Maximilian Schell Filmography

House of the Sleeping Beauties

Actors: Vadim Glowna, Angela Winkler, Maximilian Schell, Birol Ünel, Mona Glass

Synopsis: Director Vadim Glowna explores such complicated issues as loneliness, guilt, remembrance, mourning, sex, death, and dying in this adaptation of Yasunari Kawabata's novel concerning a most unusual bordello catering to a most unlikely clientele. Edmond is a lonely man in his late sixties. On the Read More

Brando

Actors: Ed Begley, Jr., Janet Aemisegger, Ellen Adler, Richard Bailey, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, James Caan, Jane Fonda

Synopsis: As originally screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, at the Cannes Film Festival, and on Turner Classic Movies, the mammoth, epic-length documentary Brando chronicles in encyclopedic detail (and with a consistently reverent overtone) the life and career of the man widely regarded as the most Read More

My Sister Maria

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Maria Schell, Maximilian Schell

Synopsis: Eighteen years after his acclaimed 1984 documentary on Marlene Dietrich, actor/director Maximilian Schell has created another moving portrait of a German-speaking actress, this time his own sister. Meine Schwester Maria documents the rapid rise and decline of Maria Schell, the briefly beloved star Read More

Coast to Coast

Actors: Richard Dreyfuss, Judy Davis

Synopsis: Paul Mazursky's Coast to Coast features a couple whose marriage is on the rocks. Barnaby (Richard Dreyfuss) and Maxine (Judy Davis) are attempting to salvage what might be left of their broken marriage by taking a road trip together. As they stop at various places and interact with a variety of Read More

Festival In Cannes

Actors: Jenny Gabrielle, Greta Scacchi, Kim Kolarich, Rachel Bailit, Zack Norman

Synopsis: The romance, intrigue, and industry politics of the world's biggest film festival -- which is also the world's biggest film marketplace -- provides the backdrop for this typically understated comedy-drama from director Henry Jaglom. Alice Palmer (Greta Scacchi) is a well-known American actress who Read More

The Song of the Lark

Actors: Alison Elliott, Maximilian Schell, Tony Goldwyn, Arliss Howard

Synopsis: Acclaimed author Willa Cather offers a moving tale of an artist's self-discovery in a semi-autobiographical tale concerning a young woman from rural Colorado who moves to the big city to seek her fortune as a world-famous opera star. Originally aired as part of PBS' popular Masterpiece Theatre Read More

Fisimatenten

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Edgar Selge, Tonio Arango, Alexandra Maria Lara, Neza Selbuz

Synopsis: An artist finds that leaving the creative life behind is more complicated than he expected in this comedy. Edward Schreiner (Tonio Arango) is a painter whose unusual ideas about art have prevented him from winning an audience for his work. Edward insists on destroying all of his work, convinced Read More

Joan of Arc

Actors: Leelee Sobieski, Jacqueline Bisset, Powers Boothe, Neil Patrick Harris, Maury Chaykin

Synopsis: A literal interpretation of the oft-produced biography of 15th century historical heroine Joan d'Arc, this four-hour television miniseries version of Joan's story is lavishly produced. In a tiny village during the Hundred Years' War, teenager Joan d'Arc (Leelee Sobieski) has been raised by her Read More

Deep Impact

Actors: Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Morgan Freeman, Leelee Sobieski

Synopsis: Mimi Leder (The Peacemaker) directed this science-fiction disaster drama about the possible extinction of human life after a comet is discovered headed toward Earth with the collision only one year away. Ambitious MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni) stumbles onto the story, prompting a White Read More

Vampires

Actors: James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Tim Guinee, Maximilian Schell

Synopsis: John Carpenter directed this horror-western, adapted from the novel Vampire$ by John Steakley, illuminating the pivotal figure of fearless vampire killer Jack Crow (James Woods), who lost his parents to the creatures. In a remote New Mexico location, Crow and his team, protected with chain-mail Read More

Left Luggage

Actors: Laura Fraser, Isabella Rossellini, Maximilian Schell, Jeroen Krabbé, Marianne Sägebrecht

