Fritz LangFilmography

Contempt

Actors: Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang, Giorgia Moll

Synopsis: Contempt is the story of the end of a marriage. Camille (Brigitte Bardot) falls out of love with her husband Paul (Michel Piccoli) while he is rewriting the screenplay Odyssey by American producer Jeremiah Prokosch (Jack Palance). Just as the director of Prokosch's film, Fritz Lang, says that The Read More

The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Gert Fröbe

Synopsis: Back in Germany for the first time since 1933, director Fritz Lang returned to the screen character that brought him enormous success in his pre-Hollywood years. The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is not so much a sequel as an extension of Lang's early Dr. Mabuse (1922) and Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Read More

The Indian Tomb

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Debra Paget, Paul Hubschmid, Paul Christian, Walter Reyer, Claus Holm, Sabine Bethmann

Synopsis: This unrealistic, routine drama is the second half of a story that began with Der Tiger von Eschnapur. This sequel was later cut slightly, combined with the first story then released in English as Journey to the Lost City. Both halves were written by Thea von Harbou and the 1959 films are both Read More

Der Tiger von Eschnapur

Crew: Director

Actors: Debra Paget, Paul Hubschmid, Claus Holm, Sabine Bethmann

Synopsis: This is the third and least successful version of screenwriter Thea von Harbou's original story, Das Indische Grabmal, written around 1919. Her ex-husband, Fritz Lang directs this routine, outdated drama about an exotic dancer named Seetha (Debra Paget) who is hired by Chandra (Walther Reyer), an Read More

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Crew: Director

Actors: Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer, Barbara Nichols, Philip Bourneuf, Shepperd Strudwick

Synopsis: Crusading publisher Austin Spenser (Sidney Blackmer) wants to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence. Spencer talks his prospective son-in-law Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews) into participating in a hoax, the better to expose the alleged ineptitude of conviction-happy DA (Philip Bourneuf Read More

While the City Sleeps

Crew: Director

Actors: Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, Rhonda Fleming, Sally Forrest, George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price

Synopsis: When media mogul Amos Kyne (Robert Warwick) dies, his business, which includes a major newspaper, a television station, and a wire news service, is turned over to his sole heir, his foppish, ne'er do well son (Vincent Price). The younger Kyne has no knowledge of how to run the company his father Read More

Moonfleet

Crew: Director

Actors: Stewart Granger, George Sanders, Joan Greenwood, Viveca Lindfors, Jon Whiteley

Synopsis: Director Fritz Lang was attracted to the British period piece Moonfleet because of the relatively unregenerate nature of its greedy "hero" Stewart Granger. Young Jon Whitely, who is in the legal custody of Granger, learns that he is to inherit a valuable diamond. Hoping to get his own hands on the Read More

Human Desire

Crew: Director

Actors: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, Edgar Buchanan, Kathleen Case

Synopsis: Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) needs the intervention of his beautiful wife Vicki (Gloria Grahame) to keep his job, so Vicki meets with Carl's boss Owens (Grandon Rhodes), and Carl's job is secure. Insanely jealous, Carl finds Vicki with Owens on board a train and kills Owens. Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford Read More

The Blue Gardenia

Crew: Director

Actors: Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern, Raymond Burr, Jeff Donnell

Synopsis: After learning that her boyfriend, a GI in Korea, has found someone else, Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) impulsively agrees to meet womanizer Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr) for dinner. Norah allows herself to get drunk and accept Prebble's invitation to his apartment. When he tries to force himself on Read More

The Big Heat

Crew: Director

Actors: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin

Synopsis: Fritz Lang directed this gritty drama of gangland murder and police corruption, which was considered quite violent in its day. Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is a scrupulously honest police detective who learns that one of his fellow officers has committed suicide. Bannion is told by the officer's Read More

Rancho Notorious

Crew: Director

Actors: Arthur Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich, Mel Ferrer, Lloyd Gough, Gloria Henry, William Frawley

Synopsis: The original title for Rancho Notorious was Chuck-a-Luck, which is also the title of the soundtrack ballad (written by Ken Darby) which unifies the plotline, à la High Noon. Frontiersman Vern Haskell (Arthur Kennedy) wanders throughout the West in search of the man who robbed and murdered his Read More

