Rank Fassbinder's Films
I’ve only seen two The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant and Veronika Voss though Ali… has been on my queue forever and ever. I loved the former and hated the latter. I also heard The American Soldier is quite interesting as a take on noir.
I’m hardly an experiment… only really familiar with his later films (only his last three years of making films). I think the earliest I’ve seen is Whity, which is actually my least favourite thus far, but he’s yet to disappoint…
Berlin Alexanderplatz
Lola
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
The Third Generation
Veronika Voss
Querelle
Whity
I should see The Merchant of Four Seasons, Why Does Herr H Run Amok?, and Fox and His Friends soon. So hopefully my opinion will be a little easier to take seriously…
Incredibly interesting career… and an astoundingly fast filmmaker. I’ve heard the longest time he spent on production for a film was 3 weeks on the set of the 15h 40m Berlin Alexanderplatz.
01 I Only Want You to Love Me
02 The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
03 Martha
04 Fear of Fear
05 The Marriage of Maria Braun
06 Beware of a Holy Whore
07 The Merchant of Four Seasons
08 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
09 The Stationmaster’s Wife
10 Whity
My favorite Fassbinder is The Merchant of Four Seasons. As an alcoholic, watching Hans Hirschmuller drink himself to death is like porn to me.
One of my fave directors. I’d watch anything by him. He’s never boring to me.
My top three, in alphabetical order, are:
Ali: Fear Eats The Soul
Fear of Fear
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
Great director! I need to fix the fact that I’ve only seen 11of his films.
Lol! He was THE prolific filmmaker. I’m sure the cocaine didn’t hurt his productivity… except well, when it helped end his life WAY too early…
I’ll leave out his arguably greatest accomplishment, the TV-series “Berlin Alexanderplatz”. As for his feature films, my current Top 10 would be:
1. The Marriage of Maria Braun
2. Effi Briest
3. Fox and His Friends
4. The Longing of Veronika Voss
5. In a Year With 13 Moons
6. Fear Eats the Soul
7. Chinese Roulette
8. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
9. The Third Generation
10. Mother Krause’s Journey to Heaven
My favorites: “Chinese Roulette,” “Third Generation,” "Fox and His Friends, “The Merchant of Four Seasons,”. “Herr R,” and “The Marriage of Maria Braun.”
One of my favorite Fassbinder actresses is Irm Hermann, especially when I say her name repeatedly in an increasingly loud and frantic fashion:
Has nobody seen The American Soldier? I
My first Fassbinder was a blind buy … Berlin Alexanderplatz I watched it in 2 sittings and have been in love with the man since … I haven’t seen too many … but he has one of those eyes that really strikes a chord with me … and what atmosphere he creates!
I need to see more, more, more
1- Ali
2- Fox And His Friends
3- I Only Want You to Love Me
4- Chinese Roulette
5- The American Soldier
6- Querelle
7- Despair
8- Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven
Oh I love a list!! Here are my top twenty of his. I tried a top ten but there were so many great films and television works it didn’t do justice.
1. Beware of A Holy Whore
2. Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant
3. Jail Bait
4. Berlin Alexanderplatz
5. Frauen Im New York
6. World On A Wire
7. Satan’s Brew
8. In A Year of Thirteen Moons
9. Fox and His Friends
10. Effi Briest
11. Chinese Roulette
12. Veronika Voss
13. Gods of the Plague
14. Love Is Colder Than Death
15. The Third Generation
16. Whity
17. Why Does Herr H Run Amok
18. Martha
19. Nora Helmer
20. Katzelmacher
Of those that I have seen:
Ali
The American Soldier (YES!)
Marraige of Maria Braun
Veronika Voss
Lola
…..
Year of Thirteen Moons
Going to watch World on a Wire Next.
All of his films are so good at involving my brain. Its like cereal for the head. I love cereal though. Sometimes I eat it for lunch. Sardonic cereal? Anyhow I love Fassbinder. Has anyone seen Despair? Sounds enticing but it’s reputation seems to be a bit hard to gauge.
I have only seen about half of his filmography, but here is my top ten:
1. Fox and his Friends
2. Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant
3. Berlin Alexanderplatz
4. Despair
5. Lola
6. In A Year of 13 Moons
7. I Only Want You to Love Me
8. Querelle
9. The Merchant of Four Seasons
10. Chinese Roulette
Check out Lola next, then Fox and Friends.
From ‘’The Anarchy of the Imagination’’, as of 1981 Fassbinder making a top 10 of his own films:
1. Beware of a Holy Whore
2. In a Year with 13 Moons
3. Despair
4. The Third Generation
5. Gods of the Plague
6. Martha
7. Effi Briest
8. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
9. The Marriage of Maria Braun
10. The Merchant of Four Seasons
Fassbinder making a top 10 of his favorite films:
1. The Damned (dir. Luchino Visconti)
2. The Naked and the Dead (dir. Raoul Walsh) – missing on MUBI?
3. Lola Montes (dir. Max Ophuls)
4. Flamingo Road (dir. Michael Curtiz)
5. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini)
6. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (dir. Howard Hawks)
7. Dishonored (dir. Josef von Sternberg)
8. The Night of the Hunter (dir. Charles Laughton)
9. Johnny Guitar (dir. Nicholas Ray)
10. The Red Snowball Tree (dir. Vasili Shukshin)
Veronika Voss is my favorite; Berlin Alexanderplatz is unforgettable and unique. With Fassbinder related projects, Shatten der Engel is eerily unsettling and captivating, and the Sirk directed Bourbon Street Blues is the one I want most to see.
(Voss is also notable for me in that it was the first time I saw Annemarie Düringer, on whom I instantly developed a giant dreamy crush. She’s darkly malignant as Frau Doktor Katz, and wonderfully versatile in so many earlier films as well, going back to the Fifties. Pic below from VV.)
ºº
1. Fear of Fear
2. Only Want You to Love Me
3. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
4. Beware of a Holy Whore
5. Martha
6. The Marriage of Maria Braun
7 The Merchant of Four Seasons
8 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
9 Querelle
10 Whity
What I’ve seen, ranked!
1. Veronika Voss
2. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
3. The Marriage of Maria Braun
4. Fox and His Friends
5. Lola
6. The Merchant of Four Seasons
7. Chinese Roulette
I tend to recommend Ali as an introduction. It is Fassbinder at his technical and emotive best, with none of the excess that can easily distract a first-time viewer.
Fox and His Friends is, on the surface, equally palatable and conventional while retaining Fassbinder’s signature twisted sense of melancholy, ironic tragedy and reflexivity.
Marriage of Maria Braun is in some ways a magnum opus and by far his most popular film commercially. Haven’t yet seen Berlin Alexanderplatz (shamefully).
Love is Colder Than Death plays like a cool, stylish response to the Nouvelle Vague. Cheeky and experimental.
In a Year of 13 Moons is my personal favorite but I would never recommend it to anyone nor do I know when I would be able to have the nerve to watch it again. That movie absolutely wrecked me for weeks.
Merchant of Four Seasons, Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Stationmaster’s Wife, Beware of a Holy Whore… all flawlessly constructed and moving films. Moments of genius that rival his best works.
Kate
I’m eager to check out more of his work after watching Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and a few snippets from In a Year of Thirteen Moons. But I’m also intimidated by his output and clueless about where to begin. There’s another thread asking for a good Fassbinder starting point but since nobody in that thread seems to agree, I’d be more interested to hear what people’s favorite Fassbinder films are (not necessarily his most accessible).