Bruno Ganz Filmography

Youth Without Youth

Actors: Tim Roth, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Marcel Iures

Synopsis: Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola returns to the director's chair after a ten-year hiatus with this adaptation of Romanian author Mircea Eliade's tome detailing the arduous journey of a professor whose life is thrown into chaos as World War II looms ominously on the horizon. When the seventy Read More

Vitus

Actors: Teo Gheorghiu, Bruno Ganz, Fabrizio Borsani, Julika Jenkins, Urs Jucker

Synopsis: A young boy whose remarkable, almost supernatural capacity for learning prompts his parents to anticipate a brilliant future as a pianist rebels to take his fate into his own hands in director Fredi M. Murer's contemplative family drama. By kindergarten Vitus is reading encyclopedias, and by age Read More

Downfall

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Juliane Köhler, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes

Synopsis: The last ten days of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime are seen through the eyes of a young woman in his employ in this historical drama from Germany. Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) was 22 years old when, in the fall of 1942, she was hired to be personal secretary to Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz). Read More

Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II

Actors: Thomas Kretschmann, Bruno Ganz, Joaquim de Almeida, John Albasiny, Paulius Ignatavicius

Synopsis: The eventful life of a humble Polish priest who once decried the pomp of the Catholic Church "a circus" and labeled the Pope a "prisoner of the Vatican" before ascending to the papal throne is explored as actor Thomas Kretschmann takes on the role of Pope John Paul II in director Jeff Bleckner's Read More

The Manchurian Candidate

Actors: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight

Synopsis: Jonathan Demme directed this updated remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 cult favorite The Manchurian Candidate, a pioneering examination of political conspiracy and psychological reconditioning. Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) are two soldiers Read More

Luther

Actors: Joseph Fiennes, Alfred Molina, Claire Cox, Peter Ustinov

Synopsis: The life of one of the controversial figures in the history of modern religion is brought to the screen in this historical biography. Born in 1483, Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes) was an intelligent and principled young man who was studying law in early 16th century Germany when a close brush with Read More

The Power of the Past

Actors: Sergio Rubini, Bruno Ganz, Sandra Ceccarelli, Mariangela D'Abbraccio, Valeria Moriconi

Synopsis: Days after the death and funeral of his high-powered army father, children's book author Gianni Orzan (Sergio Rubini) meets the suspicious Gianni Bogliasco (Bruno Ganz), who proceeds to recite an uncomfortable amount of accurate knowledge about the author's life. Gianni ends up running into Read More

Under Strange Skies

Bread and Tulips

Actors: Giuseppe Battiston, Licia Maglietta, Bruno Ganz, Marina Massironi, Antonio Catania

Synopsis: Silvio Soldino directs this gentle comedy about a housewife who temporarily flees from the grinding tedium of her household duties and drifts into a world of amicable weirdos. When Rosalba (Licia Maglietta) is accidentally forgotten by her tour bus at a roadside restaurant, she does not wait there Read More

Epstein's Night

Actors: Mario Adorf, Bruno Ganz, Otto Tausig, Günter Lamprecht, Annie Girardot

WerAngstWolf

Actors: Tina Engel, Bruno Ganz, Mathias Gnädinger

Synopsis: Clemens Klopfenstein directs this oblique, strikingly-shot film about actors in groups of two and three on their way to the Goethe Institute in Rome. Throughout the film, actors recite lines from Chekov, Gorky, Shaw, and Shakespeare against scenes of stunning natural beauty. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Read More

Eternity and a Day

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Isabelle Renauld, Achileas Skevis, Despina Bebedeli, Iris Chatziantoniou

Synopsis: Theo Angelopoulos (Reconstruction) directed this 1998 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner about a famed author nearing the end of his life. Alexander (Bruno Ganz) lives in his old seaside family home near Thessaloniki, but his daughter and son-in-law plan to sell the house, slightly damaged by Read More

Gegen Ende Der Nacht

Actors: Stefan Kurt, Karoline Eichhorn, Bruno Ganz, Felix Eitner, Heidy Forster

Synopsis: Oliver Storz directed this German drama opening with a farm family massacred in August of 1945 when southern Germany is occupied by American troops. Dave Gladbaker (Stefan Kurt) investigates, and refugee Karin (Karoline Eihhorn), a nurse at the farm, becomes a focus of the investigation, with both Read More