Clash by Night

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: The opening credits appearing over a turbulent ocean serve as a foreshadowing of things to come in this standard-issue love triangle that shifts into high drama thanks to taut direction by Fritz Lang and a sizzling performance by Barbara Stanwyck. Returning to live with her brother, Joe (Keith Read More

The House by the River

Crew: Director

Actors: Louis Hayward, Lee Bowman, Jane Wyatt, Dorothy Patrick, Ann Shoemaker

Synopsis: Fritz Lang was the guiding hand of this laudable Republic Studios melodrama. Louis Hayward stars as a wealthy wastrel who tries to seduce the family maid. She resists, and he kills her. Long jealous of his brother Lee Bowman, Hayward does his best to pin the blame for the murder on his sibling. Read More

An American Guerrilla in the Philippines

Crew: Director

Actors: Tyrone Power, Micheline Presle, Tom Ewell, Tommy Cook, Jack Elam

Synopsis: The year is 1942. Ensign Chuck Palmer (Tyrone Power) is stranded in the Japanese-occupied Philippines after his ship is torpedoed. Linking up with several other American refugees, Palmer helps the Filipinos organize a resistance movement against the enemy. They even manage to construct a few Read More

Secret Beyond the Door

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Joan Bennett, Michael Redgrave, Anne Revere, Barbara O'Neil, Natalie Schafer

Synopsis: Even star Joan Bennett and director Fritz Lang regarded The Secret Beyond the Door as the weakest of their collaborative efforts. Bennett plays spoiled socialite Celia, who falls recklessly in love with the handsome but emotionally complex Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave, in his first American Read More

Cloak and Dagger

Crew: Director

Actors: Gary Cooper, Lilli Palmer, Robert Alda, Vladimir Sokoloff, J. Edward Bromberg, Marjorie Hoshelle

Synopsis: Inspired by actual events, Cloak and Dagger was first major "atomic power" melodrama of the postwar era. Gary Cooper stars as bookish physics professor Alvah Jesper, a character obviously based on A-bomb codeveloper J. Robert Oppenheimer. Pressed into service by the OSS in the last months of WW2 Read More

Scarlet Street

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay, Rosalind Ivan

Synopsis: Masterfully directed by Fritz Lang, Scarlet Street is a bleak film in which an ordinary man succumbs first to vice and then to murder. Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is a lonely man married to a nagging wife. Painting is the only thing that brings him joy. Cross meets Kitty (Joan Bennett) Read More

The Woman in the Window

Crew: Director

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Dan Duryea, Edmund Breon

Synopsis: Directed by Fritz Lang, The Woman in the Window, a sadly tragic film noir, is the story of the doomed love of married psychology-professor Wanley (Edward G. Robinson), who, with murderous results, meets and falls in love with another woman. Wanley first sees the portrait of a beautiful woman Read More

Ministry of Fear

Crew: Director

Actors: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Dan Duryea, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram

Synopsis: An innocent man is drawn into a web of espionage when he unwittingly comes into possession of a crucial piece of microfilm in this shadowy, ominous film noir. Fritz Lang's adaptation of Graham Greene's novel is filled with unusual touches, beginning with the fact that protagonist Stephen Neale (Ray Milland Read More

Hangmen Also Die!

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee, Gene Lockhart, Dennis O'Keefe

Synopsis: Hangmen Also Die is set in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation. Czech loyalist Brian Donlevy assassinates the vicious Gestapo leader Heydrich, then goes into hiding. The wounded patriot is sheltered by history professor Walter Brennan, who is already under surveillance by the Nazis thanks to Read More

Moontide

Crew: Director

Actors: Jean Gabin, Ida Lupino, Thomas Mitchell, Claude Rains, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: Forced to flee Paris during the Occupation, the great French leading man Jean Gabin starred in a brace of Hollywood films, the best of which was the first, 20th Century-Fox's Moontide. Cast to type, Gabin plays Bobo, a brooding itinerant dock-worker who gets mixed up in a drunken brawl. Upon Read More

