

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.
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7.7/10
473 votes
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- Status
- Released
- Budget
- $130K
- Box office
- $186.8K
- Language
- Arabic
- husband wife relationship
- unsociability
- parent child relationship
- germany
- cleaning lady
- foreigner
- german-turkish living together
- munich, germany
- older woman younger man relationship
- new german cinema
- age-gap relationship
Top billed cast

















Behind the camera
Director
Writers
Produced in
Germany
Where to watch
All optionsAvailability for United States. Provided by JustWatch through the TMDB API.
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Release dates
United StatesUS
- PremiereNew York Film Festival5 Oct 1974
- TheatricalNR31 Oct 1974
United KingdomGB
- Theatrical (limited)19 Sept 1974
DenmarkDK
- Theatrical (limited)155 Mar 1974
FinlandFI
- Theatrical (limited)K-185 Mar 1974
FranceFR
- PremiereCannes Film Festival16 May 1974
- TheatricalTP5 Jun 1974
GermanyDE
- Theatrical (limited)125 Mar 1974
- TVZDF25 Jul 1977
GreeceGR
- TheatricalRe-Issue12 Sept 2024
SwedenSE
- TV155 Mar 1974
Frequently asked questions
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was released on 5 March 1974.
Audience reviews
2- C6/10
CRCulver
7/23/2018
The original title of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1974 film "Fear Eats the Soul" is deliberately ungrammatical German: ANGST ESSEN SEELE AUF "Fear Eat Soul". That is due to one of the two protagonists we meet: Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) is a Moroccan immigrant working in Munich. He toils as a car repairman and has learned some very basic German, but he has been hindered from assimilating to German and fully learning the …
- C7/10
CinemaSerf
9/4/2025
Does anyone remember when Channel 4 (in the UK) had their Friday night red triangle zone of late night adult films that would probably have been X-certificate but that were available free-to-air? I think this is probably the only one of those I still recall as it memorably challenges just about every stereotype in the dictionary. The elderly and widowed “Emmi” (Brigitte Mara) meets the handsome and younger “Ali” (El …
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