Saint-Ex

Synopsis: This arty British effort attempts to pay homage to distinguished and fanciful French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery via a sort of tone poem. Those familiar with the writer's work will get the most from this film as it does not contain any excerpts from the writer's work. The film, though not a Read More

Ein Richter in Angst

Synopsis: Dr. Crusius is a dour judge who manages to alienate an entire legal community with his arrogance and ever-smoldering anger. Abel is a freewheeling, hotshot young attorney who uses unconventional methods to win his cases. This German courtroom drama chronicles what happens when the two are thrown Read More

Faraway, So Close!

Actors: Horst Buchholz, Otto Sander, Peter Falk, Nastassja Kinski, Heinz Rühmann, Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Lou Reed, Willem Dafoe

Synopsis: Wim Wenders revisits his masterpiece Der Himmel Uber Berlin in this film which picks up several years after the original left off. Cassiel (Otto Sander) is an angel who watches over the lives of the people of recently reunified Berlin with Raphaella (Nastassja Kinski). Damiel (Bruno Ganz) Read More

Brandnacht

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Barbara Auer, Rolf Hoppe

Synopsis: Peter Keller has come back to his native village in Switzerland from Berlin to investigate a murder. It seems that an old army buddy of his is the accused. As he pokes around, it becomes clear that his having roots there cuts no ice with the locals: they all seem to have something to hide and Read More

Prague

Actors: Alan Cumming, Sandrine Bonnaire, Bruno Ganz

Synopsis: This ambitious overview of the history of Prague provides a wealth of information about the city, both visual and verbal, but suffers from a one-note presentation. One note dominates the narration, that of continuity between past and present, and also the camerawork -- contrived to be as artful Read More

Die Abwesenheit

Actors: Alex Descas, Bruno Ganz

Synopsis: In this aimless and meandering film, five separate individuals drop out of their lives in order to drift around Europe with no clear end in mind. Despite the diversity of the individuals beginning these journeys, the film apparently offers no appealing characters, incidents, or insights, as it was Read More

The Last Days of Chez Nous

Actors: Lisa Harrow, Bruno Ganz, Kerry Fox, Miranda Otto, Kiri Paramore

Synopsis: Gillian Armstrong directed this quietly bittersweet and coldly ironic examination of the death throes of a crumbling marriage. Set in the lush summer light of Sydney, the film examines the dying marriage of Beth (Lisa Harrow), a middle-aged writer living with her French husband J.P. (Bruno Ganz) Read More

La Domenica Specialmente

Actors: Philippe Noiret, Chiara Caselli, Ivano Marescotti, Ornella Muti

Synopsis: Three very odd relationships provide the basis for this thought-provoking Italian anthology that is overseen by director Bernardo Bertolucci. The first tale, "The Blue Dog" centers on a barber who becomes the fixation of a mysteriously devoted dog with an unusual blue spot upon his head. In Read More

Boern Natturunnar

Actors: Sigridur Hagalin, Gisli Halldorsson

Synopsis: An aging couple decide to make the most of the time they have left in this lighthearted but poignant drama. Thornier Kristmundsson (Gisli Halldorsson) has spent most of his life working a farm in the northern part of Iceland. Thornier decides to retire, so he relocates to Reykjavik, where he moves Read More

Strapless

Actors: Blair Brown, Bruno Ganz, Bridget Fonda, Alan Howard, Michael Gough

Synopsis: As she enters middle age, expatriate American M.D. Lillian Hempel (Blair Brown) ends a long-term relationship with her actor boyfriend and embarks on a tour of European churches. After a chance encounter with charming businessman Raymond Forbes (Bruno Ganz), Lillian finds herself tempted to Read More

Bankomatt

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Giovanni Guidelli, Francesca Neri, Omero Antonutti

Synopsis: With three of his companions in a fatal gas-station robbery drowned while evading a police roadblock, the surviving young thug has no reason to turn himself in to the police, since they don't know about his existence. At least, that's the way his rescuer Bruno (Bruno Ganz) sees it. Besides, Bruno Read More