Western Union

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Young, Randolph Scott, Dean Jagger, Virginia Gilmore, Barton MacLane, John Carradine

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox's Western Union was loosely based on a story by Zane Grey. The basic historical facts behind the connecting of telegraph wires between Omaha and Salt Lake City serve as a backdrop for a fictional story straight out of Manhattan Melodrama. Randolph Scott and Barton MacLane are cast Read More

Man Hunt

Crew: Director

Actors: Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine, Roddy McDowall

Synopsis: A hunter finds himself in a world of danger when he decides to stalk Adolf Hitler in this taut WWII thriller. Capt. Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) is an expert big-game hunter from England. While hunting in Bavaria, he happens upon Hitler's Berchtesgaden estate and spots the Fuhrer; he has his rifle Read More

The Return of Frank James

Crew: Director

Actors: Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Jackie Cooper, John Carradine, Henry Hull

Synopsis: This Technicolor sequel to 1939's Jesse James does without the services of the earlier film's star Tyrone Power, who after all was shot dead by that "dirty little coward" Bob Ford (John Carradine). Repeating his portrayal of western outlaw Frank James, Henry Fonda is promoted to top billing here. Read More

You and Me

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, Robert Cummings, Barton MacLane, Roscoe Karns

Synopsis: This film is one of acclaimed director Fritz Lang's less noted achievements, a mixture of romance, comedy, drama, and satire. It includes three songs by the famed Kurt Weill, including "The Right Guy for Me." George Raft plays Joe Dennis, an ex-convict working in a department store. The store's Read More

You Only Live Once

Crew: Director

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon, William Gargan

Synopsis: Archetypal depression-era stars Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney are felicitously teamed in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once. Fonda plays an ex-convict who can't get a break on the "outside". He marries Sidney, who like her husband is one of life's losers. Framed on a murder rap, Fonda is forced to Read More

Fury

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Sylvia Sidney, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis

Synopsis: Fritz Lang's first American film is a vigorous and perceptive indictment of mob law, starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney. Katherine (Sidney) leaves her boyfriend, Joe Wilson (Tracy), behind in their Midwestern hometown when she takes a job in another city. Joe is a decent, hard-working soul Read More

Liliom

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Madeleine Ozeray, Charles Boyer, Pierre Alcover, Roland Toutain

Synopsis: Liliom, Ferenc Molnar's bittersweet fantasy play, was first filmed in Hollywood in 1930, with Charles Farrell as ne'er-do-well carnival barker Liliom and Rose Hobart as his long-suffering wife Julie. While that version is not available for public viewing, the 1935 French-language version directed Read More

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Otto Wernicke, Gustav Diessl, Wera Liessem

Synopsis: Fritz Lang directed this sequel to his nearly four-hour Dr. Mabuse silent of 1922 (often shown in two parts, Dr. Mabuse: Der Spieler/The Gambler and Dr. Mabuse: King of Crime). The film opens with Detective Hofmeister (Karl Meixner) spying on the activities of a criminal syndicate. Not realizing Read More

M

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Gustaf Gründgens, Friedrich Gnass

Synopsis: Fritz Lang's classic early talkie crime melodrama is set in 1931 Berlin. The police are anxious to capture an elusive child murderer (Peter Lorre), and they begin rounding up every criminal in town. The underworld leaders decide to take the heat off their activities by catching the child killer Read More

Woman in the Moon

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Willy Fritsch, Klaus Pohl, Gerda Maurus, Fritz Rasp

Synopsis: One of the first major films to dwell upon the possibility of space travel, Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond) is, like many of its modern-day counterparts, more successful on a special-effects level than it is in terms of character development. The titular female, played by Gerda Maurus Read More

Spies

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers, Craighall Sherry, Louis Ralph, Willy Fritsch, Lupu Pick

Synopsis: Spies (Spione) was the first independent production of German "thriller" director Fritz Lang. The years-ahead-of-its-time plotline involves Russian espionage activity in London. The mastermind is Haghi (Rudolph Klein-Rogge), a supposedly respectable carnival sideshow entertainer. Heading the good Read More

Metropolis

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Alfred Abel, Gustav Froehlich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Theodor Loos, Heinrich George, Brigitte Helm

