
Acting
Rudolf Hess
Born 1894-04-25 · Alexandria, Egypt
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position until 1941, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom during World War II. He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace. He was still serving his life sentence at the time of his suicide in 1987. Hess enlisted as an infantryman in the Imperial German Army at the outbreak of World War I. He was wounded several times during the war and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd Class, in 1915. Shortly before the war ended, Hess enrolled to train as an aviator, but he saw no action in that role. He left the armed forces in December 1918 with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve. In 1919, Hess enrolled in the University of Munich, where he studied geopolitics under Karl Haushofer, a proponent of the concept of Lebensraum ("living space"), which became one of the pillars of Nazi ideology. Hess joined the Nazi Party on 1 July 1920 and was at Hitler's side on 8 November 1923 for the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to seize control of the government of Bavaria. While serving a prison sentence for this attempted coup, he assisted Hitler with Mein Kampf, which became a foundation of the political platform of the Nazi Party. After Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party in April. He was elected to the Reichstag in the March elections, was made a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party in June and in December 1933 he became Minister without Portfolio in Hitler's cabinet. He was also appointed in 1938 to the Cabinet Council and in August 1939 to the Council of Ministers for Defence of the Reich. Hitler decreed on the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939 that Hermann Göring was his official successor, and named Hess as next in line. In addition to appearing on Hitler's behalf at speaking engagements and rallies, Hess signed into law much of the government's legislation, including the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which stripped the Jews of Germany of their rights in the lead-up to the Holocaust. On 10 May 1941, Hess made a solo flight to Scotland, where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton, whom he believed to be a prominent opponent of the British government's war policy. The British authorities arrested Hess immediately on his arrival and held him in custody until the end of the war, when he was returned to Germany to stand trial at the 1946 Nuremberg trials of major war criminals. During much of his trial, Hess claimed to be suffering from amnesia, but he later admitted to the court that this had been a ruse. The court convicted him of crimes against peace and of conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes. He served a life sentence in Spandau Prison; the Soviet Union blocked repeated attempts by family members and prominent politicians to win his early release. While still in custody as the only prisoner in Spandau, he hanged himself in 1987 at the age of 93. After his death, the prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.
Acting credits
10.0Documents the major trial of the Nazi war criminals and the violent acts that they were accused of.
Secrets of the Nazi Criminals
1963
6.4The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.
Sunshine
1999
7.4A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.
Hitler: A Career
1977
6.9A showcase of German chancellor and Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.
Triumph of the Will
1935
6.0How Germany was when its people entered the nightmare of World War II? Despair and fear lead a hungry population to follow the chilling call of just one man to world domination. A real-life horror story, an ominous tale of violence and deception, which takes place from 1919 to 1934. (Entirely made up of restored, colorized archival footage.)
Dawn of the Nazis
2017
7.2Explores Leni Riefenstahl's artistic legacy and her complex ties to the Nazi regime, juxtaposing her self-portrayal with evidence suggesting awareness of the regime's atrocities.
Riefenstahl
2024
6.2Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.
Hitler: The Last Ten Days
1973
5.9The film focuses on gay men who align themselves with hard-core right wing views, skinheads and Nazis. Rosa von Praunheim stated of the subjects featured in the documentary, “Some may be shocked that I do not take a stand in my film and do not portray gay neo-Nazis as monsters, but as people living their lives in dramatic contradiction.”
Men, Heroes and Gay Nazis
2005
7.0During the colorful ceremonies of the Nuremberg rallies, Hitler Youth parade before their Fuehrer and are addressed by Nazi youth leader Baldur von Schirach, Rudolf Hess, and Hitler himself.
The March to the Führer
1940
6.0In 1945, two young American soldiers, brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg, are commissioned to collect filmed and recorded evidence of the horrors committed by the infamous Third Reich in order to prove Nazi war crimes during the Nuremberg trials (1945-46). The story of the making of Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, a paramount historic documentary, released in 1948.
Filmmakers for the Prosecution
2023
6.9Prague, during World War II. Hana Kaufmann, a Jewish ophthalmologist, marries Dr. Antonín Bureš, a Christian man. When her family is sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, their romance turns into a struggle for survival.
Distant Journey
1949
6.5The fascinating story of the rise to power of dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) in Italy in 1922 and how fascism marked the fate of the entire world in the dark years to come.
The March on Rome
2022
6.9Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations
1938
7.5Romm pulls out all the stops in its selection of documentary material to draw the viewer not only into absolute horror about fascism and nazism in the 1920s–1940s Europe, but also to a firm conviction that nothing of the sort should be allowed to happen again anywhere in the world.
Triumph Over Violence
1965
6.3A documentary looking at the life and career of film director Frank Capra. Hosted by Ron Howard.
Frank Capra's American Dream
1997
5.4Follows the Fifth Nazi Party Rally (Nuremberg, 30 August–3 September 1933) and shows the then close relationship between Adolf Hitler and Ernest Rõhm.
The Victory of Faith
1933
8.0Propaganda film about Hitler's third flight over Germany on the occasion of the elections 1932. It shows the journey with rallies in over 20 German cities.
Hitler's Flight Over Germany
1932
8.0The documentary of the Nuremberg War Trials of 21 Nazi dignitaries held after World War II.
Nuremberg: The Nazis Facing their Crimes
2006
7.0The armed forces of the Third Reich, particularly the German army, are presented as an efficient system of bodies and machines at the seventh Nazi Party Rally that occurred in Nuremberg in 1935.
Day of Freedom
1935
4.8The film begins with the First World War and ends in 1945. Without exception, recordings from this period were used, which came from weekly news reports from different countries. Previously unpublished scenes about the private life of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were also shown for the first time. The film was originally built into a frame story. The Off Commentary begins with the words: "This film [...] is a document of delusion that on the way to power tore an entire people and a whole world into disaster. This film portrays the suffering of a generation that only ended five to twelve. " The film premiered in Cologne on November 20, 1953, but was immediately banned by Federal Interior Minister Gerhard Schröder in agreement with the interior ministers of the federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Adolf Hitler - Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer: Dokumente der Zeitgeschichte
1953
7.5The mass murder of Jewish people by the Nazi regime is chronicled, with a warning that anti-Semitism is on the rise and the events of the Holocaust could happen again. The history of European Jewish culture and events before and during the Holocaust are seen in newsreels, photographs, and animated segments. The words of the victims of the era are read, and footage from the liberation os a concentration camp is shown.
Genocide
1982
6.8How, in November 1945, after the end of the World War II and the fall of the Third Reich, the international prosecutors participating in the first Nuremberg trial —formally, the International Military Tribunal— built their case against the top Nazi war criminals using the films and records produced by the own regime, obsessed with documenting everything in its long path of infamy and crime.
Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today
1948
NRAdolf Hitler. The most notorious villain of the 20th century and architect of history's darkest period. From his humble upbringing in Austria to leading the Nazi Party, Hitler's life saw a reign of terror descend over Europe like never before.
Hitler: The Making of a Monster
2023
6.5In September 2001, respected German historian Lothar Machtan dropped a bombshell on the world of Hitler studies: Hitler was secretly homosexual. His highly acclaimed and explosive book "The Hidden Hitler" ignited a storm of controversy. With information from the bestselling book, award-winning filmmakers Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato and Gabriel Rotello explore areas of the Führer's private life.
The Hidden Führer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality
2004