Erfolg

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Franziska Walser, Peter Simonischek, Mathieu Carrière, Gudrun Gabriel

Synopsis: For fans of history, this glimpse of Munich society in the 1920s will be a much-treasured event. The story revolves around an art-gallery manager who puts on a show featuring the scandalous works of a woman artist who committed suicide. He is unjustly accused of having committed adultery with her Read More

The Architecture of Doom

Synopsis: Based on the interesting theory that the Third Reich was merely an expression of its architects' desire to create, Peter Cohen has written, directed, produced and edited this compilation documentary. Many of Hitler's top guns were not only well educated but had creative bents - Hitler was a Read More

Noch Ein Wunsch

Actors: Matthais Habich, Johanna Lier

Synopsis: Martin (Matthias Habich) has a settled and materially successful life. During his birthday party, he begins to have qualms about the whole thing, and escapes a life that has suddenly become claustrophobic by going to Paris. There, he has a quick one-night stand with a young girl, an encounter Read More

Wings of Desire

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Peter Falk, Otto Sander, Curt Bois

Synopsis: Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) are angels who watch over the city of Berlin. They don't have harps or wings (well, they usually don't have wings) and they prefer overcoats to gossamer gowns. But they can travel unseen through the city, listening to people's thoughts, watching their Read More

Vaeter und Soehne

Synopsis: This German drama chronicles the lives of a family of industrialists whose lives are forever changed by Hitler and WW II. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Un Amore Di Donna

Rio De Oro

Actors: Ángela Molina, Bruno Ganz, Francesca Annis, Stefan Gubser, Nacho Rodriguez

Synopsis: This is an enigmatic tale of a man's attempt to regain a lost period of youthful happiness. Peter (Bruno Ganz) and his somewhat broken-down wife arrive at a friend's house for an extended visit. Peter has been attracted to the woman of the house; he also once spent an idyllic summer here. He takes Read More

Der Pendler

Actors: Andreas Loeffel, Elisabeth Seiler, Anne Marie Blanc, Bruno Ganz, Tiziana Jelmini

Synopsis: This is the final film in a trilogy by Bernhard Giger that examines a man's struggle to find and defend his personal identity. In Winterstadt, a young wanderer discovers himself through his interactions with people in a small town, and in Der Gemeindeprasident, a mayor fights hard to maintain his Read More

De Ijssalon

Actors: Gerard Thoolen, Bruno Ganz, Renée Soutendijk, Carol Van Herwijnen, Kees Hulst

Synopsis: Set in 1941 in Amsterdam, this is a story of humanity -- specifically, Otto (Gerard Thoolen) the Jewish owner of an ice-cream shop, his best friend Gustav (Bruno Ganz), and his friend Trudi (Renee Soutendijk) -- facing the dangers of an escalating war and the specter of fascism. The outgoing Read More

Killer Aus Florida

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Renata Schroeter

Synopsis: In this brief, 50-minute film, a hit man gives an interview to a journalist -- and this story unfolds -- about how he took a plane to Zurich and waited for the right moment to kill his victim. The mundane, boring activities of the killer are emphasized, making his amoral objective all the more Read More

Gedaechtnis

Crew: Editor, Producer

Actors: Curt Bois, Bernhard Minetti

Synopsis: Two well-known German actors, Curt Bois (1901-1991) and Bernhard Minetti (b. 1905) reminisce about their work on the stage in this charming documentary by directors Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander. Bois emigrated to the U.S. in 1933 but he found it difficult to obtain work in Hollywood or in New York Read More

System Ohne Schatten

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Dominique Laffin, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: In a complex plot that loses punch through weak dialogue, a computer hack, his love interest, and a friend plan a bank heist involving the transfer of funds from a Berlin bank to a bank in Zurich "over the wires." They have everything worked out when they realize that they will have to join forces Read More

Krieg und Frieden

Actors: Jürgen Prochnow, Günther Kaufmann, Manfred Zapatka, Heinz Bennent

Synopsis: This two-hour documentary and fiction film was a cooperative writing effort by five different German writers and/or directors, one of the most noted being the 1972 Nobel prize winner Heinrich Böll. Böll was specifically responsible for three fictive episodes at the end of the film that promote an Read More