Synopsis: Actor Jeroen Krabbe made his directorial debut with this Dutch-Belgian-U.S. drama examining anti-Semitic attitudes in 1972 Antwerp. Free-spirited 20-year-old student Chaja (Laura Fraser) has a long-haired revolutionary lover and sometimes visits her parents (Maximilian Schell, Marianne Read More

Telling Lies In America

Actors: Kevin Bacon, Brad Renfro, Maximilian Schell, Calista Flockhart, Paul Dooley

Synopsis: Karchy Jonas (Brad Renfro) was born in Hungary and immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1960s where he felt adrift in a strange sea of American culture. Jonas tries to fit in at the Catholic high school he attends but finds himself a laughing stock. At home, his stern father (Maximilian Read More

The Eighteenth Angel

Actors: Wendy Crewson, Christopher McDonald, Stanley Tucci, Maximilian Schell, Rachael Leigh Cook

Synopsis: This ominous apocalypse thriller sports a fairly ambitious but ultimately confusing plot involving a prophecy which proclaims that the return of Satan will be precipitated by the arrival of eighteen physically-perfect angelic beings. In order to fulfill the prophecy, a secret sect of Etruscan Read More

The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years

Actors: Richard Chamberlain, Amanda Donohoe, Maximilian Schell, Zach English

Synopsis: This follow-up to the wildly popular miniseries The Thorn Birds (based on the best-selling novel by Colleen McCullough) tells the tale of a period during World War II that was not covered in the original story. In 1943, Father Ralph de Bricassart (Richard Chamberlain) is a Catholic priest who Read More

Abraham

Actors: Richard Harris

Synopsis: This entry into TNT's lavish and acclaimed Bible Series follows the tale of humble shepherd Abraham (Richard Harris) as he leads his flock to the Promised Land despite great danger to both himself and the followers of Jesus Christ. When the voice of God himself tells Abraham that he must lead his Read More

Little Odessa

Actors: Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, Moira Kelly, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell

Synopsis: A somber portrait of organized crime and family trauma, Little Odessa centers on the trouble caused when hit man Joshua Shapira (Tim Roth) returns to his old neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. A hired killer for the Russian Mafia, Joshua is given an assignment in his hometown, where he Read More

Justiz

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Thomas Heinze, Anna Thalbach, Norbert Schwientek, Mathias Gnädinger

Synopsis: Quite a few years ago, Isaak Kohler (Maximillian Schell) cooly walked up to a man everyone assumed was his friend and shot him dead. This took place in front of dozens of witnesses in a busy restaurant, and there was no question about his guilt. What he never revealed was his motive. He has been Read More

A Far Off Place

Actors: Reese Witherspoon, Jack Thompson, Sarel Bok, Maximilian Schell

Synopsis: The directorial debut of Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Mikael Salomon (The Abyss), A Far Off Place is based on a pair of books by novelist Laurens Van der Post. Reese Witherspoon stars as Nonnie Parker, a young girl living on an African game preserve with her parents. Ethan Embry is Read More

Candles in the Dark

Labyrinth

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Christopher Chaplin, Vlastimil Brodský

Synopsis: In order to properly convey the mood and qualities of the life of Franz Kafka in a movie he is making, Maximillian Schell (as himself) has taken an apartment in Prague overlooking a cemetery and has begun an intensive research program into Jewish history in Eastern Europe. This is especially Read More

Stalin

Actors: Robert Duvall, Julia Ormond, Jeroen Krabbé, Joan Plowright, Maximilian Schell

Synopsis: The made-for-cable film Stalin relates the story of the ruthless Soviet dictator and his tyrannical rule. Robert Duvall gives an excellent performance as the dictator and the photography is beautiful, as are the sets, since much of the movie was shot on location in Russia. The screenplay also does Read More

Miss Rose White

Actors: Maureen Stapleton, Kyra Sedgwick, Maximilian Schell, Amanda Plummer, Penny Fuller

Synopsis: In this Hallmark Hall of Fame TV film set in the post-war era, Kyra Sedgwick is the title character, a New Yorker who has long kept her Jewish heritage under wraps. Born in Poland but sent to the U.S. before the Holocaust, the young career woman receives word that the older sister she presumed was Read More

