and dangerous journey in order to make her dream come true.

Germany, 1945. Soldier Willi Herold, a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he has stolen only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whoever he is.

Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who's poised to become a principal performer.

Wonderfully surreal, painfully real, this is the story of children, adults and animals who live together trying to have a better life, but sometimes death comes unexpectedly. The lives of three characters surrounded by a bunch of extraordinary, funny, absurd but quite realistic events. It is all about us, people who eat the animals that they love and the animals that love people unconditionally.

A Chechen Muslim illegally immigrates to Hamburg and becomes a person of interest for a covert government team which tracks the movements of potential terrorists.

15-year-old Nina witnesses a terrible crime that puts her life in danger. Being an orphan, she has nobody she can trust. When corrupt businessman Thomas Backer sends five killers after Nina, witness protection officer, Max, a former special-forces soldier, is responsible for her safety. They soon overcome their initial distance to find common ground. While on the run from the ruthless Backer, Rudi, one of Max’s former comrades, comes to their rescue – and continues to help the two out of some precarious situations. Even Max’s ex-girlfriend Sara is not just there to help him as a federal prosecutor. Nevertheless, Nina and Max face ever-increasing danger, and soon the teenager is not the only one in need of a guardian angel – Max could use one too.

It is the summer of 1980 in East Germany and, alone, Barbara is confined to living and working as a doctor in a small provincial town - her punishment for attempting to emigrate to the West. She has only one focus; to escape and for this, she has to wait patiently. Until Andre, her supervisor in the hospital, takes her off course. Are his motives of love or duty to the authorities? The day-to-day pretense, and content supervision slowly take their toll as the tension builds.

A girl who always tends to fall in love with the wrong guy meets one who believes the world is coming to an end next Tuesday.

Canadian scientist, Dr Geoff Burton takes up a position at a new institute in wintry Dresden in order to contribute to their most important project—a human regeneration gene—that also has the potential to make something miraculous out of a personal tragedy that has haunted him for years.

Adolf Hitler wakes up in a vacant lot in Berlin, with no knowledge of anything that happened after 1945. Homeless and destitute. Although everyone recognizes him, nobody believes that he is Hitler; instead, they think he is either a comedian, or a method actor.

The story of the dog from the title, who in a frame narrative explains how he came to be transformed from an unemployed communist filmmaker into a canine with a philosophical bent. Unable to finance his new project, young Berlin-based director Julian tells foreign exchange student Camille that his job in the countryside is research for an upcoming film. When Camille offers to help, he is forced to uphold the lie. The plantation isn’t the proletarian idyll he had hoped for, but fortunately the reincarnation of Francis of Assisi provides spiritual insight and a new aim in life.

Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power.

When lovelorn Michael arrives in Berlin to return a set of keys to his ex-girlfriend, Gabi, as an excuse to see her again, he finds her apartment empty save for a couple of plumbers making repairs to the central heating. Just as Michael learns from the plumber’s apprentice, Harper, that Gabi has popped out for a while but will return soon, the apprentice is attacked by his boss who has unexpectedly and inexplicably transformed into a raging madman. Together, Michael and Harper manage to bundle the crazed plumber out of the apartment and barricade themselves safely inside. Within minutes, they find themselves trapped in apartment block under siege from a horde of similarly insane people, apparently hungry for human flesh.