Dans la Ville Blanche

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Teresa Madruga, Julia Vonderlinn, Jose Carvalho, Francisco Baiao

Synopsis: Originally Dans la Ville Blanche, the Swiss/Portuguese In the White City features Bruno Ganz as a cinematically inclined Swiss sailor. While on liberty in Lisbon, Ganz decides to soak in the sights, committing his visit to posterity with an 8-millimeter movie camera. His ship sets sail, but Ganz Read More

Logik Des Gefuehls

Actors: Rüdiger Vogler, Daphne Moore, Grischa Huber

Synopsis: Random encounters, random dialogue, and random thinking characterize one man's journey from the south end of Europe to his home, after his wife has left him shell-shocked by exiting from his life and getting on with hers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide Read More

Etwas Wird Sichtbar

Actors: Hanns Zischler, Inga Humpe, Bruno Ganz

Synopsis: Scenes from the Vietnam war are enacted by Asian and white actors, captioned, and juxtaposed with a slow-paced commentary that gives time for reflection on the message conveyed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide Read More

La Vera Storia Della Signora Delle Camelie

Actors: Isabelle Huppert, Gian Maria Volontè, Bruno Ganz, Fernando Rey, Fabrizio Bentivoglio

Synopsis: In the original story of Camille by Alexandre Dumas, Jr. La Dame aux Camelias, a beautiful Parisian courtesan, Marguerite Gautier, (called "Camille" because of her love for camelias) is supported by a series of aristocratic lovers, but does not fall in love until she meets Armand Duval. Armand's Read More

Circle of Deceit

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla, Jerzy Skolimowski, Gila Von Weitershausen, Jean Carmet

Synopsis: Bruno Ganz plays a West German journalist whose frequent assignments to war-torn nations have left him jaundiced. He is assigned to cover the civil war in Beirut. The combination of his harrowing experiences on the job and his after-hours relationship with widow Hannah Schygulla affects Ganz Read More

Oggetti Smarriti

Actors: Mariangela Melato, Bruno Ganz, Renato Salvatori, Laura Morante, Maria Luisa Santella

Synopsis: A surreal and often abstruse tale about a woman and her innermost feelings, Oggetti Smarriti starts out with Marta (Mariangela Melato) and her husband taking a long train ride to go pick up their daughter from grandmother's house. Theory and practice are immediately at odds when the husband gets Read More

La Provinciale

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Patrick Chesnais, Dominique Paturel, Pierre Vernier

Synopsis: In this drama, a provincial girl goes to Paris in search of her fortune. Although she finds the City of Light to be quite different from what she'd imagined it to be, the girl manages to retain her dignity. It is only after she is thoroughly disillusioned by her experiences there that she returns Read More

Cinq Pour Cent De Risque

Actors: Pierre Michael, Bruno Ganz, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Aurore Clément

5% de Risque

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Aurore Clément, Pierre Michael, Fernand Guiot

Polenta

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Jean-Marc Stehle, Marina Golovine

Der Erfinder

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Walo Lüönd, Thomas Ott

Synopsis: In this interesting World War I drama, Bruno Ganz gives a compelling performance as Jakob, an obsessive inventor who lives in a Swiss village. He receives unconditional support from his friend Otti (Walo Luond), but that is about all; the other villagers do not tolerate Jakob's eccentricities very Read More

Nosferatu the Vampyre

Actors: Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz, Jacques Dufilho, Roland Topor

Synopsis: For Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of F.W. Murnau's classic 1922 silent horror-fest Nosferatu, star Klaus Kinski adopts the same makeup style used by Murnau's leading man Max Schreck. Yet in the Herzog version, the crucial difference is that Nosferatu becomes more and more decayed and desiccated as Read More

Retour à la Bien-Aimée

Actors: Isabelle Huppert, Bruno Ganz, Jean-François Adam, Jacques Dutronc

Synopsis: Julien (Jacques Dutronc) is a pianist who is determined to regain everything he lost when his wife Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert) divorced him, as much for revenge as for any other reason. He calmly stages a murder on the grounds of his ex-wife's home, carefully using her new husband Kern's (Bruno Read More