Young Catherine

Actors: Julia Ormond

Synopsis: The made-for-cable costume drama Young Catherine is the story of Catherine the Great (Julia Ormond). As the film begins, Catherine is a teen-aged German girl who marries into the Russian royal family of the 18th century; by the end of the long production, she has ascended to the throne of Russia. Read More

The Freshman

Actors: Matthew Broderick, Marlon Brando, Bruno Kirby, Penelope Ann Miller, Frank Whaley, Paul Benedict

Synopsis: In this farcical comedy, Matthew Broderick plays Clark Kellogg, an aspiring director who arrives in New York City to attend film school. However, moments after he arrives in the city, he's robbed by Victor Ray (Bruno Kirby), leaving him no money for the $700 in books required by his instructor Read More

Der Rosengarten

Actors: Liv Ullmann, Maximilian Schell, Peter Fonda, Jan Niklas, Katarina Lena Muller

Synopsis: The US/German co-production The Rose Garden is based on an actual court case. Cast against type, Maximillian Schell plays a shabby old man who, without warning, attacks well-to-do Kurt Hubner at the Frankfurt airport. Hubner presses charges, and it looks like an open-and-shut case. But Read More

Marlene

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The fifth directorial effort of German film star Maximillian Schell, Marlene is an unorthodox documentary of the legendary Marlene Dietrich. After years of resisting Schell's entreaties, Dietrich finally agreed to participate in this project-but refused to appear on camera. Thus, a tape recording Read More

Peter the Great

Synopsis: A TV mini-series, this is a visually pleasant movie about the life of Russia's colorful ruler, from childhood on. Big name cast is wasted on small roles, however. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Morgen In Alabama

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Lena Stolze, Robert Aldini, Wolfgang Kieling, Kathrin Ackermann

Synopsis: Man under Suspicion begins at a German political assembly reduced to chaos by neo-fascist activists. Someone has to defend the principal instigator in court, and that responsibility falls on the shoulders of Maximillian Schell. Probing into his client's background, Schell uncovers some Read More

The Assisi Underground

Actors: Ben Cross, James Mason, Irene Papas, Maximilian Schell, Karlheinz Hackl

Synopsis: Set during World War II, The Assisi Underground deals with the efforts made by a handful of hardy European souls to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. Ben Cross plays a dynamic young Catholic priest who puts his own life on the line to save thousands of refugees from Nazi-occupied Italy. While the Read More

The Phantom of the Opera

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Jane Seymour, Michael York

Synopsis: This 1983 TV adaptation of Gaston Leroux's 1908 novel Phantom of the Opera was the fourth film version of the vintage chiller--and the one with perhaps the highest rate of digression from the original novel. This version is set in Budapest (where it was filmed) rather than Paris, obliging scripter Sherman Yellen Read More

The Chosen

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Rod Steiger, Robby Benson, Barry Miller, Hildy Brooks

Synopsis: The overemphatic acting of Robby Benson was something of an endurance test to certain critics of the 1980s, but even these carpers were impressed by Benson's outstanding performance in The Chosen. Set in the Brooklyn of the 1940s, the film elucidates the friendship between two young Jews of Read More

The Diary of Anne Frank

Actors: Melissa Gilbert, Maximilian Schell, Joan Plowright, Doris Roberts, James Coco

Synopsis: The diary of teenaged Holocaust victim Anne Frank was first published in book form in 1952, then adapted into a Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett two years later. Director George Stevens converted The Diary of Anne Frank into a film in 1959, an effort which Read More

Amo Non Amo

Actors: Jacqueline Bisset, Maximilian Schell, Terence Stamp, Monica Guerritore

Synopsis: In a resort town near Rome, Louise (Jacqueline Bisset) attempts to cope with her divorce, a new career, and John (Maximilian Schell), a boyfriend who is not much of an improvement on the husband she left behind. She has a demanding son, a demanding career, a demanding lover, and makes some Read More

Avalanche Express

Actors: Robert Shaw, Lee Marvin, Linda Evans, Maximilian Schell, Michael Connors

Synopsis: Lee Marvin plays a CIA agent who lures a Soviet biological warfare expert aboard a European train in the hopes of murdering the expert, thus eliminating a world threat. Things go awry when the train is caught in an avalanche. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Black Hole