Synopsis: The biggest-budgeted movie ever produced at Germany's UFA, Fritz Lang's gargantuan Metropolis consumed resources that would have yielded upwards of 20 conventional features, more than half the studio's entire annual production budget. And if it didn't make a profit at the time -- indeed, it nearly Read More

Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache

Crew: Director

Actors: Margarete Schoen, Rudolf Rittner, Hans Adalbert von Schlettow, Georg August Koch

Synopsis: The second portion of German director Fritz Lang's two-part silent epic Die Nibelungen (part one was 1924's Siegfried), Kriemhild's Revenge opens with mythical heroine Kriemhild (Margarethe Schoen) vowing to avenge the murder of her husband Siegfried. Realizing that her brother, King Gunther (Theodor Loos Read More

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Paul Richter, Margarete Schoen, Hanna Ralph, Bernhard Goetzke, Theodor Loos

Synopsis: This lushly produced UFA production from Fritz Lang was adapted from the Norse sagas, and also from the Wagner operas Siegfried, Gotterdaemmerung, and Lohengrin. There is also a sequel -- Kremhilde's Revenge (Kriemhild's Rache). Siegfried (Paul Richter), son of King Siegmund, masters the art of Read More

Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Aud Egede Nissen, Gertrude Welcker, Alfred Abel, Bernhard Goetzke

Synopsis: Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler is the eight-reel version of Fritz Lang's twenty reeler, two-part silent thriller, Dr. Mabuse. Mabuse (Rudolph Klein-Rogge) a sinister mesmerist/psychiatrist, toys with the weaknesses of the rich and influential. He worms his way into the confidence of wealthy men, plays Read More

Destiny

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen, Bernhard Goetzke

Synopsis: Fritz Lang was a stickler for realism in his American films; not so his German silents, which were fanciful to the point of being fairy tales. Der Müde Tod, Lang's first big critical success, is an allegorical tale of love, fidelity and death. The heroine (Lil Dagover), who in her dreams is Read More

The Indian Tomb

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Erna Morena, Conrad Veidt, Bernhard Goetzke, Lya de Putti, Olaf Fønss

Synopsis: Even though Americans embraced The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, they seemed a bit puzzled by this fanciful German-made melodrama. Three Oxford graduates -- Robert Allen (Paul Richter), Carl Langland (Olaf Fonss) and Indian Prince Ayan (Conrad Veidt) -- pledge to remain devoted to one another. It Read More

Das Wandernde Bild

Crew: Director

Harakiri

Crew: Director

Actors: Lil Dagover, Paul Biensfeldt, Georg John, Meinhart Maur

Synopsis: O-Take-San (Lil Dagover) is a beautiful young woman pursued by an evil Buddhist monk (Georg John) who wants to make her one of his many geishas. She has an affair with the Danish officer Niels Prien (Olaf J. Anderson) who leaves her alone and pregnant. O-Take-San considers ritualistic suicide when Read More

Lilith und Ly

Crew: Screenwriter

Der Herr der Liebe

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Carl de Vogt, Gilda Langer, Erika Unruh, Max Narlinski, Sadja Gezza

Synopsis: Scant information exists about this high-society drama, a tragic love story which is as yet unrecovered. Only the second effort from the legendary director Fritz Lang, the film reunites the leads from his debut film Halbblut, with Carl de Vogt playing Disescu, whose devotion for Yvette (Gilda Read More

Totentanz

Crew: Screenwriter

Pest in Florenz

Crew: Screenwriter

The Spiders

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A film buff's dream, Spiders is comprised of two episodes from an unfinished silent serial from Fritz Lang. Filled with excitement and adventure, it tells the story of a brave explorer who is questing for the fabulous Incan diamond. To get it though, he must keep ahead of the powerful Spider cult Read More

Halbblut

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Hilde Warren und Der Tod

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Mia May, Ernst Matray

Synopsis: Produced and directed by German veteran Joe May and starring his wife, Mia May, this allegorical drama was based on a screenplay by Fritz Lang, the future director's first entry into the burgeoning film industry. May played the title role, an actress who makes the mistake of marrying a murderer (Ernst Matray Read More