The Boys From Brazil

Actors: Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen

Synopsis: This film of Ira Levin's novel The Boys from Brazil wastes no time in establishing the fact that several seemingly unrelated men have been mysteriously murdered. Elderly Jewish Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), brought into the case when the clues seem to point to a neo-fascist plot Read More

Schwarz und Weiss wie Tage und Naechte

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Gila Von Weitershausen, Rene Deltgen, Ljuba Tadic, Joachim Wichmann

Synopsis: Originally made for German television, this film chronicles obsessions of a man who will do almost anything to avoid losing a chess game. Thomas Rosenmund (Bruno Ganz) learns how to play chess by watching his father in a friendly game with a neighbor. His competitiveness is keyed to such a high Read More

Messer im Kopf

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Angela Winkler, Hans-Christian Blech, Heinz Honig, Hans Brenner

Synopsis: Despite the film's English title Knife in the Head, Hoffman (Bruno Ganz), a scientist, is shot in the head by the police while he is trying to pick up his wife from a political rally. Upon awakening, Hoffman finds that he has lost all memory of who he is and why the police were after him. At Read More

The American Friend

Actors: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer, Gérard Blain, Nicholas Ray

Synopsis: Wim Wenders' mines Dennis Hopper's real-life experience as a painter and collector in this existential take on the American gangster film based on a Patricia Highsmith novel featuring the notoriously sociopathic Tom Ripley. Hopper stars as the eponymous American, currently a middleman selling the Read More

Die Linkshändige Frau

Actors: Edith Clever, Markus Muhleisen, Bruno Ganz, Michel Lonsdale, Angela Winkler, Gérard Depardieu

Synopsis: Mourning for a lost relationship can be every bit as devastating as mourning for someone who has died. In this drama based on the director's own novel, a couple with an unhappy marriage agree to a trial separation. They try to patch things up, and at the same time other relationships begin to Read More

Lumière

Actors: Francine Racette, Jeanne Moreau, Lucia Bosé, Caroline Cartier, Marie Henriau

Synopsis: Actress Jeanne Moreau made her directorial debut with this tale about a gathering of actresses who, over the course of an all-night conversation, come to reassess their careers and romantic lives. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

The Marquise of O

Actors: Edith Clever, Bruno Ganz, Edda Seippel, Otto Sander

Synopsis: The costume drama Die Marquise von O is French director Eric Rohmer's first feature-length theatrical release after a four-year break from filmmaking. Based on a short story by Henrich von Kleist, the dialogue is spoken in the original German language and the story is set in Italy during the Read More

Die Wildente

Actors: Jean Seberg, Peter Kern, Bruno Ganz, Anne Bennent, Martin Floerchinger

Synopsis: This tragic drama is adapted from a popular Ibsen play about the relationship between a mother, her egomaniacal husband, and their daughter. The father never approves of anything the daughter does. Desperate to win his love, she gives up her own life so a wild duck may fly free. ~ Sandra Brennan Read More

Rece do Góry

Actors: Bogumil Kobiela, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Joanna Szczerbic, Jerzy Skolimowski

Synopsis: Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski directed Hands Up in 1967; he also wrote it, handled the art direction, and played a leading role. Skolimowski portrays Andrzej Leszcyzc, one of several doctors attending a medical school reunion in a sealed-up railway carriage. Between drinks, the disenchanted Read More

Black and White as Day and Night

Es Dach Ueberem Chopf

Synopsis: This is not the only European drama to handle the universal topic of how to find affordable housing when you are dirt poor with several mouths to feed, but it is one of the more engaging of its type. Laced throughout with comic nuances, the story starts out with an impoverished couple and their Read More

Chikita

Actors: Bruno Ganz

Synopsis: This funny, satirical comedy stars German actress Hanne Wieder as Chikita, a Swiss woman who owns a certain type of establishment in a South American country where men can come to relax and whatever. When she goes back to her hometown in Switzerland, her past catches up with her, but not in a Read More