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux

Synopsis: An ambitious sci-fier from the Disney folks, The Black Hole takes place in the future. A quintet of space travelers stumble across a "black hole." Not wishing to be sucked into the void, the crew prepares to flee, but stops long enough to investigate a mysterious space vessel near the entrance of Read More

Geschichten Aus Dem Wiener Wald

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Birgit Doll, Helmut Qualtinger, Jane Tilden, Adrienne Gessner

Synopsis: Marianne (Birgit Doll) is driven from her father's home when she is impregnated by Alfred (Hanno Poeschi), a vagabond loafer who abandons her after he has his fun. She goes to Vienna and takes a job in a strip club to provide for herself and her baby. Her father discovers his daughter's tawdry Read More

Players

Actors: Ali MacGraw, Dean Paul Martin, Maximilian Schell, Pancho Gonzales, Steve Guttenberg

Synopsis: A young man and an older woman wonder if tennis is the only place where love means nothing in this romantic drama. Twenty-something Chris (Dean Paul Martin) is a rising star on the professional tennis circuit. Nicole (Ali MacGraw) is an artist in her early 40s who's involved with a wealthy man. Read More

Julia

Actors: Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards, Jr., Maximilian Schell, Hal Holbrook

Synopsis: The film traces the lifelong relationship between playwright Lillian Hellman and Julia, a wealthy girl who turns her back on her upbringing to follow her ideals. In the 1930s, while the adult Hellman (Jane Fonda) struggles to establish herself as a playwright with the help of her lover, Dashiell Hammett Read More

A Bridge Too Far

Actors: Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox

Synopsis: It's late 1944, and the Allied armies are confident they'll win the World War II and be home in time for Christmas. What's needed, says British general Bernard Law Montgomery, is a knockout punch, a bold strike through Holland, where German troops are spread thin, that will put the Allies into Read More

St. Ives

Actors: Charles Bronson, John Houseman, Jacqueline Bisset, Maximilian Schell, Harry Guardino

Synopsis: Ex-crime reporter turned novelist Raymond St. Ives (Charles Bronson) is drawn back into the world of his former profession by wealthy Abner Procane (John Houseman). St. Ives is hired to locate a stolen set of ledgers that, if made public, could trigger an all-out mob war. Amazingly, St. Ives fails Read More

Cross of Iron

Actors: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, David Warner, Klaus Löwitsch

Synopsis: A quote from Bertolt Brecht ends this bitter and angry war film by Sam Peckinpah: "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again." Peckinpah's intense and belligerently non-commercial work, (based on the Read More

Ansichten Eines Clowns

Crew: Producer

Actors: Helmut Griem, Hanna Schygulla, Eva-Maria Meineke, Gustav Rudolf Sellner, Hans-Christian Blech

Synopsis: Based on the best-selling novel by Nobel-laureate Heinrich Böll, this drama is a passionate indictment of Catholicism. Hans Schnier (Helmut Griem) has earned his living as a clown, though he is in fact a very covert sort of social critic. After enduring a difficult childhood in Bonn during the Read More

The Man in the Glass Booth

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Lois Nettleton, Luther Adler, Lawrence Pressman, Henry Brown

Synopsis: Actor/writer Robert Shaw's powerhouse stage play The Man in the Glass Booth was transferred to the screen as part of the American Film Theatre series. Maximilian Schell plays Arthur Goldman, a Jewish businessmen living in Manhattan in 1965. A group of Israeli underground agents barge into Read More

Der Richter und sein Henker

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Jon Voight, Jacqueline Bisset, Martin Ritt, Robert Shaw, Helmut Qualtinger

Synopsis: Actor Maximillian Schell functioned as coproducer and director of End of the Game. Conversely, director Martin Ritt is the leading actor in this existentialist crime story. Ritt plays Hans Barlach, a Swiss police inspector who has spent 30 years trying to pin the murder of the woman he loved on Read More

Atentat u Sarajevu

Actors: Christopher Plummer, Florinda Bolkan, Maximilian Schell, Irfan Mensur, Rados Bajic

Synopsis: When the only surviving heir to the Emperor of Austro-Hungary, Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand (Christopher Plummer) was killed by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, on June 28th, 1914, his death set in motion a chain of events which resulted in the First World War. This movie chronicles Read More

The Odessa File

Actors: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell, Maria Schell, Mary Tamm, Derek Jacobi

Synopsis: The Odessa File is set in Hamburg in the winter of 1963. Jon Voight plays Peter Miller, a German reporter who is investigating the whereabouts of missing Nazi war criminals. After reading the diary of a Holocaust survivor who has recently committed suicide, Miller goes on the trail of in-hiding SS Read More

Der Fussgänger

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Ruth Hausmeister, Gustav Rudolf Sellner

Synopsis: The Pedestrian (Der Fussganger) was the second filmed directorial effort of German actor Maximillian Schell. Billed third under Gustav Rudolf Sellner and Ruth Hausmeister, Schell plays Andreas Giese, a Krupp-like industrialist whose past suddenly returns to haunt him. A newspaper article reveals Read More

Paulina 1880

Actors: Eliana de Santis, Olga Karlatos, Maximilian Schell, Sami Frey

Synopsis: This French film is a tragic tale of thwarted love, set among the upper classes in turn-of-the-century Italy. As the only daughter in a large household, surrounded by watchful relatives, Paulina (Olga Karlatos) can only dream of romance. Between her romantic dreams and her deep religious devotion Read More

Pope Joan

Actors: John Arineri, Neville Aurelius, Lorain Bertorelli, Ion Grafini, Sheelah Wilcocks, Liv Ullmann, Trevor Howard, Lesley-Anne Down, Franco Nero, Olivia de Havilland

Synopsis: Liv Ullman portrays a female pope -- based on a long-held rumor that the papacy was held by a woman between the reigns of Leo IV and Benedict III -- in this rambling saga directed by Michael Anderson. The British version of the film has been cut, not only removing twenty-one minutes of the film Read More

Trotta

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Andras Balint

Synopsis: The subject of this bleak German historical film is the deterioration of the life of a man who failed to adapt to the changes in Austria after the World War I. Trotta (Andras Balint) is a minor nobleman, who, along with his peers, cheers the advent of the war. The war causes many financial Read More

Erste Liebe

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: John Moulder-Brown, Dominique Sanda, Maximilian Schell, Valentina Cortese, Marius Goring

Synopsis: Producer/director Maximillian Schell adapted the screenplay of First Love from a story by Ivan Turgenev. John Moulder Brown plays Alexander, a 16-year-old boy who falls in love with 21-year-old Sinaida (Dominique Sanda). Despite a great deal of emotional turmoil, exacerbated by the fact Read More

Simon Bolivar

Synopsis: Simon Bolivar is the true-life story of the leader of the 1817 Venezuelan revolution. Maximilian Schell stars as the title character. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Bolivar

Synopsis: The life of the great Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar is given class-A treatment in this international produced historical epic. The film is set between 1817 and 1823, a time when Venezuelan rebels were waging a war of independence against the Spanish colonial government. Bolivar works Read More

Krakatoa, East of Java

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Diane Baker, Brian Keith, Barbara Werle, John Leyton

Synopsis: Volcano is the reissue title of the muddled disaster flick Krakatoa: East of Java. The name change was reportedly put into effect after thousands of filmgoers noted publicly that Krakatoa is west of Java. As might be expected, the story takes place in 1883, when the long-dormant volcano at Read More

Das Schloss

Crew: Producer

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Cordula Trantow, Trudik Daniel, Helmut Qualtinger, Franz Misar

Synopsis: The Castle (Das Schloss) is as good an adaptation of the inscrutable Franz Kafka as any. Maximillian Schell plays Kafka's ubiquitous protagonist "K", a surveyor who is hired by the residents of a remote castle. Once he arrives within the domain of the castle's owners, K finds there is no work for Read More

The Desperate Ones

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Raf Vallone, Irene Papas, Theodore Bikel, Maria Perschy

Synopsis: In this drama, two Polish brothers escape from a Russian labor camp and try to join the exiled Polish Army in Afghanistan. While awaiting the man who will sneak them over the border, they rent a room. There, one of them falls in love with the landlord's wife, and the other for a local waitress. Read More

Heidi

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Jean Simmons

Synopsis: Made-for-television adaptation of Johanna Spyri's classic children's tale about an orphaned girl who goes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide Read More

The Deadly Affair

Actors: James Mason, Simone Signoret,